Hariharan's MI blog: June 2010

Monday, June 21, 2010

Dr Dayan Jayatilleka explains why for Sri Lanka, India is indispensable

Two of my recent Sri Lanka up dates in SAAG (also published in this blog) "Indian Concerns in Sri Lanka" on June 6th and "Sri Lanka: Much ado about few things" on June 17th relating to Sri Lanka President Mahinda Rajapaksa's visit reproduced in Sri Lanka media appear to have ruffled the feathers of many in the Sinhalese lobby. They have questioned the very basis of India-Sri Lanka relations, which occupies a unique place in the sub continent. They are equating it with Sri Lanka -China relations which are altogether on a different plane.

I found Dr Dayan Jaya, well known political analyst and Left Wing intellectual, who served as Sri Lanka's permanent representative to the UN, Geneva, during the crucial period of the Eelam War IV, had eloquently explained why India is more indispensable for Sri Lanka than Sri Lanka is for India in a recent interview to Lakbimanews. And it was carried in the www.transcurrents.com on June 12, 2010. I am reproducing Dr Jayatilleka's interview here for readers benefit (though in my view Sri Lanka is also equally indispensable for India)courtesy Lakbimanews.

For India, Sri Lanka is not indispensable, but for Sri Lanka, India is indispensable

An Interview with Dr.Dayan Jayatilleka
By Rathindra Kuruwita

Question: President Mahinda Rajapaksa left for India recently and he is set to show his Indian counterpart a draft of the proposed Constitutional amendments. This is seen by many as a gesture of subjugation and their requests to open a Deputy High Commissioner’s office in Kandy and a consulate office in Hambanthota and their insistence of implementing the 13th Amendment are seen by many as attempts to impose their will on Sri Lanka?

Answer:You use the term ‘many’. Who are these ‘many’ and where are they? I have only seen criticisms voiced by the usual handful of Southern extremists, and some small political parties both in government as well as defeated ones. President Rajapaksa is a patriot and a realist, a pragmatist. The handful of critics may be patriots but they are not realists. When we antagonized India we could not win the war, but when we correctly managed relations with India, we won the war. If India had opposed us or not supported us, we may not have been able to win or withstand the Western moves to stop the war. There is a saying that there is no such thing as a free lunch. Every relationship is reciprocal. Sri Lanka has to reciprocate for India’s support.

We must bear in mind that we still need that support because, though the hot war has been won by us, a cold war continues against us in the global arena.

We need India’s support to balance off those who are hostile to us or are influenced by the pro-Eelam trend in the Tamil Diaspora. India is our buffer with the USA. Delhi is under pressure to take a stand hostile to us, or to stop supporting us. That pressure comes from Tamil Nadu but not only from Tamil Nadu...from India’s civil society as well as some of India’s Western friends. If India stops supporting us, not even the Non Aligned Movement will defend us fully, because they take their cue from respected Third World states such as India.

If India allows Tamil Nadu or Kerala to become rear base areas once again for LTTE activity, we will have endless security problems. It is only someone who is deaf, dumb and blind to geo-political realities, who will not admit that India has a stake in our Tamil issue, simply because they have 70 million Tamils separated from our territory by a narrow strip of water. As for the 13th Amendment, I must say very clearly that this is the cheapest price to pay. It is simply a matter of letting the Northern and Eastern provincial councils have the same powers as enjoyed by the provincial councils in all other parts of the island for the last 20 years. If we don’t settle for the 13th Amendment now, we shall jeopardize our military gains and we shall probably have to pay a much higher price some years from now.

The request to open a consulate office in Hambantota seems to be an attempt to balance out the Chinese influence in the area. Wouldn’t this add to the already existing tension between the two super powers? And how would this tussle affect Sri Lanka?

We have to balance carefully between China and India. China is our most consistent and strongest single friend, but the reality is that even with its growing power, China is rather too far to come to our aid if our closest and only neighbor makes a move that is unfriendly to us. As we saw during the tsunami, India’s Navy can put a ring of steel around this island in hours, and even project her naval power up to Indonesia. China’s Navy has not yet developed such a capacity.

We must be aware of our strategic vulnerabilities. We must understand the limits of our China card. In the 1980s, J R Jayewardane’s UNP government thought that Sri Lanka can play the American card against India but he failed. Today, no one must have the opposite but similar illusion that we have a China card to play against India. Even China will not want to upset its relations with giant India, over little Sri Lanka. China did not come to its ally and our friend Pakistan’s aid during the Kargil crisis, when it was pushed back by India. China doesn’t want the West to entangle and entrap it in a tussle with India, which will prevent the onward rise of Asia as a whole.

