AN INKLING OF INTERNATIONAL PRESSURE TO COME

by -Jehan Perera

The visit of a high level Indian delegation to Sri Lanka barely a fortnight ago has given rise to much speculation regarding its purpose. The delegation consisted of National Security Advisor, M K Narayan, Defense Secretary, Sri Vijay Singh and Foreign Secretary, Shiv Shankar Menon. The three visitors were all senior members of the Indian administration, and not politicians, which indicates the broad consensus and continuity that India seek in its policy towards Sri Lanka. On the other hand, the key persons they met in Sri Lanka were President Mahinda Rajapaksa and his two brothers, Senior Advisor Basil and Defense Secretary, Gotabhaya, and the President’s secretary. Lalith Weeratunga. The Sri Lankan Foreign Ministry was entirely left out of the deliberations. This shows the Indian perception of the narrowing power structure in Sri Lanka.

For days there were fevered speculations about the purpose of the Indian visit. A favoured interpretation was that the Sri Lankan armed forces were on the verge of capturing the LTTE strongholds of Kilinochchi and Mullaitivu and its leadership. The hope was that India was coming to give some crucial support, by way of military equipment and intelligence, and this to a friendly neighbouring country that is fighting against a deadly foe that has been banned internationally on account of terrorism. However, there has also been a continuing fear that there could be a replay of history. The memory has never completely faded that when the Sri Lankan military was poised to flush out the LTTE from Jaffna way back in 1987 there was Indian intervention that put a stop to the Sri Lankan offensive.

Now two decades later the indications are that the Sri Lankan military is making steady, if slow, progress in its multi pronged offensive into the heart of LTTE controlled territory in the Wanni. The most recent success to be reported is the capture of the rice bowl area of Mannar from the LTTE. What is not known for sure, and can only be guessed at, is the cost of this and other military advances. At present, the only accounts of the progress or otherwise on the military battlefields comes from the statements of the Sri Lankan security establishment. Unfortunately independent accounts of the war in the north by journalists are few and far between owing to the death threats and physical assaults they have been subjected to with impunity. Hearsay accounts suggest a high level of casualties in harsh circumstances, but these individual accounts fail to give a composite picture of the prevailing situation.

Also not being disclosed from the battlefront is the fallout of war on the civilian population. The military battles taking place in the Wanni, and the lines of advance of the fighting forces, are not all through uninhabited jungle. Some of it, and perhaps most of it in the rice bowl area, would be taking place through populated areas. In the Mannar district alone nearly 40,000 people have been displaced and move from place to place to avoid the fighting. Those who have fled from LTTE-controlled areas at the risk of being shot dead by the LTTE and come to government controlled areas have been confined to specific camps, on account of the suspicion of LTTE infiltration. Large parts of the Wanni are inaccessible to even international humanitarian organizations. This very high cost to the civilian population is being projected as a necessary cost of the war.


INDIAN VISIT

Giving emphasis to the significance of their meeting, neither the Indian delegation nor the Sri Lankan government issued an official statement about the contents of their discussions. Recent media reports about the meeting suggest that the humanitarian crisis in Sri Lanka received top attention. The Indian concern could reasonably be that the reports from Sri Lanka of mass displacement, restriction on the movement of Tamil refugees and the continuing stream of abductions, extortions, killings and round ups of Tamil civilians can create problems within India itself. With India going into an election period in the not so distant future, no political party that seeks Tamil Nadu votes would like to be seen as being insensitive to the plight of the Tamils of Sri Lanka.

One of the first issues raised by the Indian delegation was reportedly that the Sri Lankan government should minimize civilian casualties in the course of the ongoing military operations. In particular there was reportedly a call for restraint in the utilization of air power to which the LTTE has still not found an answer, but which can also inflict heavy casualties on the civilian population in the event of inaccurate targeting. But there is no reason to believe, as some media have reported, that the Indian delegation put pressure on the Sri Lankan government to halt its military offensive in its entirety, as they did in 1987. It is significant that barely a week after the visit of the Indian delegation, the Sri Lankan military reported further advances into the Wanni.

