The Hindu Business Line : Chennai, New Delhi and the Tamil cause in Sri Lanka

New Delhi has to persuade both the Sri Lankan Government and public opinion in Tamil Nadu that while it will back the former in dealing with the LTTE, it expects early implementation of the 13th Amendment of the Sri Lanka Constitution which will guarantee dignity, equality and honour for the Tamil population, says G. PARTHASARATHY

Since 2005, when the conflict escalated, 20,000 Tamils have fled to India as refugees and about 500,000 have been displaced internally.

A major lesson that the Manmohan Singh Government has learnt in recent days is that the otherwise warm and friendly Delhi-Colombo relationship cannot remain unaffected by the dynamics of Colombo-Chennai equations. Significantly, some of Sri Lanka’s most astute officials are appointed as Colombo’s Deputy High Commissioner in Chennai.

If it seems acceptable for people in Punjab to get outraged by Sikh children in France being prohibited from wearing turbans in schools, it is unrealistic to expect that relations with Sri Lanka can be conducted smoothly if Tamils in Sri Lanka, who have strong familial, emotional and cultural ties with their fellow Tamils in India, are perceived to be suffering or persecuted at the hands of the Sri Lanka Government.

Political parties in Tamil Nadu inevitably have linkages with one or another Tamil group in Sri Lanka. New Delhi itself has maintained links with several Tamil leaders, political parties and in the past, even with militant outfits in Sri Lanka.

Attitudes in Tamil Nadu towards the LTTE changed significantly when it provoked a conflict with the Indian Peace Keeping Force in Sri Lanka in 1987 and thereafter engineered the brutal assassination of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, in May 1991. In Mr Karunanidhi’s third term as Chief Minister, the LTTE was given a free hand to enter and establish havens in Tamil Nadu.

But what is not well known is that till the IPKF was compelled to act against the LTTE in Sri Lanka, Mr Karunanidhi was one of the LTTE’s strongest critics for its role in assassinating his protégé — the founder leader of its rival, the Tamil Eelam Liberation Organisation — Seeri Sabarathinam.

The LTTE and its leader Velupillai Prabhakaran were in fact protégés of Mr Karunanidhi’s arch-rival, then Chief Minister M. G. Ramachandran. MGR, as he was popularly known, however, was angered by Prabhakaran’s obduracy and, when I met him in 1987 when he was convalescing in Baltimore, on the instructions of then Prime Minister, Mr Rajiv Gandhi, he expressed his understanding of Mr Gandhi’s compulsions in ordering the IPKF action.

Tamil refugees

New Delhi should have anticipated the growing disquiet in Tamil Nadu where the LTTE still has effective propaganda machinery, when the Sri Lankan army was preparing to crack down on the last LTTE stronghold in Killinochchi, in the Island’s Northern Province.

While it is true that the LTTE uses innocent Tamils as human shields, as it did during the operations of the IPKF, the fact remains that since 2005, when the conflict escalated, 20,000 Tamils have fled to India as refugees and about 500,000 have been displaced internally.

The European Union has voiced its concerns about these developments. But New Delhi has failed to explain to people in India that, while it sympathises with the people caught in the conflict, it also recognises that the LTTE and particularly its leader Velupillai Prabhakaran, have no inhibitions in deliberately using civilians as human shields and that with the defection of its key military commander Karuna in the Eastern Province, the LTTE is isolated both internally and externally.

Terrorist organisation

People in Tamil Nadu obviously cannot support an organisation that is designated as a terrorist group by 31 countries, including India, the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and 27 members of the European Union. Prabhakaran is responsible for the assassination of one President (Premadasa), one Prime Minister (Rajiv Gandhi), nine Sri Lankan Ministers including the Island’s most prominent Tamil, former Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar.

The LTTE has also assassinated 18 prominent Tamil political and Parliamentary leaders, including top figures who could challenge Prabhakaran’s leadership within the Tamil community, like the widely respected TULF President Appapilai Amirthalingam, Sam Thambimuthu and human rights activist Dr Neelan Tiruchelvam.

Prabhakaran started his career by assassinating the Tamil Mayor of Jaffna Alfred Duraiappan in July 1975. One of the major reasons why the Indo-Sri Lanka Agreement of 1987 could not be implemented was Prabhakaran’s refusal to allow any role for anyone other those he wanted in the interim Administration — an approach MGR disapproved of.

Finally, when the DMK Administration gave some elbow room to the LTTE in Tamil Nadu in 1990, Prabhakaran responded by assassinating Padmanabha, the General Secretary of the rival EPRLF in Chennai — an action that resulted in EPRLF leader Varatharaja Perumal having to seek political asylum in India. These are issues that the Manmohan Singh Government failed to highlight in securing public support in Tamil Nadu.

Speaking at the all-Party meeting in Chennai on October 14, and recalling the killings of the TELO founder Seeri Sabarathinam and EPRLF leader Padmanabha (by the LTTE) the Chief Minister, Mr Karunanidhi, made it clear that it was “fraternal wars” caused by the LTTE in the past that had proved to be a major setback for the Tamil cause in Sri Lanka.

Sympathy for civilians

He regretted that “the present situation we are facing in Sri Lanka is due to the fraternal wars of the past”.

The DMKs’ patriarch, whose party was routed after the Rajiv Gandhi assassination by the LTTE in 1991 and who led the UPA in Tamil Nadu to a resounding victory by capturing all 40 seats in the 2004 elections, was signalling that while he recognised the excesses of the LTTE, he wanted New Delhi to spare no effort to end the killing of innocent civilians in Sri Lanka.

Moreover, while the Opposition leader in Tamil Nadu, Ms Jayalalithaa, also vows to protect the interests of Tamils in Sri Lanka, she has shown by actions in the past that she is fully cognisant of larger national interests, in acting tough with the LTTE.

Unfortunately, influential sections of the leadership in Sri Lanka appear to believe that with the LTTE in retreat, they can sidetrack the issue of guaranteeing a life of dignity, equality and honour for the Tamil population. New Delhi has to persuade both the Sri Lankan Government and public opinion in Tamil Nadu that while it will back the Sri Lankan Government in dealing with the psychopathic Prabhakaran, it expects early implementation of the 13th Amendment of the Sri Lanka Constitution which guaranteed devolution of power to the Northern and Eastern Provinces of Sri Lanka, while hoping that measures that former President Kumaratunga proposed in 1997 on the issue would also be taken into consideration.

Security undermined

When domestic considerations led India to hold back on Defence co-operation with Sri Lanka, the resulting vacuum was filled by arms supplies from Pakistan and China, undermining India’s security along its southern shores and giving China the diplomatic space to secure Sri Lankan approval for construction of the Hambantota port.

This is yet another strand in China’s efforts to “contain” India and establish a naval presence in the Indian Ocean. However, as major aid donors such as the US, the European Union and Japan hold similar views on developments in Sri Lanka as India does, it should not be difficult to forge an international consensus to persuade Sri Lanka to move positively to resolve the ethnic crisis.

Moreover, with an Agreement reached with Sri Lanka on the vexed issue of fishermen from Tamil Nadu crossing the international maritime boundary, a major irritant causing ripples almost daily in the State, appears to have been addressed.

(The author is a former High Commissioner to Pakistan. blfeedback@thehindu.co.in)

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