Sri Lanka must realize that there is a miracle going on, namely the economic rise of Asia, which is propelled by two engines, China and India. It is bigger than the original Industrial revolution! If we plug into both these engines, we can rise with the rest of Asia. If not, we shall be left on the ground, like Myanmar. The man renowned as the Sage of Asia, Lee Kwan Yew, recently said that China and India are two great trees and that Singapore must find a spot in the shade where the branches of these two great trees intertwine. I think that is true, and good advice, for Sri Lanka too.

Although India can match China or the USA in meeting Sri Lanka’s economic needs, it cannot help us on the world political stage as do China or the USA who have UN veto powers. Your opinion please?

India is a member of G 20. It is also a member of many groupings of intermediate powers such as BRICS which consists of Russia, China, Brazil, India and South Africa. If India gives a green light the West, will move against us. The US hasn’t so far, because of its strategic partnership with India, which it needs in order to balance off China. As I said before, without India’s support we will not even get that of our ‘tribe’ the Non Aligned Movement. India has longstanding close relations with Russia, South Africa and Latin America. In fact, India is one of the few powers that have support in the West as well as the East, in the North and well as the South, while China and the USA are competitors who do not have support in some parts of the international system.

We must never forget that despite China’s goodwill, not a dog supported us when India went against us in 1987. Today, despite China’s political support, Sudan is before the International Criminal Court, because it was referred there by the Security Council and China did not block it. The basic reality is that Sri Lanka’s closest friend China is not closest to Sri Lanka physically, geographically! We must neither embarrass nor overburden our friend China nor must we place all our eggs in the Beijing basket.

It was China and Russia that helped us out in the United Nations in the recent past. And they can also assist us in the future as allegations of war crimes gather momentum. So are we jeopardizing their support by seemingly giving into the demands of the Indians?

Russia will not help us if India says not to. Take that from me. The US would have moved against us in the UN and more importantly the IMF last year, if not for India putting in a word in our favour. We have been operating under the Indian and Chinese umbrellas diplomatically, but if the Indian umbrella is furled up, nobody will back us. Our friends will start stepping away from us. This is the basic point: India is so big; it is such a vast market and so powerful an economic player; it is so vital strategically, that no one will take our side against India; no one will support us if India is known to be against us.

I can tell you that as far as certain key issues go, such as the Tamil question and a political settlement with the Tamils, there is no difference between the views of India, China, Russia and the USA! That is true of the Non-aligned countries as well. You noticed that we almost had a problem recently with a pro-Tamil Eelam infiltration and manifestation in revolutionary Venezuela! All these countries want us to settle the Tamil problem politically, by which they mean some kind of autonomy. No one supports Tamil Eelam and no one, not even the USA, has called for federalism, but everyone, and I mean all our friends, want us to solve this problem fast, by means of devolution of power. For India, Sri Lanka is not indispensable, but for Sri Lanka, India is indispensable. That is the cold reality. That is the hard fact.

Can we use the interest shown by all these powers, China, India, USA and the EU without eventually antagonizing one or more parties?

Of course, we can. Lakshman Kadirgamar did it. Before that, Mrs Sirimavo Bandaranaike did it. But we cannot keep saying no to every issue to everybody! And we cannot manage on our own! We must reach out to all, on all points of the compass. We must dialogue with all. Prof GL Pieris has the ability to do that, which he has proven with his successful US trip and meeting with Hillary Clinton. Once again, we have a foreign minister that every Sri Lankans and Sri Lankans everywhere can be proud of.

We must have a policy that defends our vital interests, and compromise on things that are not vital. We must safeguard our core strategic and security interests, while making concessions on tactical issues. Each of these powers has something we need and each of them needs something from us. In order to get what we need we need to give something, which sometimes means giving up something. We cannot have the kavum and eat it at the same time!

The first thing is to understand that we cannot live in isolation, like frogs in the well. If we try, we will crash economically and the Tamil Eelam forces waiting outside the country will triumph. We must also understand that we cannot have everything our way; we cannot negotiate with the rest of the world from a position of strength because we do not have such strength. To build up strength we must have good relations with the world and expand those relations, getting as much as we can and more importantly, learning as much as we can. Each of the global players or sectors you mentioned wants certain things from us, and we should give them whatever does not harm our core interest and our good relations with the other global player or friend. We can have a policy of good relations with all, but at the expense of none.

