On May 14, India banned
the LTTE. Two weeks later, on May 28, Sri Lanka
launched offensive operations against the Tamil people
in Jaffna and Mullativu. But it would be simple minded
to conclude that New Delhi and President Premadasa have
begun to see eye to eye and are engaged in a joint
concerted effort to annihilate the LTTE. On the
contrary, the Indian ban on the LTTE was directed as
much at President Premadasa as at the LTTE.
The initial question is: what did India gain by the
ban? Or to put it in another way: what was it that
India could do after the ban, which it could not do
before the ban? During the past several months the
Indian intelligence services and the CBI, not to
mention the SIT, and a host of other agencies, have
been more than energetic in their hunt for LTTE bases
and safe houses in Tamil Nadu even without any order
making the LTTE an unlawful association. New Delhi
knows that such an order will do little to add to the
capabilities of these agencies to carry out their
task.
Again, New Delhi also knows that 'banning'
militancy may serve to send it further underground. In
1978, Sri Lanka banned the Liberation Tigers under the
then Emergency Regulations. Five years later, in 1983,
the Tigers were banned again under Sri Lanka's
notorious Prevention of Terrorism Act. 14 years after
the first ban and nine years after the second, Tamil
militancy has not weakened but has grown stronger. A
movement which consisted of tens has grown to an army
of thousands. The consequences of India's ban on Tamil
militancy in Tamil Nadu may not take 14 years to
mature.
Why then the ban? Two reasons are apparent. The ban
will make it a crime for any one in Tamil Nadu to
openly, repeat, openly, support the LTTE. Though such
support may now go underground, New Delhi appears to
take the view that a ban will nevertheless help to stem
open mass mobilisation of separatist sentiment in Tamil
Nadu.
But that is not all. There is a further reason.
New Delhi seeks to use the ban to deny recognition in
the international arena to the Liberation Tigers -
recognition, that is, without India having a say in the
matter. New Delhi seeks to exercise a veto on any
attempt to settle the Tamil - Sri Lanka conflict, which
sidelines India and its interests - interests which are
quite plainly spelt out in the annexures to the Indo
Sri Lanka 1987 Agreement.
High Commissioner Jha was almost viceregal in an
interview reported in Sri Lanka Sunday Times of May 17.
He said: ''The ban is a symbolic gesture with
international ramifications. India's ban on the LTTE
has confronted Sri Lanka with hard political realities
which it will have to take into consideration before
embarking on a political solution.''
In an earlier interview with the Sri Lanka Sunday
Island, also reported on May 17, Jha was nothing, if
not frank:
"Q: What would India's stand be if Colombo
proceeds towards a negotiated settlement with the
LTTE?
A: It is naturally for the Sri Lanka Government to
do whatever it thinks appropriate, but at the same
time one would expect the realities of the situation
to be kept in mind, whenever such a step is
contemplated.
Q: You mentioned that we should not behave as if
India does not exist. Can you explain that and where
we have treated India in that manner?
A: It is not an accusation, it is just advice. I
would not amplify that. That would not be fair. It is
not something serious. It is quite understandable.
Sometimes one gets that feeling. May be my feeling is
exaggerated and not an accurate one, but it is there.
It is not a permanent feeling or a lasting
feeling."
The glint of steel beneath the diplomatic velvet was
clearly visible.The Indian ban was a signal for the
Sinhala opposition including the SLFP and the
Gamini-Dissanayake/Lalith Athulathmudali DUNF to
campaign for Sri Lanka to follow suit. The quisling
EPRLF also joined in the chorus. President Premadasa
would not have been unmindful that those who were now
demanding a Sri Lanka ban on the LTTE were also those
who had been involved in the abortive effort to impeach
him last October.
New Delhi's cuddly relationship with the SLFP
goes back to the non alignment days of the early 1970s
when Srimavo Bandaranaike sponsored the Indian Ocean
Peace Zone proposal. New Delhi's relations were never
quite the same with a westward looking UNP and
certainly not with President Premadasa who did not even
turn up for the ceremonial signing of the 1987 Indo Sri
Lanka Agreement - a failure, which also may have had
something to with his arch rival Gamini Dissanayake
being one of the architects of the Agreement.
New Delhi's foreign policy has stayed constant
during these past several years. Non alignment, was
after all, a way of increasing India's influence in a
bipolar world. Today, New Delhi stays steadfast to its
objective of increasing Indian influence and aspires to
become one of the big powers of the emerging multipolar
world. High Commissioner Jha gave some indication of
this when he said:
''There are many items that have come
straightaway into focus almost simultaneously...