The problem for the Indian government is that some of the small opposition parties in Tamil Nadu state have made the Sri Lankan conflict their main platform for mobilizing electoral support. It is reported that some of them could even be funded by the LTTE to keep the Tamil issue alive in Indian politics. Some of these parties have started to make calls for an Indian boycott of the SAARC Summit that is scheduled to be held in Colombo at the end of July on the grounds of the war situation in Sri Lanka.

Indian absence would effectively scuttle the SAARC Summit and cause a great deal of embarrassment to Sri Lanka. The conduct of the SAARC Summit specifically requires the presence of all heads of state or heads of government of each of the eight SAARC member countries. As the Sri Lankan government has put much emphasis on its relationship with Asian countries, the SAARC Summit has taken centre stage in the government’s international strategy. India’s bargaining strength comes from the fact that India’s attendance is crucial to the SAARC Summit being held at all.

Reports of a high level of civilian casualties in Sri Lanka could certainly put the Indian government in an embarrassing situation, especially if they take place nearer the time of the SAARC Summit. Therefore it is understandable if India requested the Sri Lankan government to take greater care in its military operations in the period prior to the SAARC Summit. However, the media reports indicate that the visiting Indian delegation went much beyond merely expressing their concern about the wellbeing of the Tamil civilian population in the run up to the SAARC Summit. It can be concluded that they utilized the opportunity presented by the SAARC Summit to try to get Sri Lanka back to some extent within the Indian sphere of influence.


MUCH FURTHER

In the present advantageous situation to it, the Indian delegation is reported to have brought up several issues of concern to India. The most controversial of these is likely to be the reported insistence that India should share the responsibility for ensuring security in Sri Lanka during the period of the SAARC Summit. Whether this will include the entry into Sri Lanka of armed Indian security personnel, the manning of radars to guard against possible aerial attack by the LTTE and additional surveillance at sea, as reported by the media, remains to be seen.

Other significant issues brought up by the visiting Indian delegation include those that can be construed as interfering in Sri Lanka’s internal affairs. These include speeding up the formulation of the government’s political proposals to resolve the ethnic conflict, inviting the largest Tamil political party, the TNA, which the government has been marginalizing to India for discussions, the growing closeness between Sri Lanka and India’s main neighbouring rivals, China and Pakistan, and issues concerning major Indian investments where Sri Lanka has taken a tough line. For a government that has given top priority to affirming the importance of national sovereignty these Indian demands might be a bitter pill to swallow if such demands have indeed been made.

What the Indian visit reveals is the vulnerability of Sri Lanka to external pressures. Over the past two years, the government has gained the admiration of nationalists for taking up strong and often belligerent positions in favour of the country’s national sovereignty. This, despite becoming increasingly dependent on foreign commercial banks to prop up the ailing economy. The government has often taken punitive actions against international organizations that it sees as meddling in the country’s internal affairs, especially with regard to humanitarian issues and human rights violations. The government has also not been averse to criticizing powerful countries, especially those from the West, on numerous issues in international forums even at the risk of alienating these economic aid-giving countries.

However, the problem that is becoming apparent is that Sri Lanka is too small, and too dependent on the international system, to wage a lone battle against the international system and the powerful countries that sustain it. It has been recently reported that the French-based NGO, Action against Hunger (ACF) which cruelly lost 17 of its staff in a massacre in Muttur in 2006 is campaigning for an international inquiry on the matter, having lost confidence in the Sri Lankan system of justice. In addition, the European Union is soon to decide on whether or not to continue with the economically important GSP+ privilege to Sri Lanka. International pressures may soon come to snag Sri Lanka’s efforts to solve problems in its own way, unless a different approach to conflict resolution is adopted.