Since we have an external enemy working round the clock against us, namely the pro-Tamil Eelam section of the Tamil Diaspora, our international policy must be one of building the broadest global united front; the widest global partnerships. If we don’t isolate the Tamil Eelamists, they will isolate Sri Lanka! Here I must repeat what I said earlier: the one thing that all the players you mentioned - China, USA, India, EU, have in common is an urgent need to see Sri Lanka release and rehabilitate IDPs, reconstruct the North and east and arrive at a political settlement with the Tamil people based on some form of autonomy and self- administration. If we do that, we can remove or reduce the pressure on Sri Lanka on issues of war crimes etc. As a top Chinese diplomat and official once told me “You must help us to help you. Sri Lanka must give its friends something to help Sri Lanka with”.

One year after the defeat of the LTTE, what is Sri Lanka’s position in the world. Would you agree if I say, we have not properly used the opportunities given to us to improve relations with other countries? South Indian politicians and its population are still very much anti-Sri Lankan, a sentiment which was clear during the recently held IIFA. Elements of Tamil extremists have set up a transnational government and seem to have gained many sympathizers in the west?

One year after the victory in war, Sri Lanka is not where it should be, either in the world or internally. We have lost the war of opinion in the world’s media. If, as I had recommended, we had quickly followed up the military victory with the implementation of the 13th Amendment while the TNA was disoriented, we’d have been dealing with our ally Douglas Devananda. We lost that moment and momentum because of some small ideological caucuses of ultra nationalist pundits who have a dis- proportionate influence. Even after that opportunity was lost, there are things we could have done.

The government has made the same mistake as the Bush administration after the war in Iraq, namely the absence of a clear postwar plan and program for the area and primarily, the people. Our military did its job superbly, but who congratulates us internationally, one year after? No one, not even our friends defend us publicly when we are criticized! Why? Because, the politicians and the development ministries have not followed up the achievement of the military.

We fought and won a Just War (‘Saadharana Yuddhayak’), but the world looks at us and does not see a Just Peace (‘Saadhaarana Saamayak’) having resulted. What the world sees is something like an occupation of a foreign country or foreign people. Because we do not yet have a Just Peace, world opinion doubts whether it was a Just War to begin with! That is not a sustainable peace.

Simply put, if by today we had a Tamil Chief Minister and an elected Northern Provincial council, the IIFA partial boycott would not have been possible and furthermore, we may not have had this much international pressure on ‘war crimes accountability mechanisms’ either. If we could have shown results in the North, winning the Tamil people over with a fair and just peace, the rest of the world would have told those who criticize us to shut up.

I must also say that in the year after the war, Sri Lanka is losing, or has lost the battle for world opinion. I am not speaking only of the West. In a brand new book, the highly respected senior leader of Singapore, Lee Kwan Yew says that though the Tamil Tigers have been killed, the problem has not been settled and that Sinhalese extremism will be unable to keep the Tamils, who are a ‘capable’ community, ‘submissive’. So it is not just the INGOs and the liberal west which is critical of our postwar policies, direction and situation.

Col. P. Hariharan in his article “India’s concerns in Sri Lanka: Update no. 199’ says that ‘the three things he (Rajapaksa) achieved in his first term of office - wiping out Prabhakaran and his Tamil Tigers, re-election for a second term with increased margin of votes and an unprecedented victory in parliamentary poll with 60% mandate from the voters - give him the confidence to talk from a position of strength to New Delhi.’ Do you think it’s an accurate description of the situation since it stands in contrast with many other commentators who claim that President Rajapaksa has no other option but to agree to everything that India puts on the table?

The only leaders who can talk from a position of strength to New Delhi are President Obama of the USA and President Hu Jin Tao of China, but they are both wise enough not to do so.

What can Sri Lanka do to overcome the challenges both locally and internationally in the coming years?

We must use our brains, and may I say our best brains. We must deploy our best talent to face the global challenge and fight the Cold War against Sri Lanka. We must rebuild our educational system to the point that we can produce those who can compete in the global arena and beat those forces hostile to us. We need to build up quality human resources. Today our external and internal relations are tied together. Our external relations depend in large measure on how we resolve our internal problem with the Tamils.

