Tamilselvan accused the SLG of “atrocities” and said that the LTTE will be
"forced to intensify our defensive actions against the undeclared war being
conducted by the Sri Lankan Army.” He also wanted India to recognize the Tamil
struggle for rights and extended its moral support to that struggle. He also
accused Sri Lankan Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera of creating confusion
among policy makers during his visit to India.
But India does recognize the plight of Tamils in Sri Lanka but is hostage to
previous heavy handed decisions that it had introduced which led to the
induction of the Indian army as peacekeepers and the ultimate assassination of
former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. India believes that the LTTE is the culprit
but the trial did not produce any conclusive evidence that it is. Shy from the
experience of its peacekeepers in Sri Lanka sent without clear charter and exit
plan, India is not about to engage in another effort to restore peace.
The Indian Government of that time thought that the Sri Lankan Tamils will
welcome Indian troops invited by Sri Lankan President Jayewardene. However,
inept policy making at that time did not take the LTTE or Jayewardene’s
chauvinist Prime Minister Premadasa into confidence. This led to an unholy
secret alliance between Premadasa and the LTTE where arms, intelligence, and
information were supplied by Premadasa to the LTTE compromising the mission and
the lives of several thousand soldiers and tens of thousands of LTTE cadre and
civilians.
If India wants to be seen as a global power, it must break out of the corner
it has painted itself into and take leadership to facilitate conversation
between the SLG and LTTE. There is very little consensus among SLG politicians
about how to proceed with the Tamil issue and
India has called for developing a consensus. Further, the SLG has also not
been matching its words with its deeds. It
did not send a political negotiator to Oslo to discuss the SLMM role,
refused to provide safe passage to LTTE negotiators to to the Geneva
talks, has
not stopped assistance to militia and LTTE rebels leading to civilian death
, and has
lobbied international Governments heavily to ban the LTTE. It has
repeatedly asked
India to intervene to influence LTTE to return to negotiations.
Recent political developments in Tamil Nadu state that shares border,
politics, ideology, and ethnicity with the Sri Lankan Tamils have complicated
matters a lot. The return of a hardliner as the Chief Minister of the state
with another hardliner in the opposition has increased chances of calls for
increased Indian intervention in the issue. However, the widow of the
assassinated Prime Minister is the leader of the political party wielding
enormous power over a weak coalition Federal Government often under siege from
its own allies. Prime
Minister Manmohan Singh often lectured by communists to stick to the Common
Minimum Program charter of the coalition has very little wiggle space to
initiate creative foreign policy based on Indian national interests. Already
being assaulted on his foreign policy initiatives on United States and Iran he
may not have much political space to take on another assault. In short, India’s
Sri Lanka policy is like a deer caught in headlights of a truck and risks being
overrun by inaction.
Irrespective of the small space that is available, the federal Government had
sent a small team to Tamil Nadu to meet key interlocutors to evolve a policy.
