"To bring Sri Lanka within its fold, India should avoid finding political solution to the Tamil problem only on Rajapaksa’s terms. It is only a distinct Tamil administered area that could check the Sinhalese fear and hatred of India and work against it. The Sinhalese are interested in preserving their country as the last bastion of Theravada Buddhism. They care a damn for India’s security or her fear of China infiltrating into her southern flanks", writes Mr. Visvanathan in his article "Is India a victim of its own policies?".
He further writes: "India should allow the US and the European Union call for an inquiry into war crimes. As it is several US Congressmen are calling for the prosecution of Gen. Fonseka and Basil Rajapaksa, both US Green Card holder and citizen respectively, for war crimes trial. Pressure in this direction will bring sense into the Sinhalese heads".
-Eelam Nation-
Within two months of the highly celebrated victory of the Sinhalese over the Tamils on 17 May, 2009, Jayasooriya a friend of Gotabaya Rajapaksa, brother of President Mahinda Rajapaksa as well as the Defence secretary posted the following statement on a website under his control.
"India has no right to tell us that we should give equal rights to Eelam Tamils. All leaders and officials from India are giving orders to Sri Lanka. Even the Foreign Minister, S. M. Krishna has said recently that ‘only by giving the fundamental rights to all the communities that ethnic issue can be solved. We are asking him, ‘Who are you to give us advice? What qualifications do you have?’
Sri Lanka is a sovereign country and we know how to run a government. You mind your own business. We won’t offer any power to Tamils because that will enable them to fight for a separate state.
Not only that, we will also throw out the Indian Accord that was thrust upon us. Through that we will wipe out the last signs of Indian domination. You created Tamil Tigers in order to annex our country with India. We have destroyed what you created."
This article couldn’t have been posted in the Defence website without the approval of Gotabaya Rajapaksa. Therefore, this reflected the Sri Lankan state’s official opinion.
Now let us look at India’s qualifications to give advice to Sri Lanka. Even by the admission of Sinhalese officers, the contribution of India to Sinhalese victory was immense. Former Army chief General L Balagalle said the following:
"For me, 80 per cent of my advanced training happened in India. I have been trained in Pakistan as well. There are vacancies for our officers and men in both countries. We generally send company commander-level officers for training" Brigadier Udaya Nanayakar added:
"I got training in both India and Pakistan. Both have been helping us a lot. We send our officers regularly to India and Pakistan for specialised training. I did four courses in India and three in Pakistan. The last time, I trained in Secunderabad". He said Lankan forces have been procuring the latest technology from both countries.
Before the Congress Party came into power in 2005, The Sri Lankan army was in bad shape. By 1999 it was defeated by the LTTE in almost every battle. Soon the Tigers controlled 80% of Tamil Homeland.
Successive defeats forced the Ranil government to agree to a ceasefire in February 2002. Since 2005, India trained hundreds of Sri Lankan officers at all levels and in various fields of advanced training.
According to Nanayakara in addition to sharing intelligence during military operations, "India also helped by carrying out naval operations in the area. There were naval exercises too that helped.
Pakistan and China, supplying sophisticated military equipments, could not have by itself tilted the military balance in favour of the Sinhalese. In the heat of the battle the Sinhalese army was famous for leaving the equipment behind and running away from the battlefield. It was the Indian training and military intelligence supplied that made the difference. Moreover, it was reported that a few thousand Indian troops with their officers were in the battlefield to see that the Sri Lankan army didn’t retreat.
Now Jayasooriya is asking S.M.Krishna for his qualifications for advising Sri Lanka to restore the rights of the Tamils.
This exhibition of ingratitude comes within two months after Rajapaksa describing India as Sri Lanka’s greatest friend on earth.
This is not the first time that India found itself in a similar situation. Indira Gandhi was unable to have any control over Jayawardene leaning towards US. The fear of Trincomalee falling into US hands prompted her to arm the Tamil groups to resist the Sinhalese.
Post LTTE era could pose a problem for India. This is where Indian diplomacy had successively failed.
A former Indian diplomat M. Bhadrakumar, who sees Delhi’s political leverage over Colombo diminishing in what he thinks ‘post-LTTE’ era says that India needs to work with the International Community (IC) to promote urgent international monitoring mission and mobilise IC opinion favouring political process and settlement within reasonable timeline.
He said "the IMF conditionalities should include a verifiable commitment by Rajapaksa to move forward with an internationally supervised peace process," and added further that "the European Union has done the right thing by calling for an inquiry into war crimes."
