Crishantha de Silva

Crishantha de Silva
General; Crishantha de Silva
	De Silva on board the USS New Orleans
Allegiance	Sri Lanka
Service/branch	Sri Lanka Army
Years of service	1981–2017
Rank	General
Unit	Sri Lanka Engineers
Commands held	Chief of the Defence Staff,; Commander of the Army,; Chief of Staff, Sri Lanka Army
Battles/wars	Sri Lankan Civil War,; Insurrection 1987-89
Awards	Rana Wickrama Padakkama, ; Uttama Seva Padakkama

General Akurathiya Withanage Jagath Crishanthe de Silva, RWP, USP is a former senior Sri Lanka Army officer and military engineer. He had served as the Commander of the Sri Lanka Army, as the Chief of Defence Staff and as the Sri Lankan High Commissioner to the Bangladesh.[1]

Education

Educated at the Royal College, Colombo; De Silva had gained a master's degree in Defence Studies from the National Resilience Institute, Indonesia.

General Crishanthe (right), handshaking with the Commanding Officer of USS New Orleans (LPD-18) Captain Glenn Jamison on July 27, 2016

De Silva joined the Sri Lanka Army as an officer cadet in February 1980 and received his basic training at the Sri Lanka Military Academy. He was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the 1st Field Engineer Regiment, Sri Lanka Engineers in 1981. He gained promotion to the ranks of captain in 1985, major 1989), lieutenant colonel (1994), colonel (1997), brigadier (2003) and major general in November 2009.

He went on to command the 6th Field Engineer Regiment and had served as the brigade commander of the Engineer Brigade, the 51-2 Infantry Brigade and the 56-2 Infantry Brigade. He had served as the commandant of the Sri Lanka School of Military Engineering, the Defence Services Command and Staff College and the Sri Lanka Military Academy. His commands include Commander Forward Maintenance Area, Wanni; Security Forces Headquarters – Kilinochchi and in the Sri Lanka Army General Staff, he had served as additional military secretary, director plans, military secretary and director operations. He had served as colonel commandant of the Corps of Sri Lanka Engineers and was a member of military delegations to Malaysia and China.[2] He served as commander of Sri Lanka Army Volunteer Force (SLAVF) before taking up appointment in 2013 as Chief of Staff of the Sri Lanka Army. In 2014, he was appointed deputy chief of mission in the Sri Lankan embassy in Moscow. In February 2015, he was appointed Commander of the Army and promoted to the rank of lieutenant general.[3] In June 2017 he was promoted to the rank of general and appointed as Chief of Defence Staff and served till August 2017.

He is a graduate of Staff College, Camberley, and the Nanjing PLA Army Command College. He has attended the bomb disposal course at the College of Military Engineering, Pune, Engineer Company Commanders' Course at the Military College of Engineering, Pakistan, the Higher Command Course at the Army War College, Mhow, and the Advanced Security Cooperation Executive Course at the Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies.

Following his retirement, he was appointed Sri Lankan High Commissioner to the Bangladesh and served till 2019.

In Order of Precedence

Military offices
Preceded by Kolitha Gunathilake	Chief of the Defence Staff 29 June 2017 - 21 August 2017	Succeeded by Ravindra Wijegunaratne
Preceded by Daya Ratnayake	Commander of the Army 22 February 2015 - 4 July 2017	Succeeded by Mahesh Senanayake

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