SL Army is Wasting Public Funds with Useless Vehicle Parades? Find out the facts behind the viral video...

We often encounter misinterpreted media content that gets viral by adding a misleading context to the facts. Since the general public is also at a time are unaware of the truth behind the facts, often this sensationalism-based reporting attracts many views.

This is the investigation done by Fact Crescendo regarding a video published on social media saying that the SL military was conducting a grand-scale vehicle parade in one of the cities in Colombo by wasting public money at a time when the country was undergoing a severe economic crisis.

Social Media Posts:

The viral video claimed that the Sri Lankan Army wastes money by doing unnecessary vehicle parades around the city with big trucks, etc. when the country finds it difficult even to provide food and medicine. The claim was made on a video showing an SL Army-controlled vehicle convoy on the road while stationed at a traffic light in the form of a background narration. Also, the background voice uses filth and abusive language toward SL Army in making these statements.

The video was shared in English with the caption, "People showing their disgust for a military parade in #Moratuwa. They question spending money on the military when there are medicine shortages in the hospitals." as seen below.

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These posts were viral on Twitter also, as seen here

However, few respondents to these videos mentioned that this convoy is associated with peacekeeping missions and not one related to SL Army operations inside the country.

So we decided to look at the facts behind these claims.

Fact Check:

Since the above video was initially posted on social media in February end, we checked news items on or near the date about SL Army sending troops on any peacekeeping mission. Even though there was a news item on the 2nd of March stating that a team of 125 military personnel was being sent to Lebanon for UN peacekeeping duties, we did not notice any vehicle convoy associated with it, similar to social media footage. SLArmy | Archived Link

Hence, we contacted Brigadier Ravi Herath of the Sri Lanka Signal Corps, the SL Army Media Spokesman, and the Director of Media regarding this viral video content.

SL Army Spokesman and Director of Media

Brigadier Ravi Herath explains that the video attributed to a training setup involving the Sri Lankan Army headquarters security forces preparing for one of the forthcoming peacekeeping duties at the United Nations Interim Force. However, Army Media Spokesman clarified that this unit is different from the one that was sent to Lebanon and will leave for Mali in the near future.

Media Spokesman added since the units have to provide all the equipment, including vehicles required for the mission, most of the vehicles which were seen in the video, including unibuffels, have many parts manufactured and assembled in Sri Lanka; hence, in fact, a foreign revenue source for Sri Lanka.

Furthermore, Mr. Brigadier Ravi Herath pointed out that since training for peacekeeping forces takes place under different conditions, necessary training is also carried out in urban areas. This has happened in several instances earlier as well, and many of the public are also aware of these practices.

Below is a fact check done by the Factcrescendo Sinhala team back in 2020, including information about the Army personnel transport vehicles and other motor vehicles that were being sent from Sri Lanka to Mali for peacekeeping operations, some of which were also shown in the video shared recently.

Also Read: Fact Check : ශ්‍රී ලංකාවේ නිශ්පාදිත බෆල් රථ 500ක් ඇමරිකානු හමුදාවට ලබා දීමට සියල්ල සූදානම් යනුවෙන් ව්‍යාජ ෆේස්බුක් සටහනක්!

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Conclusion:

The video is misleading as the scene depicts part of the SL Army-controlled convoy during a training session, which would be used for a forthcoming UN peacekeeping mission, as confirmed by Brigadier Ravi Herath, Army Spokesperson. Also, looking at the type of vehicles seen in this video, it's evident that they are not the usual trucks used for Army operations in SL, but specially manufactured unibuffels, etc., which are also manufactured in Sri Lanka, contributing to foreign revenue.