"Rajapaksa indeed has a blueprint for the final resolution of the Tamil problem. It involves the systematic colonisation by the Sinhalese of the Tamil homelands north of Elephant Pass so that over the next decade or so, the demography of those regions will be altered to the disadvantage of Tamils. This was how Colombo 'solved' the Tamil problem in the eastern provinces of Trincomalee, Batticaloa and Ampara," Bhadrakumar said.
In his anticipations, "the Sinhalese establishment will promote an exodus of Tamils to India as a matter of state policy. As victims of state discrimination, Tamils will be willing or even eager to migrate to India as time passes. This will constitute the Sinhalese establishment’s ‘permanent solution’ to the Tamil problem." The biased Indian Establishment was in no way less guilty in exploiting the China card to justify its abetment of Colombo and in continuing its nullification of the national liberation struggle of Eezham Tamils.
To bring Sri Lanka within its fold, India should avoid finding political solution to the Tamil problem only on Rajapaksa’s terms. It is only a distinct Tamil administered area that could check the Sinhalese fear and hatred of India and work against it. The Sinhalese are interested in preserving their country as the last bastion of Theravada Buddhism. They care a damn for India’s security or her fear of China infiltrating into her southern flanks.
The Sinhalese are highly sophisticated practitioners of diplomacy and politics. When they disfranchised the Indian Tamils in 1948, they made sure the Northeastern Tamils and the Muslims were kept at ease. The prime minister at that time, Don Stephen Senanayake, knew that India’s problem with Pakistan would prevent Nehru from invading Sri Lanka.
When the Sinhalese decided to finish off the original Tamils, who had been there for 2,500 years, they played the Tamil card in India They encouraged India’s fear of Tamil Nadu breaking away from India. In the later years they fanned India’s fears of LTTE assisting the Maoist groups in India.
The 9/11 tragedy was a God sent gift to Sri Lanka. They exploited Bush’s ‘War on Terror’ to the maximum to ban LTTE finances and arms procurement. The problem with the Western powers is that they do lip service to human rights violations in many countries. They will close one eye to the violations of human rights in countries like Sri Lanka, Israel and in some of African and South American states, whom they favour; but, when it comes to countries like China, Sudan, Russia and countries whose foreign policies they do not approve, they magnify the gravity of the violations through their government pronouncements and media. So far this policy of the West has encouraged Sri Lanka.
In March 2009, Sri Lanka depended on China and Russia to block a US move in the UN Security Council for humanitarian intervention in Sri Lanka. If India was not "cooperative", Rajapaksa would not have hesitated to show her the door. He knows he has options other than India.
Bhadrakumar says that these are unpalatable thoughts. But what are India’s options? Paradoxically, Delhi’s political leverage over Colombo will diminish in the post-LTTE era. Delhi needs to make up for its loss of influence by working with the international community.
It suits Delhi to promote an urgent international monitoring mission in Sri Lanka, which safeguards the welfare of the hundreds of thousands of displaced Tamils who are interned in virtual concentration camps and are highly vulnerable to coercion and violence. India must also mobilise the international opinion in favour of initiating a political process with the aim of finding a durable settlement of the Tamil problem within a reasonable timeline.
President Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton in their pre-election speeches had indicated that the Tamils were fighting only for the restoration of their rights; but they are keen not to jeopardize their relationship with India as they need India’s help to contain terrorism in Pakistan and Afghanistan. To prevent China making further inroads, India could cooperate with US to restrain Rajapaksa.
A complicating factor is that Sri Lanka has become a theatre of big-power rivalry. The Sinhalese establishment views China as its "steadfast ally." and are willing to participate in the Chinese sponsored trade group, Shanghai Cooperation. The payoff for Beijing has been the $1 billion deal to construct a major port facility comprising container port, bunkering system, oil refinery, airport, etc. in Hambantota, which China fancies as a trans-shipment hub.
Sri Lanka, facing a worsening foreign exchange crisis, was urgently in need of a $1.9 billion dollar IMF loan. Rajapaksa’s regime faced growing popular unrest over declining living standards due to the costly war and the global economic crisis that has caused a sharp fall in commodity prices and export earnings.
Sri Lanka has virtually exhausted all access to domestic borrowing and international markets. The IMF conditionalities should include a verifiable commitment by Rajapaksa to move forward with an internationally supervised peace process. Pressure from the Western financial sources would restrain Sri Lanka from spending money on its armed forces and be amiable towards solution to the ethnic problem
India should allow the US and the European Union call for an inquiry into war crimes. As it is several US Congressmen are calling for the prosecution of Gen. Fonseka and Basil Rajapaksa, both US Green Card holder and citizen respectively, for war crimes trial. Pressure in this direction will bring sense into the Sinhalese heads.
