The Delhi- Chennai Drama Continues (Opinion)

By Visva

“Those families and who have been rehabilitated and settled elsewhere need to be provided with economic development and justice-based reconciliation to work towards a permanent political settlement,’’ Karunanidhi wrote in his letter to the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. This was written in the context of the impending President Rajapaksa meeting with the Indian prime minister on June 8 in Delhi.

In his reply to Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karunanidhi, dated June 10, Singh said that Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa, during his recent visit to India, had promised to resettle the 47,000 Tamils still living in camps by the end of this year.

"I have also urged upon the Sri Lankan President the need for reconciliation among communities in Sri Lanka and for practical arrangements, including devolution of powers, to enable all minorities in Sri Lanka, particularly the Tamil minority, to lead lives of dignity," he said.

Singh said he had raised these issues with Rajapaksa and also mentioned the joint initiatives, such as constructing 50,000 houses for Internally Displaced Persons in Northern and Eastern provinces. The Government of India is separately also working on projects and programmes for resettled families so that they are in a position to earn their own livelihood, he said.

Meanwhile,Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi had also deputed DMK MPs to ask President Rajapaksa to speed up rehabilitation of Tamils displaced by the war with the LTTE. Karunanidhi had also written to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, saying nearly 80,000 Tamils were still living in transit camps in the island nation awaiting rehabilitation. He had reminded New Delhi that the Rajapaksa government had promised to rehabilitate all Tamils by December 2009.

Tamil circles are of the view that Karunanidhi is not taking chances in the run-up to the state polls due in May next year. Accused by Opposition parties of remaining silent when the Tamils were subject to “humiliating war”, Karunanidhi wishes to show that he and his party were doing everything they could to help the Tamils in Sri Lanka.

DMK president M. Karunanidhi also criticised the visiting Sri Lankan President, Mahinda Rajapaksa, for not fulfilling the assurances he had given to the Central and Tamil Nadu governments immediately after the war on resettlement and rehabilitation of war-affected Tamils in Sri Lanka, but he failed to realize that he had given similar pledges to many others, including the UN Secretary Ban Ki-moon.

Mr. Karunanidhi charged that the Sri Lankan government was even delaying the distribution of materials sent by the Central and Tamil Nadu governments for the relief and rehabilitation of the Tamils. So was the case in spending the money sent from India, he said.

He wanted President Rajapaksa to look into all these issues and take steps that would end the misery and bring solace to the affected ethnic Tamil population. The delegation of MPs and leaders of the DMK, the Congress and friendly parties, led by DMK Parliamentary Party leader T.R. Baalu, met Rajapaksa and submitted a memorandum for the speedy resettlement of 80,000 affected Tamils still in camps expecting resettlement and expedite the implementation of 13 {+t} {+h} Amendment of the Sri Lankan Constitution on devolution of powers. On his return to Chennai, he said he was not satisfied with Rajapaksa’s response.

P. Chidambaram in a public meeting in Tamil Nadu expresses his view that the Tamils took up arms as a result of the Sinhalese subjugation of the Tamils. The same Chidambaram during genocidal war in April 2009 wanted the LTTE to lay down their arms and negotiate with the Sinhala government.  Aren’t all these a reminder of the then Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherji’s often repeated statement during the height of the genocide of more than 40,000 civilians in May 2009?

“I have told the President Rajapaksa again and again that he should not kill innocent civilians during the fighting against the LTTE”

While the Americans and Europeans were doing their best to save the 300,000 odd civilians from imminent death in May 2009, the Indian establishment in Delhi and Chennai were satisfied in making statements to appease the people in Tamil Nadu. The Tamils internationally are used to this rhetoric and would not pay any heed to it.

While President Rajapaksa undertook the maiden tour of India following the end of the Sri Lankan  ethnic war, the Tamil people’s issue continued to languish without receiving much attention. This could be seen from the Sri Lankan External Affairs Minister G.L. Peiris’s  statement.

"There was no pressure from India . India did not pressurise us and Sri Lanka is following an independent policy with help from India.” He also said that they discussed the 13^th Amendment, but according to sources linked to the Sri Lank Foreign Ministry, the Indian PM did not even as much as press on the President on the implementation of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution or the devolution of powers.

"The ties between India and Sri Lanka are strong," Peiris said. He described the four-day landmark visit of Rajapaksa to India as "successful".

As far as New Delhi is concerned, Colombo signing the controversial Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) would have been quite welcome. India would continue discussing CEPA with the Rajapaksa government. The two leaders, according to the joint statement, “agreed that it would be timely to build on this achievement (the Indo-Lanka Free Trade Agreement) through a more comprehensive framework of economic cooperation, best suited to the two countries. In this context, they directed the concerned officials of the two countries to hold intensive consultations towards developing a framework for sustainable economic partnership between the two countries and addressing outstanding issues.”

