IPKF monument is a monumental blunder for the island’s history

 " India let down the Tamils more than once. Now that China is given preferential treatment for the development of infrastructures India feels left out of investment opportunities and it is shedding crocodile tears that China would emerge the darling of the Sri Lankan government. "

by Pearl Thevanayagam

(September 30, London, Sri Lanka Guardian) Does Sri Lanka need a monument for the IPKF? How many Sri Lankans were killed by the IPKF in the three years they went on a rampage scuttling civilians from pillar to post, conducting midnight raids and raping women, splintering Tamil militant groups and pitting one against the other? Stories are abound of how when the IPKF marched over bodies they slain and advanced into civilian homes slaughtering them by their hundreds.

Monuments are erected for bravery, national pride and sacrifice. Can IPKF honestly fit into any of these categories?

IPKF soldiers did not want to leave the shores of Sri Lanka when they saw the prosperity of the North and East where even the humblest of houses had a well each; a far cry from the tenements of Indian cities with a public tap to get water from for at least 500 people where the common recruits of IPKF came from.

Peace-keeping was the furthest from their agenda.

The war left over 77,000 dead and many thousands displaced in the North ande East. The invitation of the IPKF following the Indo-Lanka Accord of 1987 to wipe out Tamil rebellion left a bloody trail of thousands dead, mililtant groups fighting pitch battle against each other and generally putting the island in a permanent state of terror. Defence analysts bellieve that had the IPKF not been forcibly sent back by Premadasa, India would have exercised its dominance with more vigour in the Indian Ocean. India’s strategy is not unlike that of the colonial British. Divide and Rule.

It is pertinent to note here that Dr Jonathan Goodhand ( the same person who is now working with Norway on Sri Lanka ) who worked with NGOs in the North in the ‘90s and Alan Bullion, a defence strategist who was based in Delhi during the same period delivered talks during a workshop a few years back in London on how India found a golden opportunity in the internal strife to etch its dominance in the Indian Ocean for its own maritime strategeic interest in the Indian Ocean.

The territorial integrity and sovereignty of Sri Lanka were furthest from the minds of the Indian govenrment.

There were talks between JR and India to retain IPKF to quell the JVP rebellion in the South. But Premadasa would have none of this. He sent his own Black Cats under Udugampola to massacre 50,000 Sinhalese youth between ’89 and ’90.

The methods used by the STF led by Ravi Jayewardene, a former Buddhist monk and brother of JR, were described by the British contingent brought in to train the STF as, `far more barbaric than any torture methods imaginable’.

India distanced itself after Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination by an LTTE suicide bomber. And there is mounting evidence that India along with its counterpart and foe Pakistan not to mention US, UK, Ukraine, China and Russia provided the necessary weapons, training air surveillance to exterminate the LTTE and end this war which considerably altered the demographic statistics of the percentage of Tamils.

While sympathisers in Tamilnadu protested and went on hunger strikes and fast unto deaths the Central Government remained unperturbed harking back on the assassination of Gandhi for its apathy towards the plight civilians in th final thores of the war.

Ashok K. Mehta writes,

Mr Rajapaksa does not wish to have anything to do with the 13th Amendment. At the UN General Assembly speech on September 23 he said: “If history has taught us one thing it is that imposed external solutions breed resentment and ultimately fail.”

The President is damned bloody right. While there are pernicious problems regarding the way he governs he is right this one instance.

India let down the Tamils more than once. Now that China is given preferential treatment for the development of infrastructures India feels left out of investment opportunities and it is shedding crocodile tears that China would emerge the darling of the Sri Lankan government.

It is to the credit of our President that he is not fooled by either China or India. Even the Tamil diaspora are with the President when it comes to our own economy and how we market our potentials.

As to appointing Pillayan and Douglas as key ministers the President may have been short-sighted. But given time I hope he would exercise his powers to curtail excesses.

As for an IPKF monument in the city, there is no need for it.