India has a common interest with the US in countering China’s strategy. No matter the motives behind the US’ current emphasis on a "political settlement", after having been a staunch supporter of Rajapaksa’s war, Delhi must closely work with the Barack Obama Administration.
The Sri Lankan Government has provided funds and vehicles to facilitate the well being of thousands of Sinhalese, who fled LTTE attacks in the Weli-Oya–Padaviya Sector, to be resettled before the end August. It provided Rs.50 million for the development of internal roads in the Padaviya area, Rs.100 million to reconstruct the Parakramapura –Kokkuthuduwai road and another Rs.100 million for the reconstruction of roads in Athawetunawewa and Wedhaturna.
In addition it is granting each resettled family Rs.25000 along with roofing sheets, kitchen utensils, agricultural implements and dry rations sufficient for six months.
When it came to settling the 300,000 Tamils in their original homes, the government cited numerous obstacles. The demining and screening of the Tamils in the camps would take six months or, perhaps, years. It only shows that the government officials are in an obscene hurry to populate the Tamil areas with Sinhalese settlers long before the Tamils are allowed to return to their homes.
All these should be put in perspective with what General Sarath Fonseka told a western interviewer with absolute non-chalance: "strongly believe that this country belongs to the Sinhalese. We being the majority of the country, 75 per cent, we will never give in and we have the right to protect this country. They (minorities) can live in this country with us. But they must not try to, under the pretext of being a minority, demand undue things."
India and the West are not ignorant of what Sinhalese intentions are. Ever since independence in 1948, the Sri Lankan government had continued centuries old hatred and fear of India. They had consistently allied themselves with enemies of India whether it is US, Pakistan or China. For the first time in history the US and Indian security interests are converging against China in the Indian Ocean.
Sri Lanka allowing China to make inroads into its territory is obviously a source anxiety to US and India. Both have helped the Sinhalese to crush the LTTE, the only power that could have checked them. Alienating the Tamils will never be in their best interest.
As far the International Tamil Diaspora is concerned they have no other choice but to unite themselves into a single organization and engage US and Indian politicians to redeem the plight of the people interned in camps and restore the Tamil rights for self-determination. The Jews, Irish and East Timorese have waited for years, perhaps centuries, to do that and if we have the will we can.
By Visvanathan.
He further writes: "India should allow the US and the European Union call for an inquiry into war crimes. As it is several US Congressmen are calling for the prosecution of Gen. Fonseka and Basil Rajapaksa, both US Green Card holder and citizen respectively, for war crimes trial. Pressure in this direction will bring sense into the Sinhalese heads".
-Eelam Nation-
Within two months of the highly celebrated victory of the Sinhalese over the Tamils on 17 May, 2009, Jayasooriya a friend of Gotabaya Rajapaksa, brother of President Mahinda Rajapaksa as well as the Defence secretary posted the following statement on a website under his control.
"India has no right to tell us that we should give equal rights to Eelam Tamils. All leaders and officials from India are giving orders to Sri Lanka. Even the Foreign Minister, S. M. Krishna has said recently that ‘only by giving the fundamental rights to all the communities that ethnic issue can be solved. We are asking him, ‘Who are you to give us advice? What qualifications do you have?’
Sri Lanka is a sovereign country and we know how to run a government. You mind your own business. We won’t offer any power to Tamils because that will enable them to fight for a separate state.
Not only that, we will also throw out the Indian Accord that was thrust upon us. Through that we will wipe out the last signs of Indian domination. You created Tamil Tigers in order to annex our country with India. We have destroyed what you created."
This article couldn’t have been posted in the Defence website without the approval of Gotabaya Rajapaksa. Therefore, this reflected the Sri Lankan state’s official opinion.
Now let us look at India’s qualifications to give advice to Sri Lanka. Even by the admission of Sinhalese officers, the contribution of India to Sinhalese victory was immense. Former Army chief General L Balagalle said the following:
"For me, 80 per cent of my advanced training happened in India. I have been trained in Pakistan as well. There are vacancies for our officers and men in both countries. We generally send company commander-level officers for training" Brigadier Udaya Nanayakar added:
"I got training in both India and Pakistan. Both have been helping us a lot. We send our officers regularly to India and Pakistan for specialised training. I did four courses in India and three in Pakistan. The last time, I trained in Secunderabad". He said Lankan forces have been procuring the latest technology from both countries.
