Sri Lanka lays a welcome mat for
India By Sudha Ramachandran
BANGALORE - While India can be expected to view
with caution the welcome mat that Sri Lanka's new prime
minister, Mahinda Rajapakse, is laying out for Delhi,
the invitation, which is aimed at getting India to play
a larger role in the Sri Lankan peace process, could
signal the start of deepening engagement between the two
countries.
Soon after his swearing-in as prime
minister on Tuesday, Rajapakse, described as a moderate
on the peace process, told the media that "India must
come in as soon as possible and get involved in the
peace process". He did not, however, elaborate on what
he wanted India to "come in" and do - whether he wants
India to be diplomatically engaged with the process or
to deploy troops to Sri Lanka in the event that
faltering peace process collapses.
The ceasefire
between the Sri Lankan government and the Liberation
Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) still holds, but peace
talks between the two have been in a state of suspension
for several months. Although President Chandrika
Kumaratunga and the new prime minister have stressed
that reviving the peace process is a priority, there are
fears that the peace initiative and the ceasefire will
come apart soon.
The peace process was the
initiative of former prime minister Ranil
Wickremesinghe. He and the president differed sharply
over how to resolve the ethnic conflict. Wickremesinghe
seemed determined to resolve the conflict by making
peace with or appeasing, as some would say, the LTTE,
whatever the cost. Kumaratunga, on the other hand,
argued that the costs were too high. Wickremesinghe's
approach, she maintained, would lead to the division of
the island. She opposed his move to hand over the entire
northeastern province in Sri Lanka - what the LTTE
claims as the Tamil homeland - to the Tigers under a
proposed interim administration for the Tamil-majority
region.
Over the past two years, India has
refrained from taking sides in the
Kumaratunga-Wickremesinghe rivalry. It has done business
with Wickremesinghe and supported the quest for a
negotiated settlement to the crisis. But like
Kumaratunga, India is wary of the LTTE's intentions and
has been uneasy with Wickremesinghe's conceding so much
ground to the Tigers. Both Wickremesinghe and President
Kumaratunga have visited India several times over the
past two years to keep its leaders briefed on the peace
initiative and their concerns regarding the process.
India's role in the ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka
has undergone dramatic changes over the past two
decades. Between 1983 and July 1987, India was
diplomatically engaged in finding a negotiated
settlement to the conflict. At the same time, its
external intelligence agency, the Research and Analysis
Wing (RAW), was arming and training Tamil militants on
Indian soil. In 1987, India deployed troops in the Tamil
areas of the island under a bilateral agreement. The
Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) was able to break the
back of the LTTE but was asked by the Sri Lankan
government to leave the island. That unhappy experience
has influenced India's policy on the Sri Lankan ethnic
conflict ever since, prompting it to adopt a "hands-off
approach" toward the island.
India's hostility
toward the LTTE worsened with the assassination of
Indian prime minister Rajiv Gandhi by the LTTE. While
the IPKF experience made India wary of involvement in
the Sri Lankan conflict, the assassination underscored
the immense threat posed by the Tigers to Indian
security interests, and therefore, the need to contain
the LTTE.
It is in this context that Rajapakse's
request must be viewed. Kumaratunga and Rajapakse are
aware that India, more than any other country, is their
best bet to protect the territorial integrity of Sri
Lanka. (The division of the island is not in India's
interest.) Both of the constituents of the United
People's Freedom Alliance (UPFA) government - the Sri
Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) and the Janata Vimukti
Peramuna (JVP) - are of this view.
Rajapakse's
invitation to India - it is not an official request yet
- is a shift from Sri Lanka's position in the late
1980s, when the Indian role in the quest for a
settlement of the conflict was viewed with suspicion. In
1989, massive protests and violent agitations on the
streets of the capital, Colombo, led by the JVP demanded
the expulsion of the IPKF from Sri Lanka. The presence
of the IPKF on Sri Lankan soil was regarded as "evidence
of India's expansionist ambitions".
Over the
years, Sri Lanka's hostility toward India has
diminished. On several occasions, when the Sri Lankan
army was in trouble, Colombo did look to India for help.
The Sri Lankans recognize that peace in Sri Lanka is not
possible without India's cooperation.
The JVP
signaled its revised perception of India this year when
its leader Somawamse Amarasinghe said the party "warmly
embraced the proposed defense pact" between India and
Sri Lanka. While criticizing the country's foreign
policy and calling for a return to its former
non-aligned policy, Amarasinghe endorsed a strengthening
of ties with India. The defense pact "should be made an
important aspect of our [Sri Lanka's] foreign policy",
he said.
Meanwhile, Norway's role as mediator in
the current peace process has provoked considerable
concern among some sections in Sri Lanka, particularly
among the country's Sinhalese majority, where there is a
feeling that the Norwegian monitors have not always been
neutral and are biased in favor of the LTTE. Many
believe they seem prepared to go to any length to humor
the Tigers in order to ensure that they do not return to
fighting. As for the role of the West, Washington's
tough posture toward the LTTE and its refusal to remove
the terrorist tag on the outfit is widely welcomed among
the Sinhalese. But there is a feeling that the US, Japan
and other countries involved in the peace process are
keen on the ceasefire only to improve the investment
climate on the island.
"The possible division of
Sri Lanka and the way in which the LTTE is using the
ceasefire to build its military muscle does not bother
them much," an official in the Ministry of External
Affairs (MEA) told Asia Times Online. "This is not the
case with India," he said, adding that India has been
watching with concern the LTTE's recruitment of fighters
during the ceasefire, its purchase of weapons and the
growing activities of the Sea Tigers in India's
neighborhood.
Late last year, the LTTE put
forward a proposal for the creation of an interim
self-governing authority (ISGA) in the Tamil areas that
was widely viewed in India as a blueprint for an
separate interim state. The awesome powers the Tigers
demanded for the ISGA were seen as a threat to the
territorial integrity of Sri Lanka and India's security.
The control that the LTTE-dominated ISGA would have over
the marine and offshore resources of the "adjacent [to
the northeast] seas and the power to regulate access
thereto" not only implied recognition of the Sea Tigers
- the LTTE's naval wing - but meant that the Sea Tigers
would be in charge of the waters on one side of Sri
Lanka's international boundary line with India. "India
cannot ignore these developments which impinge on its
security," the MEA official said.
Last year,
when questions were raised in Sri Lanka over Norwegian
monitoring of Tiger activity in the seas, Rajapakse,
then leader of the opposition, called for Indian
participation in the monitoring of the ceasefire. He
said that the Indian Navy has a clearer idea about the
movement of craft in this part of the Indian Ocean,
making it a better ceasefire monitor, since most of the
allegations against the Norwegian monitors were with
regard to the handling of confrontations in the sea.
MEA sources said that "short of troop deployment
in Sri Lanka, India would extend help to the government
in every way, provided it moves forward on addressing
legitimate Tamil grievances". How this help shapes up in
the coming months remains to be seen. India is already
training Sri Lankan soldiers here. The proposed defense
pact between the two countries will see India increase
the training and provision of military and equipment.
India is also expected to strengthen the Palaly Air Base
in the Jaffna Peninsula - in the heart of what has long
been regarded as an LTTE bastion.
The LTTE,
which is banned in India, has been attempting to patch
things up with the country. It has sought to convince
Delhi that it would "not act in any way prejudicial to
India's geopolitical, strategic and economic interests".
Delhi, however, remains unconvinced.
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