U.S. sought a bigger role in pushing a political solution for Tamils but was kept at bay by India
by Nirupama Subramanian
Sri Lanka told India it would implement a devolution plan for Tamil areas going beyond the 13th Amendment to its Constitution, but Indian officials were privately sceptical of the assurance.
Several U.S. Embassy cables accessed by The Hindu through WikiLeaks reveal that India pushed Sri Lanka on its devolution plans for months before the conclusion of the military operation against the LTTE.
The cables also reveal that the U.S. sought a bigger role in pushing a political solution for Tamils but was kept at bay by India.
As the military operations were drawing to a close, Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon told the U.S. Embassy Charge d'Affaires Peter Burleigh on May 15, 2009 that the Sri Lankan government had reassured India that “the government would focus on the implementation of the 13th Amendment Plus as soon as possible.” (207268: confidential, May 15, 2009)
But, the cable notes, “Menon was sceptical.”
National Security Adviser M.K. Narayanan was a mite more optimistic. Returning from a visit to Sri Lanka on April 24, he had told the U.S. Charge that President Mahinda Rajapaksa “intends to pursue political devolution (‘the thirteenth amendment plus') and will make a gesture soon to win over Sri Lanka's Tamils.” (204118: confidential, April 25, 2009)
Earlier, in January 2009, the U.S. Embassy in Colombo reported in a cable (189383: confidential, January 29, 2009) on External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee's visit that President Rajapaksa had spoken of a 13th Amendment Plus plan.
Briefing the U.S. Embassy's Deputy Chief of Mission and other diplomats, the Indian Deputy High Commissioner in Colombo, Vikram Misri, said Mr. Mukherjee's visit was mainly to press Sri Lanka on ensuring the safety of civilians during the military operation against the LTTE.
In discussions with the Indian Minister on the political front, the cable noted, “President Rajapaksa said he supports a 13th Amendment- plus approach, but did not specify what the ‘plus' would entail.”
It is no secret that even before 2009, India wanted Sri Lanka to hasten on a political settlement to the Tamil question that would go beyond the 13th Amendment that flowed from the 1987 Indo-Sri Lanka Accord. The cables only confirm this.
In November 2008, senior presidential adviser Basil Rajapaksa returned from New Delhi. Briefing the Americans about the visit, he said India had pressed Sri Lanka to devolve more powers to the Eastern Province. (cable 176664: confidential, November 4, 2008)
Mr. Rajapaksa told U.S. Ambassador to Sri Lanka Robert Blake that the Indians had expressed particular concern about civilian casualties from Sri Lankan military operations, as well as the need to do “a better job of winning Tamil hearts and minds.”
According to Mr. Blake's cable, Mr. Rajapaksa told him that “the Indians argued that progress on these issues would help keep the region “free of outside interference” and would enable India to better support Sri Lanka in its fight against the LTTE.
Mr. Rajapaksa said both sides had agreed on the need to “move toward” towards a peaceful, negotiated political settlement. India wanted Sri Lanka to begin by devolving non-controversial powers such as agrarian services to the Eastern province.
But the presidential adviser — he is also his brother — told the Americans that India's “No. 1 concern” was the Sri Lankan Navy firing at Indian fishermen.
In the same cable, Mr. Blake reports a later conversation with Indian High Commissioner to Sri Lanka Alok Prasad. Contrary to Mr. Rajapaksa's impression of his New Delhi meetings, Mr. Prasad said the primary focus of the meetings was devolution, and not the issue of fishermen.
While the talks primarily focussed on how to speed up devolution in the East, Mr. Prasad noted that India had told Sri Lanka it should be thinking of “the outlines of a settlement that goes beyond devolution of power under the 13th amendment.”
But Mr. Prasad told the U.S. envoy that “India had very little hope that Sri Lanka would do more in this regard,” as the President did not have the required parliamentary majority to amend the Constitution, and some political parties were opposed even to the 13th Amendment.
It appears from the cables that the U.S. wanted constant reassurances that India was pushing for a political solution. At one stage it even suggested that there should be a joint India-U.S. effort on this front.