Before the Congress Party came into power in 2005, The Sri Lankan army was in bad shape. By 1999 it was defeated by the LTTE in almost every battle. Soon the Tigers controlled 80% of Tamil Homeland.
Successive defeats forced the Ranil government to agree to a ceasefire in February 2002. Since 2005, India trained hundreds of Sri Lankan officers at all levels and in various fields of advanced training.
According to Nanayakara in addition to sharing intelligence during military operations, "India also helped by carrying out naval operations in the area. There were naval exercises too that helped.
Pakistan and China, supplying sophisticated military equipments, could not have by itself tilted the military balance in favour of the Sinhalese. In the heat of the battle the Sinhalese army was famous for leaving the equipment behind and running away from the battlefield. It was the Indian training and military intelligence supplied that made the difference. Moreover, it was reported that a few thousand Indian troops with their officers were in the battlefield to see that the Sri Lankan army didn’t retreat.
Now Jayasooriya is asking S.M.Krishna for his qualifications for advising Sri Lanka to restore the rights of the Tamils.
This exhibition of ingratitude comes within two months after Rajapaksa describing India as Sri Lanka’s greatest friend on earth.
This is not the first time that India found itself in a similar situation. Indira Gandhi was unable to have any control over Jayawardene leaning towards US. The fear of Trincomalee falling into US hands prompted her to arm the Tamil groups to resist the Sinhalese.
Post LTTE era could pose a problem for India. This is where Indian diplomacy had successively failed.
A former Indian diplomat M. Bhadrakumar, who sees Delhi’s political leverage over Colombo diminishing in what he thinks ‘post-LTTE’ era says that India needs to work with the International Community (IC) to promote urgent international monitoring mission and mobilise IC opinion favouring political process and settlement within reasonable timeline.
He said "the IMF conditionalities should include a verifiable commitment by Rajapaksa to move forward with an internationally supervised peace process," and added further that "the European Union has done the right thing by calling for an inquiry into war crimes."
"Rajapaksa indeed has a blueprint for the final resolution of the Tamil problem. It involves the systematic colonisation by the Sinhalese of the Tamil homelands north of Elephant Pass so that over the next decade or so, the demography of those regions will be altered to the disadvantage of Tamils. This was how Colombo 'solved' the Tamil problem in the eastern provinces of Trincomalee, Batticaloa and Ampara," Bhadrakumar said.
In his anticipations, "the Sinhalese establishment will promote an exodus of Tamils to India as a matter of state policy. As victims of state discrimination, Tamils will be willing or even eager to migrate to India as time passes. This will constitute the Sinhalese establishment’s ‘permanent solution’ to the Tamil problem." The biased Indian Establishment was in no way less guilty in exploiting the China card to justify its abetment of Colombo and in continuing its nullification of the national liberation struggle of Eezham Tamils.
To bring Sri Lanka within its fold, India should avoid finding political solution to the Tamil problem only on Rajapaksa’s terms. It is only a distinct Tamil administered area that could check the Sinhalese fear and hatred of India and work against it. The Sinhalese are interested in preserving their country as the last bastion of Theravada Buddhism. They care a damn for India’s security or her fear of China infiltrating into her southern flanks.
The Sinhalese are highly sophisticated practitioners of diplomacy and politics. When they disfranchised the Indian Tamils in 1948, they made sure the Northeastern Tamils and the Muslims were kept at ease. The prime minister at that time, Don Stephen Senanayake, knew that India’s problem with Pakistan would prevent Nehru from invading Sri Lanka.
When the Sinhalese decided to finish off the original Tamils, who had been there for 2,500 years, they played the Tamil card in India They encouraged India’s fear of Tamil Nadu breaking away from India. In the later years they fanned India’s fears of LTTE assisting the Maoist groups in India.
The 9/11 tragedy was a God sent gift to Sri Lanka. They exploited Bush’s ‘War on Terror’ to the maximum to ban LTTE finances and arms procurement. The problem with the Western powers is that they do lip service to human rights violations in many countries. They will close one eye to the violations of human rights in countries like Sri Lanka, Israel and in some of African and South American states, whom they favour; but, when it comes to countries like China, Sudan, Russia and countries whose foreign policies they do not approve, they magnify the gravity of the violations through their government pronouncements and media. So far this policy of the West has encouraged Sri Lanka.
In March 2009, Sri Lanka depended on China and Russia to block a US move in the UN Security Council for humanitarian intervention in Sri Lanka. If India was not "cooperative", Rajapaksa would not have hesitated to show her the door. He knows he has options other than India.
