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Tracking New Delhi's Pursuit of its Strategic Interests...

" New Delhi is said to be unhappy with the performance of the "co-chair" of the June 2003 Tokyo Aid Lanka conference. The co-chair (US, EU, Japan and Norway) have arrogated to themselves a role not assigned to them. They style themselves as the "international community" and strut about as the "co-chair of the Sri Lankan peace process". more

Norwegian Peace Initiative

M.R. Narayan Swamy (IANS),
reports from New Delhi in the Hindustan Times
Western diplomats must boycott LTTE, says Colombo

August 27, 2005

The Sri Lankan Government wants Western diplomats based in Colombo to stop interacting with Tamil Tiger guerrillas in protest against the assassination of Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar.

"This is the least we expect from the West if it sincerely believes that Kadirgamar's killing was an act of terrorism," a source close to Sri Lanka's new Foreign Minister Anura Bandaranaike said in New Delhi.

"Barring Norway, we don't want any other diplomat going and meeting the LTTE," the source said.

Bandaranaike, the brother of Sri Lankan President Chandrika Kumaratunga, ended on Friday a two-day visit to New Delhi, his first overseas trip since succeeding Kadirgamar.

Bandaranaike held talks with his Indian counterpart K Natwar Singh and also called on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who is to visit Sri Lanka later in 2005.

The LTTE has denied killing Kadirgamar, who played a major role in getting the Tamil Tigers outlawed in the West. But Colombo says there is enough evidence that it was an LTTE assassin who shot dead the minister at his house in Colombo on August 12.

The source said that Sri Lanka also wanted Western countries to stop hosting LTTE delegations and to crack down hard on fundraising by the LTTE all over the West.

For too long, Sri Lankan officials have complained that Western diplomats were giving needless legitimacy to the LTTE, which is outlawed in the US, Britain and India, by visiting its political headquarters in Kilinochchi and holding high-profile meetings with its senior leaders in the northern town.

The officials have also been disapproving of the many visits, primarily to Western Europe, by LTTE delegations with the support of Norway, the peace facilitator.

The source said, "All this would have been okay if there had been reforms in the LTTE, if the group had started embracing democracy and human rights. Otherwise what is the point?

"We want the West to show its commitment against terrorism by taking steps that would force the LTTE to give up a policy wedded to violence and assassinations."

According to diplomats in new Delhi, the Sri Lankan Government is happy with the strong condemnations by the West in the wake of the Kadirgamar killing but feels these are not enough.

After his assassination, the Sri Lankan Government and the LTTE have agreed to talk and review the Norwegian-brokered ceasefire agreement (CFA) of February 2002 that has come under widespread criticism for failing to stop a wave of killings, abductions and child recruitment.

The LTTE has been blamed for most violations of the CFA that Tamil Tiger chief Velupillai Prabhakaran and then Sri Lankan prime minister Ranil Wickremesinghe signed in February 2002.

Kadirgamar is the most senior politician to be assassinated in Sri Lanka since 1993 when a suspected LTTE suicide bomber blew up President Ranasinghe Premadasa at a May Day rally. A similar suicide bombing killed former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in May 1991 in Tamil Nadu.
 

"The central plank of New Delhi's foreign policy is to deny any (independent) intermediary role to extra regional powers in the affairs of South Asia and also to encourage the emergence of a multi lateral world. On the other hand US foreign policy is directed to build on its current position as the sole surviving super power and secure a unipolar world for the foreseeable future. And this means preventing the rise of regional hegemons. . given the difference in the end goals that US and India have, it should not be surprising if  the policies of the United States and New Delhi in relation to  Sri Lanka and the LTTE are not always congruent... But that is not to say that the United States  will not cooperate with India. It will. It will seek to cooperate 'as a super power' - and the US believes that it has sufficient instruments in its armoury to do just that. One such instrument is the Norwegian sponsored Peace Process..."