Question of India-US relationship, non proliferation
treaty, now this rocket deal, the breaking of the
Soviet Union, India's entry into West Asia peace
talks, the India-Pakistan relations and the
Afghanistan situation.''
The Indian Ambassador to the US remarked recently in
the context of a Gorbachev speech suggesting a place
for India on the Security Council that ''...considering
India's role in global peace and demilitarisation, it
was necessary that 800 million people should get a
share in decision making ''
Again, at the level of the Indian region, if in
the 1980s, India used the Tamil militant movement to
destabilise Colombo so that Colombo may move closer to
the Indian orbit, the ban on the LTTE suggests that New
Delhi believes that it has now found alternative
channels within the Sinhala polity through which it may
secure a Colombo government which is more responsive to
India's foreign policy objectives.
All this would not have been lost on President
Premadasa. He was quick to reject the demands by the
SLFP and the other opposition groups for a ban on the
LTTE. President Premadasa was not about to commit hara
kiri. And, ofcourse, he had his own agenda.
Ven. Madampagama Assaji Thera, the Secretary of the
Buddhist Monks delegation to Jaffna, said on May 24 :
"It is too early to say whether the (Indian) ban would
help Sri Lanka or not. But one thing we have to
understand is that it was not done to help Sri Lanka.
Banning the LTTE at this stage will definitely hamper
peace efforts."
The Sri Lankan state controlled Sunday Observer was
even more specific in its editorial on May 24: ''It is
best that the Select Committee be allowed to complete
its deliberations. Perhaps a decision to ban or not can
be taken after the Select Committee has exhausted all
its avenues.''
The Premadasa tactic was clear. Do not ban, but use
the situation created by the Indian ban, to pressure
the LTTE and achieve a 'consensus' solution to the
conflict in the Northeast through the Parliamentary
Select Committee mechanism.
The 'Select Committee Line' was the one which
President Premadasa and his Advisers have been peddling
for sometime now in international fora. This search for
'consultation, compromise and consensus' through the
Select Committee mechanism was Sri Lanka's
justification for rejecting any suggestion for
international mediation.
But, the SLFP, which lays claims to be the true
leader of the Sinhala (Buddhist) people, was clearly
unwilling to go along with the Premadasa 'Select
Committee' agenda, if that meant perpetuating President
Premadasa in power. The issues concerning the
Udugampola affidavits and the Election Commissioners
findings had been fermenting for sometime now. The SLFP
pulled the rug from under President Premadasa's feet by
calling for an immediate Parliamentary debate on the
Udugampola affidavits and when this was not granted,
withdrawing from the Parliamentary Select Committee on
the ground of the Government's contempt for
Parliament.
With the Parliamentary Select Committee option under
attack, and with the opposition crying out vociferously
for an LTTE ban and an investigation into the
Udugampola allegations, President Premadasa turned to a
military adventure in the Tamil homeland as the way out
of the impasse. It was the time honoured way for a
Sinhala government in distress to survive.
And, here, the words of the LTTE statement on the
front page of this issue of the are apposite:
''The Tamil national question has become once
again, a football in the struggle for power between
Sinhala political parties. However, the Premadasa
Government is wrong if it believes that it can
suppress a struggle for freedom by tanks and guns.
The soil that has drunk the blood of martyrs and
innocent civilians will give no peace to the would be
conqueror - it will be a quagmire for the Sri Lankan
army. "
Again, whilst it is true that due heed should be
paid to Mr.Jha's 'advice' that no one should behave as
if India does not exist it is also equally true, as a
diplomat in Washington once remarked, ''India is not a
super power - and it should not try to behave as one.''
Perhaps, even more fundamentally, and importantly, New
Delhi should learn to recognise the aspirations of the
separate nations of the Indian subcontinent and not
behave as if these national formations do not exist -
or for that matter can be destroyed.
The struggle of the Tamil people for freedom is
taking place under conditions of severe hardship within
the matrix of the power balances in the world, and in
particular the Indian region. It was Mao Tse Tung who
once said that a liberation struggle was no tea party.
To those engaged in the university of the Tamil
national struggle on the ground, that which is
sometimes said in the comfortable lounges of certain
Tamil expatriate circles may well appear as coming from
the kindergarten.
That Velupillai Pirabaharan and the Liberation
Tigers have taken the struggle of the people of Tamil
Eelam forward to the extent that they have is a tribute
(to use the words of two Indian Generals who fought
against the LTTE) to their ''incredible motivation and
magnificent fighting prowess'' and their ''discipline,
dedication, determination, motivation and technical
expertise". Recent events serve to vindicate the stand
of the Liberation Tigers that, in the context of the
emerging new world order, it is international mediation
that will provide the path to peace, stability, and
freedom in the whole island.