Bhadrakumar says that these are unpalatable thoughts. But what are India’s options? Paradoxically, Delhi’s political leverage over Colombo will diminish in the post-LTTE era. Delhi needs to make up for its loss of influence by working with the international community.
It suits Delhi to promote an urgent international monitoring mission in Sri Lanka, which safeguards the welfare of the hundreds of thousands of displaced Tamils who are interned in virtual concentration camps and are highly vulnerable to coercion and violence. India must also mobilise the international opinion in favour of initiating a political process with the aim of finding a durable settlement of the Tamil problem within a reasonable timeline.
President Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton in their pre-election speeches had indicated that the Tamils were fighting only for the restoration of their rights; but they are keen not to jeopardize their relationship with India as they need India’s help to contain terrorism in Pakistan and Afghanistan. To prevent China making further inroads, India could cooperate with US to restrain Rajapaksa.
A complicating factor is that Sri Lanka has become a theatre of big-power rivalry. The Sinhalese establishment views China as its "steadfast ally." and are willing to participate in the Chinese sponsored trade group, Shanghai Cooperation. The payoff for Beijing has been the $1 billion deal to construct a major port facility comprising container port, bunkering system, oil refinery, airport, etc. in Hambantota, which China fancies as a trans-shipment hub.
Sri Lanka, facing a worsening foreign exchange crisis, was urgently in need of a $1.9 billion dollar IMF loan. Rajapaksa’s regime faced growing popular unrest over declining living standards due to the costly war and the global economic crisis that has caused a sharp fall in commodity prices and export earnings.
Sri Lanka has virtually exhausted all access to domestic borrowing and international markets. The IMF conditionalities should include a verifiable commitment by Rajapaksa to move forward with an internationally supervised peace process. Pressure from the Western financial sources would restrain Sri Lanka from spending money on its armed forces and be amiable towards solution to the ethnic problem
India should allow the US and the European Union call for an inquiry into war crimes. As it is several US Congressmen are calling for the prosecution of Gen. Fonseka and Basil Rajapaksa, both US Green Card holder and citizen respectively, for war crimes trial. Pressure in this direction will bring sense into the Sinhalese heads.
India has a common interest with the US in countering China’s strategy. No matter the motives behind the US’ current emphasis on a "political settlement", after having been a staunch supporter of Rajapaksa’s war, Delhi must closely work with the Barack Obama Administration.
The Sri Lankan Government has provided funds and vehicles to facilitate the well being of thousands of Sinhalese, who fled LTTE attacks in the Weli-Oya–Padaviya Sector, to be resettled before the end August. It provided Rs.50 million for the development of internal roads in the Padaviya area, Rs.100 million to reconstruct the Parakramapura –Kokkuthuduwai road and another Rs.100 million for the reconstruction of roads in Athawetunawewa and Wedhaturna.
In addition it is granting each resettled family Rs.25000 along with roofing sheets, kitchen utensils, agricultural implements and dry rations sufficient for six months.
When it came to settling the 300,000 Tamils in their original homes, the government cited numerous obstacles. The demining and screening of the Tamils in the camps would take six months or, perhaps, years. It only shows that the government officials are in an obscene hurry to populate the Tamil areas with Sinhalese settlers long before the Tamils are allowed to return to their homes.
All these should be put in perspective with what General Sarath Fonseka told a western interviewer with absolute non-chalance: "strongly believe that this country belongs to the Sinhalese. We being the majority of the country, 75 per cent, we will never give in and we have the right to protect this country. They (minorities) can live in this country with us. But they must not try to, under the pretext of being a minority, demand undue things."
India and the West are not ignorant of what Sinhalese intentions are. Ever since independence in 1948, the Sri Lankan government had continued centuries old hatred and fear of India. They had consistently allied themselves with enemies of India whether it is US, Pakistan or China. For the first time in history the US and Indian security interests are converging against China in the Indian Ocean.
Sri Lanka allowing China to make inroads into its territory is obviously a source anxiety to US and India. Both have helped the Sinhalese to crush the LTTE, the only power that could have checked them. Alienating the Tamils will never be in their best interest.
As far the International Tamil Diaspora is concerned they have no other choice but to unite themselves into a single organization and engage US and Indian politicians to redeem the plight of the people interned in camps and restore the Tamil rights for self-determination. The Jews, Irish and East Timorese have waited for years, perhaps centuries, to do that and if we have the will we can.
By Visvanathan.