In August 2008, Joint Secretary T.S. Tirumurti “avowed” at a New Delhi meeting with Mr. Blake, the Indian government's “continued advocacy for devolution of power in Sri Lanka, and said India was preparing to share specific ideas with Sri Lanka.” (cable 167817: confidential, August 29, 2008)
The Indian official said New Delhi was pitching for a power-sharing formula that went beyond the 13th Amendment.
At the same meeting, Ambassador Blake proposed that India and the U.S. together encourage Sri Lanka to articulate its power-sharing vision “now” and engage in “quiet talks” with the LTTE.
He also suggested encouraging a “quiet dialogue” between the UN and the LTTE so that internally displaced people in the Vanni would be free to move south from LTTE-controlled areas “out of harm's way.”
India was clearly not interested in the U.S. suggestion. Mr. Tirumurti responded that “Rajapakse wants Prabhakaran dead.”
Pushing the ball back to the U.S. envoy, he spoke of a “credibility problem” for the West as the LTTE continued to raise funds in Europe, which was a source of concern for Sri Lanka and India.
But Mr. Blake pushed back, saying that while the U.S. would be glad to see Prabhakaran captured or killed, “the U.S. and India should not allow Rajapaksa to predicate progress on a power-sharing agreement on Prabhakaran's demise.”
A year later, the Indian Foreign Secretary seems to have briefly toyed with the idea of involving the U.S. and other powers to put pressure on Sri Lanka to resolve the political issues after the fighting ended.
The Foreign Secretary suggested to Mr. Burleigh at his May 15, 2009 meeting that “it would be useful for India to convoke an international conference — noting that India, the Co-Chairs [of the peace process, Norway, Japan, the U.S. and U.K.] and China should attend — to look at the post-conflict landscape. Menon characterized this as an opportunity for India; prohibitions on contacts with the LTTE had prevented useful engagement in the past, but now there would be space.”
Mr. Menon expressly wanted China in the grouping. According to the cable, he argued “that best results from Sri Lanka could be expected when the West, India and China all worked together. Otherwise, Sri Lanka would find ways to play its international interlocutors off against each other.”
But it seems to have been just a passing thought, as no such meeting took place. (courtesy: The Hindu)
5 Comments
All indian govts whichever party in power did not have Prime Ministers who makes informed decisions on their foreign policies.This is very clear that even after more than 60 years of independence India did not become a lead player in international affairs.The indo-China war ended in a humiliating debacle for India.Sri-Lanka was in sympathy if not supporting China during the war.The same is true whenIndia faught Pakistan in 1970.Srilanka was made use of by Pakistan to fly to East pakistan.Now China is deeply entrenched in Srilanka.Indian Prime minister should have questioned his foreign policy advisors..They can never solve the Tamil issues in SriLanka.They will be forced to send its military again to Srilanka not because of pity on Tamils but because of Chinese Penetraion of Srilanka.
Rajapaksha government would never listen to international or local interlocutors so long as the propositions are pro-democratic, pro-people and pro-justice.
They want every thing to happen pro-familial-rule. There is no point in wasting time and energy expecting this government to act in a democratic or constructive manner.
The players international or otherwise if they want something meaningful and eco-friendly to happen in Sri Lanka then the first and foremost thing they should do is to help eradicate this rogue rule and establish a democratic government in which the will of the people is truly reflected.
Ranil Wickramasinghe through the peace peace process and Regaining Sri Lanka movement embarked on this jorney. But the chauvinistic elements both Sinhalese and Tamil failed to understand its true value and benefits and now they have paid dearly for that grave mistake. Thousands upon thousands of lives as well as a collosel
All this is now history. What is relevant is what is going to happen today and tomorrow. The Rajapakse regime, like CBK and Ranil before them, will agree to Devolution and 13th + but the problemm is they have the next Elections in mind for them and their familial rule. If they allow even what is patently just, reasonable and inevitable the Sinhala voter base - poisoned to the core on a diet of anti-Tamil and anti-Indianism - is not going to allow this. The JVP is the child of this prejudice and now proceeding towards self- extermination. But the prejudice will find another form and elections will continue to be won on the Tamil "problem" - again and again. The process of history, meanwhile, will not remain static. It can take different courses - some frightening. It is not the Rajapakses fooling others. It is simply our fooling ourselves while the wound grows incurably toxic.