China’s growing influence in Sri Lanka has been perceived to concern the Indian government which now seeks to open its consulates in Hambantota and Jaffna. India has offered $800 million through line of credit to rebuild rail infrastructure in northern Sri Lanka as well as the Matara-Colombo railway line apart from rehabilitating the Palaly airport, the Kankesanthurai harbour, the Duraiappah Stadium and building a cultural centre in Jaffna. Sources in Colombo’s diplomatic community say that India’s Line of Credit (LoC) for various infrastructure projects in Sri Lanka is estimated to touch $1.8 billion in the near future. As of now, China’s LoC to Sri Lanka at considerably high commercial rates, is estimated to be around $3.4 billion.

New Delhi also signed two agreements - Mutual Legal Assistance on Criminal Matters and Agreement on Transfer of Sentenced Prisoners – during President Rajapaksa’s recent visit. “Promoting dialogue on security and defence issues of relevance to their bilateral relationship, and enhance high-level military exchanges and training of military personnel as well as impart additional training in Indian institutions for the newly recruited police personnel,” the joint statement said.

The Eelam Tamils received their share of crumbs. The two leaders unveiled a program to build 50,000 houses for internally displaced persons in Sri Lanka’s north and east. They are reviving a joint commission between the two countries, jointly chaired by their foreign ministers, and are looking for ways to expand economic and agricultural ties beyond their free trade agreement.

The statement even talked about the need to “speedily restore the traditional links between the two countries” by resuming ferry services between Colombo and Tuticorin and between Talaimannar and Rameswaram. There will be a new Indian consulate-general in Jaffna and Hambantota and Sri Lanka wants to set up another consulate in India. The Tamil problem figured far less than the finalization of the  Indian Sampur power project  which the Sri Lankan  government first agreed, but subsequently were   reluctant. The most important for India was Sri Lanka’s confirmation that it will support India to secure a seat in the UN Security Council.

In other words apparently India’s eagerness to fulfill its ‘shopping list’ desires has outrun its essential concerns on Tamils, thereby bartering away the interests of the Tamil people and  apparently committing a gross betrayal of them.

India is aware that President Rajapaksa is not inclined to resolve the Sri Lankan Tamil issue to satisfaction of Eelam Tamils or India, but at the same time it is certain that if it brings pressure to bear on him, he would lean towards China and Pakistan.  By helping the Sinhalese to crush the LTTE, it had lost the only leverage it had in Sri Lanka. What India is now doing is, while overtly pretending to help solve Tamil people’s problem, it is covertly trying to implement its own economic programs within Sri Lanka using Mahinda. From the days of Indira Gandhi India had always used the Tamils as a pawn in its Sri Lankan game.

On his return to Colombo, President Rajapaksa signed with China’s Vice Premier Zhang Dejiang as many Sino-Lanka agreements pertaining to areas of economic development and technology as he had done in India. This is Rajapaksa’s style of balancing the two powers, while he implements his racial policies.

If the Tamils had expected any benefits to come their way by the Delhi meeting, they are in for a rude shock. Rajapaksa’s aim was to placate the Indian establishment in Delhi and extract as much support and commercial benefits from them as possible. India’s motives are multifold. They want their multinationals to move into Sri Lanka and control as much of the economy as possible, before the Chinese lay their hands on them. The Indian consulate-general in Jaffna and Hambantota will be manned by RAW operatives to keep an eye not only on the Chinese, but also to put a cap on the reemerging Tamil resistance.

The Tamils in the camps will be rehabilitated as mentioned in the final communiqué, but they should be satisfied with their second class status. The moving in of multinationals in the name of development will encourage the Sinhalese from the south to move into the north, thus diluting the Tamil majority. India will be silent on this as they have to entertain Rajapaksa’s fear that he would incur the displeasure of the Sinhala people if India insists on the employment of Tamils. It is in this backdrop, India is exploiting the innocent Tamil people to lever itself into a position whereby it could mould Sri Lanka to conform to its aims and agendas.

There is a general believe among Northern Indian writers that ultimately the pull on culture will drag Sri Lanka into the Indian obit. If this be the case, Sri Lanka would have been closer to India since independence in 1948. It had always shown a pro-Chinese tendency. During the height of the Korean War in the early fifties, it exported rubber to China in spite of the Western embargo on China. During the three wars India fought with Pakistan and China, Sri Lanka was openly anti-Indian. Throughout its history the Sinhalese had always lived in fear of India; they will always have China on their side to take care of India. The Tamils had consistently been pro-Indian and India had betrayed the Tamil trust in it.

If President Rajapaksa believes that he can get away with murder, he is sadly mistaken. UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial executions Philip Alston and UN Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs  B. Lynn Pascoe are in Sri Lanka to indict Sri Lanka for war crimes. The Obama administration has sent Samantha Power, Director of Multilateral Affairs and Human Rights of the National Security Council and David Pressman, Director for war crimes atrocities and civilian protection of the US National Security Council to Sri Lanka to examine Sri Lanka’s violation of human rights during the course of its war with the Tamil Tigers. Sri Lanka must remember that Russia and China could not save the war criminals in Serbia or Sudan and the time for reckoning for them has to come.

The Tamils are a victim of geopolitics of international players. The Eelam Tamils have a proud history of 2,500 years; they cannot buckle up that easily now. However uphill the task may be, the Tamils in Eelam and internationally will have to continue the fight for the restoration of the Tamil rights in Sri Lanka, while the drama goes in Delhi and Chennai.