India looks to pick up Sri Lankan pieces

By M H Ahssan

With the final phase of the war between the Sri Lankan government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) nearing its end, India appears to be preparing to play a major role in Sri Lanka. It is hoping to not only push Colombo to reach a political settlement with the Tamils, but also to lead the way in reconstruction of the war-torn northeast.

"The war between the lion [the Sinhalese majority in Sri Lanka] and the tiger [the LTTE] is nearing its end, and the elephant [India] is asserting itself," a retired Indian diplomat, who had served in Sri Lanka, told HNN.

Last week, India's External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee was in Colombo expressing India's "readiness to participate in the reconstruction of northern Sri Lanka" and nudging the Sri Lankan government to follow up its military victories over the LTTE with a political settlement of the conflict.

A press release issued by Sri Lanka's Presidential Secretariat said India would "work together with Sri Lanka on a reconstruction plan for these areas", involving the development of infrastructure and other support. The statement went on to say that Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse had told Mukherjee that he would "move as quickly as possible to implement the 13th amendment to the Sri Lankan constitution". A brainchild of India, this amendment came in the wake of the India-Sri Lanka Agreement of 1987 and sought to devolve power through provincial councils throughout Sri Lanka.

While India has been pushing successive governments in Sri Lanka to find a political settlement to the conflict - the 13th amendment is regarded by Indian officials as providing the core of such a settlement - its appeals have fallen on deaf ears over the past few years, with Rajapakse giving priority to a military solution over a political settlement.

With Pakistan and China providing the Sri Lankan armed forces with the cutting-edge weaponry that India was reluctant to supply, the latter's leverage over the Sri Lankan government's conduct of the war waned. Its options in intervening in the Sri Lankan conflict were also limited by memories of its experiences of sending troops to the island in 1987-90.

India's influence over the LTTE too was minimal, its contact with the organization having been broken since India banned it in 1992. But this did not mean that India's presence on the island was diminished. Its military and economic ties with Sri Lanka are immense. Delhi was very much in the loop when the peace process was on, though its role was low profile. With the Rajapakse government focusing on war rather than a political solution and India reluctant to get involved in that war, there was little scope for a robust Indian role in the island. That could now change.

The war appears to be in its final stages and the LTTE is staring at military defeat. It is now confined to around 300 square kilometers of territory in the Mullaitivu jungles. The scenario has changed for India. There is space for it to play a role in finding a political solution to the conflict and to help with reconstruction. And this is what it has set out to do. Over the past few months several top officials have visited Sri Lanka.

Mukherjee's visit to Sri Lanka has come at a time when the humanitarian crisis is alarming. Some 250,000 Tamil civilians are trapped in the war zone and India and the international community have been voicing concern over their fate. As Sri Lankan armed forces direct all their military fire power on Mullaitivu in their bid to wrest control over the last stretch of land under LTTE control and hunt down its chief, Velupillai Prabhakaran, it is these civilians who are bearing the brunt of the fighting. The LTTE is expected to use them as human shields as the Sri Lankan troops close in.

In his talks with the Sri Lankan government, Mukherjee secured assurances that it "would respect the safe zones and minimize the effects of conflict on Tamil civilians", according to a statement issued by the Indian High Commission. Besides, it is on his urging that the Sri Lankan government agreed to a 48-hour truce - Colombo denied it was a truce and said it was an ultimatum to the LTTE - to allow Tamil civilians trapped in the war zone to escape to safe areas.

It is believed that the stream of high-level visitors to Colombo from India is aimed at appeasing politicians in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu.

Tamil Nadu, which is home to some 66 million Tamils, has been in a state of ferment over the past year and thousands of people have been participating in street demonstrations demanding an end to the war in Sri Lanka, Indian intervention on behalf of the Tamils and so on. While many are moved by the plight of their ethnic kin caught in the war zone in Sri Lanka, there has also been a surge in support for the LTTE and Tamil Eelam among Tamil nationalist sections.

This is reason for concern for India's ruling coalition, the United Progressive Alliance (UPA). The UPA is under pressure from its Tamil constituents, the Dravida Munetra Kazhagam (DMK) and the Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK) to push for a ceasefire in Sri Lanka. The PMK is among several parties in Tamil Nadu that are vocal supporters of the LTTE. They have been demanding a robust Indian intervention on behalf of the Tamils.