ISS
Sometimes I wonder, how these little rascals - Rajapaksas were able to cheat the leaders of the great nations of the world with their useless heads. I pity Mr M K Narayanan for his poor intelligence. I suggest, he should go and take lessons from a surviving junior LTTE cadre in politics and diplomacy. Though I didn't agree with Prabaharan, the the way he pursued the Tamil-Eelam goal, I always admired and saluted his steadfast-believe, that the solution for the problems of the Srilanka Tamils, is a separate Tamil-Eelam only, within Srilanka, and nothing less. I bet, his intelligence is far, far superior to any of these so-called intellectual leaders. If anyone knows the History of the Sinhalees, would never, ever trust them by their words.
Sabaratnam’s preface to his Amirthalingam biography, dated May 1, 1996
Appapillai Amirthalingam, former leader of the moderate political party Tamil United Liberation Front, was murdered, first politically and then physically. The political slaying was by the Sinhala leadership and the physical by Tamil militants.
Both murders had a common effect – the elimination of Tamil moderates as a political factor. The Sinhala leadership executed the political killing by denying to grant the just demands of the Tamil moderates. The Tamil militants effected the physical elimination because, they felt, Tamil moderates were hindering the attainment of the goal of Eelam, a separate Tamil state.
The political slaying was effected through a series of surrenders and appeasements by the Sinhala leadership to Sinhala chauvinism and by a sustained campaign of justification of these surrenders by the portrayal of Tamil moderates as extremists. The main instances of surrenders were: refusal to give a reasonable place to the Tamil language when the Sinhala Only Act was enacted in 1956; the tearing of the Bandaranaike-Chelvanayakam Pact in 1958; dumping of the Senanayaka-Chelvanayakam Pact of 1965; abandoning of the SLFP-FP Agreement of 1969; the enactment of the constitutions of 1972 and 1978 which refused to accommodate Tamil demands; failure to make the District Councils of 1982 to work; refusal to honour Annexure-C worked out in December 1983 with India’s good offices; abandoning of the All Party Conference in December 1984; and the failure to devolve the agreed powers to the Provincial Councils under the Indo-Lanka Accord on 1987.
These surrenders and campaigns of justification gradually eroded the constituency of the Tamil moderates and helped the growth of Tamil militancy. The moderation was gradually rendered marginal, irrelevant.
I watched, from the ringside, this tragic story unfold. I joined Lake House in March 1957 and, since then, covered the Tamil beat, first for the Tamil daily Thinakaran and then for the English Daily News. I kept in close touch with all the characters – Sinhala, Tamil and Muslim – who played central roles in this drama. I had frequent sessions with most of these leaders where we discussed developments. I preserved my notes of these meetings and clippings of the events I reported.
The story I relate in this book is a narration of events I am personally aware, most of which I reported and some told to me under a ban, which journalists call ‘off-the-record’. I must thank Dr. Neelam Thiruchelvam, a prominent TULF member, for prodding me to write this book, Mrs. B. Roy Choudhury for editing it and my wife Pathmavathy for all the encouragement and assistance.
I decided to tell this story through Amirthalingam’s life because his story is the story of the TULF and the story of the Sinhala-Tamil conflict. His is also the story of the stifling of Tamil moderates and the tale of concern Sri Lanka’s two main political parties showed in wooing Sinhala chauvinism at the expense of Tamil interests and aspirations. This concern, this rivalry, this shortsightedness caused the great hardship Sri Lanka is passing through.
A sense of realization seems to be dawning among the Sinhala leadership of the mistakes they made in using the Tamil problem for their politics. The new leadership, President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga and UNP leader Ranil Wickremesinghe, have displayed courage in approaching the Tamil problem in a more enlightened manner. But they too are under pressure. Whether they can withstand it is to be seen.
These statements may irritate my Sinhala friends. I plead with them to read this story before they condemn me. If this story helps the Sinhala people to be more accommodative, more realistic, more reasonable, this book would have achieved its objective; that of bringing peace to our motherland.