alternative representative of Sri Lanka to the Special Committee on Decolonization from 2010 to 2015 and served as an advisor of the Sri Lankan delegation to the United Nations General Assembly Third Committee. He led initiatives to increase Sri Lankan contribution to United Nations Peacekeeping operations, including the deployment of air units of the Sri Lanka Air Force and a military hospital for the United Nations Missions in Central African Republic and South Sudan. He attended a course on National and International Security at the Harvard University and had undergone psychological operations training in the US. He had served as a visiting lecturer at the Marine Corps War College in Quantico. Higher command In 2015, Silva attended the National Security and Strategic Study course at the National Defence College. On his return from India in 2016, he was appointed Adjutant General (AG) of Sri Lanka Army in the General Staff at Army Headquarters. In January 2019, he was appointed Chief of Staff of the army. Commander of Sri Lanka Army On 21 August 2019, he was appointed as Commander of Sri Lanka Army and promoted to the rank of Lieutenant General by President Maithripala Sirisena, succeeding General Mahesh Senanayake. He became the first officer of the Gajaba Regiment to take command of the army. He is the Regimental Colonel of the Gajaba Regiment and the Sri Lanka Army Special Forces Regiment and was the Regimental Colonel of the Commando Regiment. His term as Army Commander ended on 31 May 2022 succeeded by Lt. Gen Vikum Liyanage. Chief of Defence Staff In January 2020, General Silva was appointed as Acting Chief of Defence Staff, while concurrently serving as Army Commander. He succeeded Admiral Ravindra Wijegunaratne He was promoted to the rank of General in December 2020. With his term as Army Commander ending on 31 May 2022, General Silva was confirmed as Chief of Defence Staff with effect from 1 June 2022. Allegations of human rights violations and US sanctions On 14 February 2020, The United States State Department imposed sanctions in the form of a travel ban preventing General Silva and his family from entering the United States having found him accountable through command responsibility for what it stated as “gross violations of human rights, namely extrajudicial killings, by the 58th division of the Sri Lanka army" at the final stages of the war against the LTTE in 2009, when