They want the government to push for a ceasefire in Sri Lanka, even help in the creation of Tamil Eelam. With general elections just a few months away, the UPA cannot afford to be seen to be irresponsive to Tamil sentiment and demands.

Hence the massive humanitarian assistance being extended to the Tamils and Mukherjee's intervention to get Colombo to agree to a "ceasefire", however short it may be.

While the "Tamil Nadu factor" is an important consideration driving India's Sri Lankan policy, "more important is regional stability, an issue of concern for India. Developments in Sri Lanka have implications for India's security and Delhi is keen to use the space that has opened up with the impending defeat of the LTTE to resolve the festering conflict there," the diplomat said.

But India's task will be far from easy. Suspicion of India's intentions remains high on the island. While informed opinion has come around to accepting that India is indeed committed to Sri Lanka's territorial integrity, this is not so with Sinhalese hardliners, who fear that the "Tamil Nadu factor" could lead to India again backing the LTTE.

India has been careful in its extension of support to Tamils, taking care to maintain its distance from the LTTE. This has been its policy since relations between India and the LTTE frayed in the late 1980s. It has stressed this distinction repeatedly over the past year, by calling on Colombo to minimize civilian casualties even as it refused to push for a ceasefire that would benefit the LTTE.

Mukherjee underscored this distinction ahead of his Colombo trip. In India, he told reporters, that he had ''no sympathy for any terrorist activity indulged in by any organization, particularly LTTE, a banned organization in India''. However, he said India would look for ways to "see how civilians can be protected and they do not become hapless victims of the situation". These statements however are unlikely to convince Sinhalese hardliners, who view the public display of support for LTTE in Tamil Nadu with alarm.

Another factor that could circumscribe India's ambitions of bringing peace in Sri Lanka has to do with the Rajapakse regime. Is Rajapakse interested at all in finding a political settlement to the conflict? Many Sinhalese see the military defeat of the LTTE as the end of the conflict and they form the core of Rajapakse's support base. Will Rajapakse risk losing their support by reaching out to Tamils? This seems unlikely, his recent assurances to India notwithstanding.

And then there is the 13th amendment. "A political settlement to the conflict will require '13th amendment plus'," observes the diplomat, in other words, Colombo will have to go beyond the 13th amendment's provisions "as the conflict has become more complicated in the two decades since it was made".

Will Rajapakse, fresh from his victories on the battlefield, be willing to offer what the 13th amendment provides, let alone "13th amendment plus". He did tell Mukherjee that he was open to going beyond the devolution it provides. Even if he meant what he said, devolving power to a merged north-east province as provided for under the 1987 agreement will not be possible now as the province was separated in 2007 by a Supreme Court ruling.

Reconstruction work on the ground in the north is not going to be easy. The loss of territory and its decline as a conventional fighting force does not mean the LTTE is dead. The LTTE will engage in hit-and-run attacks on Sri Lankan troops as well as on aid and reconstruction workers, as it will seek to prevent normalcy from returning to the North. India too will be on the LTTE's radar.

India's refusal to bail out the LTTE from its current crisis has already evoked a threatening growl from the latter. An article in a pro-LTTE website supposedly written by a "political analyst in Vanni" - the region in which the Tigers are now cornered - warns India of "inviting turmoil" to its own territory.

"Repercussions arising from resentment [against India's policy], coupled with re-emergence of a dormant LTTE, will only see a raging political inferno and bloodbath. This time the war is not going to be confined to the island of Sri Lanka, but will be fought involving Tamil Nadu too," the writer warned.

India will have to address the tense situation in Tamil Nadu immediately to prevent the situation from turning explosive. Unrest in the state is already being orchestrated by the LTTE and its supporters in Tamil Nadu. Last week a 30-year old man immolated himself in Tamil Nadu to draw attention to the plight of Sri Lankan Tamils.

The LTTE has issued a statement saluting the "sacrifice of a heroic Tamil son". Two other attempts at suicide followed. The suicide has fueled an outpouring of public anger with what is seen to be a government irresponsive to Tamil sentiments.

Secessionist sentiment in Tamil Nadu has been dormant for decades. It is being revived now. Unrest in Tamil Nadu is likely to worsen as India steps into the Sri Lankan quagmire again.