Remember that it is not a purely internal problem though we may like to think so. In the first place the world is globalised; humanity lives in the era of globalization, so there are no purely internal questions. In the second place the Tamils are spread not only in Tamil Nadu but throughout the world, from the USA to Malaysia and South Africa. We must learn from King Dutugemunu. He wiped out the armed Tamil challenge as manifested in a separate kingdom with a separate king and a separate army. He knew that with the Indian Ocean at our backs, we cannot tolerate two kingdoms with two rival armies on this small island.

However, the story tells us that after the victory he appointed a Tamil sub-king and allowed the people of the area to be governed according to their cultural norms and customs. As a wise strategist he didn’t try to control and dominate everything, nor did he try to change the basic character of the area he had liberated. What he implemented postwar, is another word for provincial devolution within a strong unitary state. King Dutugemunu was wise enough not to think of culturally colonizing the Tamils. We cannot wipe out the Tamils collective identity.

If they think we are doing so, they will resist peacefully. If we are seen by the world to crush non-violent Tamil civic resistance, not in the cause of Tamil Eelam or in support of the Tigers, but simply to protect their identity and ancestral homelands, then we will embarrass our friends and we shall have no one to back us. This is when the pro-Tamil Eelam Tamil Diaspora will have its day. Who knows what stand the big powers and the UN will take then? It is far better to have a timely political process and grant a measure of autonomy while the state is still on top.

[Dr Dayan Jayatilleka, formerly Sri Lanka’s Permanent Representative to the UN in Geneva, is currently a Visiting Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of South Asian Studies of the National University of Singapore. This interview appeared in Lakbima News.These are his personal views and do not reflect the views of the Institute.]

Sunday, June 20, 2010

Chinese Interest in Hambantota, Chittagong Ports --- An Update

By B Raman

China, which is already meeting in the form of a soft loan from its Ex-Im Bank 85 per cent of the cost of construction (US $ 360 million) of the first phase of the Hambantota port in Southern Sri Lanka, has agreed to give another soft loan of US $ 200 million towards the cost of construction of the second phase due to start early next year. An agreement in this regard was signed by the concerned officials during the visit of Chinese Vice Premier Zhang Dejiang to Colombo from June 10 to 12, 2010. With this, the total Chinese funding for the project will come to about US $ 500 million, out of its total estimated cost of US $ one billion. The project being undertaken in three phases is expected to be completed by 2023. It is too early to say whether China will substantially fund the third and last phase too.

2. The first stage due to be ready by end 2010 will allow three ships to berth. The final stage, for which there is no offer of funding yet from China, is planned to accommodate more than 30 ships, which is the present capacity at Colombo. President Mahinda Rajapaksa is trying to develop Hambantota in his home district into another Colombo with its own port as big and as modern as Colombo, its own international airport at Weerawila, its own oil storage facilities and refinery, its own tourist hub, its own international conference hall and its own complex of sports stadia to enable it to bid for the Asian Games one day. He is hoping that the Chinese will ultimately fund the major part of the cost of his Hambantota dream. He has also sought South Korean funding for the proposed international conference hall.

3. While China has readily expanded its financial commitment for the Hambantota project, it is still to make up its mind on the request from Sheikh Hasina, Prime Minister of Bangladesh, made during her visit to China in March last for Chinese financial and construction assistance for the expansion and modernization of the Chittagong port. While the Chinese have agreed to consider her request sympa-thetically, they have not yet come out with a concrete project. Expectations that they would make a firm announcement during the just-concluded visit (June 13 and 14, 2010) to Dhaka by Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping have been belied.

4. Local news agencies did report that during his talks with Sheikh Hasina, Mr.Xi “proposed to give assistance to Bangladesh for building a deep seaport in Chittagong and installing the country's first space satellite” and that “Beijing also agreed to quickly disburse its assistance for the Pagla Water Treatment Plant and the Shahjalal Fertiliser Factory”, but there was no official announcement. Briefing reporters on the outcome of the talks, Foreign Minister Dipu Moni said the Chinese side assured more investment in Bangladesh, and promised to reduce the bilateral trade imbalance by allowing more Bangladeshi products to have duty-free access to the Chinese market. She added that the Chinese agreed to help Bangladesh in ensuring food security and in combating militancy and terrorism. She also said that China also agreed to extend cooperation for the development of telecommunication and infrastructure in Bangladesh. While there was thus a mention of Chinese assistance for the development of infrastructure, there was no specific reference to the proposal for Chinese assistance for the expansion and modernization of the Chittagong port. The issue was formally raised by Sheikh Hasina with the Chinese leaders only in March and it is perhaps too early for the Chinese to come out with a formal proposal.

