Chidambaram’s carrot

Policy shift favours Tamils, not LTTE

By Shastri Ramachandaran

(February 22, New Delhi, Sri Lanka Guardian) Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram’s offer that India would facilitate negotiations if the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) declared a willingness to lay down arms is the farthest towards an ‘intervention’ that New Delhi has moved. In fact, this is the first time since the IPKF fiasco in the late 1980s that New Delhi has shown interest in taking a direct hand in resolving the Tamil-Sinhala conflict. For that reason alone, Mr Chidambaram’s exhortation — including to the Government of Sri Lanka — to stop the war and create conditions for talks is significant.

It has to be assumed that Mr Chidambaram has weighed his words carefully before delivering them at a public meeting in Chennai on February 15. He is reported to have said: “The Centre’s stand on the Sri Lankan Tamils issue is clear. Let the LTTE declare its willingness to lay down arms. India can mediate the peace process in Sri Lanka tomorrow itself”.

Predictably, nothing happened on the morrow, except for an LTTE spokesman clutching at Mr Chidambaram’s offer to add to the force of opinion against Colombo pursuing its military campaign to the point of exterminating the Tamil Tigers. The war against the LTTE is too far gone. The military campaign unleashed by President Mahinda Rajapaksa has gained a momentum all its own; and, advanced to a stage where the LTTE could survive as a guerrilla force, but as a military organisation, its back has been broken decisively.

At this stage of the war, Mr Rajapaksa is unlikely to relent in the least and allow any opening that may provide a breather to the besieged LTTE. He has taken the battle to where none of his predecessors could in the last 20 years. The appetite for an outright military victory has grown by the successes it has fed on, and he appears bent on pushing ahead, regardless of the political consequences.

Doubtless, President Rajapaksa’s resolve to press on without paying heed to calls for a ceasefire — as a mechanism to clear the ground for negotiations — is bad news. Yet it is significant that, at last, New Delhi has risen to recognise, accept and show willingness to take on its inevitable role for the resolution of the 26-year-old conflict.

There appears little reason to doubt that Mr Chidambaram’s statements represent the position of the Union Government as well as the Congress party. The shift in New Delhi’s policy towards Sri Lanka was made known in President Pratibha Patil’s address to Parliament before Mr Chidambaram did so in Chennai. Thereafter, External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee, too, said in Parliament that the LTTE must lay down arms. He minced no words in saying that the LTTE has done much damage to the Tamil community; and, that the interest of Tamils would be best served by the LTTE releasing all civilians and laying down arms.

President Rajapaksa appears to have overcome his initial consternation arising out of New Delhi calling for a ceasfire. This was first seen in Colombo as India adding its voice to that of the powerful international lobbies pressing for a halt to the war. Now, Mr Chidambaram’s statements in Chennai, reinforced and elaborated upon by Mr Mukherjee in Parliament, appear to have cleared any misconceptions in Colombo about India’s intentions.

The public articulation of the all too evident but hitherto unstated reality — that the conflict in Sri Lanka cannot be resolved without Indian mediation — is now viewed as formal notice of New Delhi’s intent by Colombo and interested parties including the international community.

Now that the decimation of the LTTE looks certain, this could be New Delhi’s way of preparing for a post-conflict political settlement. Parties in India, particularly Tamil Nadu, will have to reconcile themselves to the end of the LTTE both as a militaristic force and as a representative of the Sri Lankan Tamils. In fact, now is the time to make a clear distinction between the LTTE and the interests of the Tamil minority. If Tamil Nadu’s parties refuse to do so, they will render themselves ineffective to that extent in defending the rights and aspirations of the minority across the Palk Straits.

The Tamils of Sri Lanka are twice oppressed: by the militaristic LTTE to which they are hostage and the Sri Lankan armed forces for which they are cannon fodder. Once the LTTE is gone from the scene, in the absence of a representative Tamil leadership it may devolve on New Delhi to negotiate the interests of a minority against the triumphalism of the Sinhala majority. In the course of its rise to supremacy in the island’s northeast, the LTTE literally killed all other Tamil voices. In the circumstances, parties in Tamil Nadu have to choose between the LTTE and the Sri Lankan Tamils as two separate entities.

All sections, including the government in Sri Lanka recognise that the Tamil-Sinhala conflict cannot be ended without New Delhi taking a hand. Political parties of every hue have, at one time or other, sought ‘Indian intervention’. Needless to recall, every one of these forces have also criticised India’s “hegemonic designs” whenever any perceived move by New Delhi did not serve their partisan purposes. However, the failure to sustain the 1987 accord and the IPKF misadventure made New Delhi extremely wary of resuming any kind of direct role. Norway’s emergence as the honest broker between Colombo and the LTTE was with New Delhi’s sanction.

India appears to be no longer shy of taking on a role in resolving an issue within its sphere of influence. Unlike in the past, when it opted to act from behind the scenes and provide the required impulses to the Norwegian facilitators, the message being beamed now is that any mediation can only be with New Delhi’s sanction; and that Indian concerns — which include the democratic rights of the Tamil minority — will have to be reckoned with in paving the way for talks, choosing facilitators and setting the terms of engagement.

Colombo has always been averse to any western power ‘meddling’ in its internal affairs. Norway, with the other Nordic countries, was acceptable because of its involvement in development cooperation. However, the space opened up by Norway’s emergence as a trusted facilitator brought in a number of western donor countries with their own ‘development’ agenda, which did not contribute much to the peace process. This spurred others, such as Japan, to seek a role despite New Delhi’s aversion to the donor nations spawning a plethora of busybodies who were contemptuous of Sri Lanka’s political sovereignty and flourished in the name of the peace process.

Not all sections in Sri Lanka would welcome New Delhi seeking to influence the timing and the terms for a ceasefire. Yet President Rajapaksa is all too aware that New Delhi deciding to mediate or facilitate mediation is a major departure; and, that without Indian support no negotiations can go forward. The stark truth is that any plan for the resolution of the conflict cannot be implemented unless it is in accord with New Delhi’s expectations. That India is committed to a solution within the framework of Sri Lanka’s territorial integrity and sovereignty may be a positive of value to President Rajapaksa who — while fighting the LTTE — has had to battle the negative effects of the “internationalisation” of the conflict.

-Sri Lanka Guardian