5. After Gwadar on the Mekran coast of Pakistan, the first phase of which has already been completed and the port commissioned, their focus has been on the early completion of the first phase of the construction of the Hambantota port and its commissioning by the end of this year and the start of the second phase. They are attaching equal priority to the timely completion of the Kyakpyu port off the Arakan coast in Myanmar, the construction of which started last year. While they are interested in taking up the project for the expansion and modernization of the Chittagong port, it does not as yet seem to enjoy the same priority as Gwadar, Hambantota and Kyakpyu, which, in their view, are important for ensuring their energy flows from West Asia and Africa. They do not seem to attach the same urgency to the Chittagong project from the point of view of their energy flows.

6. There are so far no indications of a Chinese interest in a naval base at Hambantota or Kyaukpyu or Chittagong. Their interest in a naval base at Gwadar remains strong. Retired Chinese naval officials have been underlining the importance of rest, refueling and re-stocking facilities for Chinese ships deployed in the Indian Ocean and the Gulf of Aden. Gwadar is attractive in this regard, but if the internal security situation in Balochistan where Gwadar is located remains unsatisfactory, Hambantota could become their fall-back choice.

(The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and Associate of the Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com)

Courtesy: South Asia Analysis Group, June 16, 2010
URL: http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/%5Cpapers39%5Cpaper3863.html

Thursday, June 17, 2010

Sri Lanka: Much ado about few things

By Col R Hariharan

From Indian point of view the much hyped visit of Sri Lanka President Mahinda Rajapaksa to New Delhi from June 8 to 11 can be summed up in one sentence as ‘much ado about few things,’ with apologies to Shakespeare.

Shorn of usual diplomatic fillers, the tangibles in the joint statement issued at the end of the visit were on three tracks. One set formalised projects already in the pipeline for sometime and included financial incentives from India to push them forward. The other set attended to easing structural arrangements (i.e., agreements, MoUs, statement of intentions) to promote better relations and trading arrangements. And the third set related to rehabilitation largesse from India.
But there was little or no animation of perennial issues discussed in the joint statement. There were very few hopeful signs to progress three gritty issues – rehabilitation, devolution, and strategic security. Overall, the impression created after the President’s visit is that India had tacitly agreed to let President Rajapaksa handle these issues at his own pace in his own style. I will be happy if those involved in the process prove me wrong.

The Indian Prime Minister making the inane statement that “a meaningful devolution package, building upon the 13th Amendment, would create the necessary conditions for a lasting political settlement,” creates the impression that sidelining of the Tamil issue appears to have been accepted. In the last three years India's representatives have said the same thing a number of times. And Sri Lanka's response had been more to buy time than make any real progress on the issue.

President Rajapaksa does not talk any more about the 13th amendment or even the 13th amendment +. So not surprisingly in the joint statement he made no commitment to implement the 13th amendment – which in any case has been pushed to the realms of relevance. The President merely “reiterated his determination to evolve a political settlement acceptable to all communities that would act as a catalyst to create the necessary conditions in which all the people of Sri Lanka could lead their lives in an atmosphere of peace, justice and dignity, consistent with democracy, pluralism, equal opportunity and respect for human rights. Towards this end, the President expressed his resolve to continue to implement in particular the relevant provisions of the Constitution designed to strengthen national amity and reconciliation through empowerment.”

Have we not been hearing similar dialogue for a long time now between Sri Lanka and India? It is difficult to understand how the mere repetition of implementation of13th amendment as a mantra from Indian side and the flowery rhetoric on democracy, pluralism et al from the Sri Lankan side are going to improve the lot of Tamils. Are we not thinking of any other options? Apparently not; otherwise it would have found a place in the joint statement.

So it is no wonder Tamils on both sides of the Palk Strait feel they have been let down very badly by India. The window dressing offered by arranging a meeting between the visiting President and the members of parliament from Tamil Nadu might satisfy the ruling coalition party leaders but not the people. The rhetoric and political manoeuvring on this count to be wearing thin as people are waiting to see visible action on all fronts from Indian side.

Of course, later in Chennai Home Minister P Chidambaram presumably on a mission to ‘enlighten’ Tamil Nadu on the takeaways, highlighted India’s allocation of Rs 1000 crores to build 50,000 houses for people in north and south left to fend for themselves. And he explained that the money would be directly given to householders through banks.

While this is laudable, the process of rehabilitation has remained good in parts like the proverbial curate’s egg. But what is the overall architecture for enabling the people ravaged by war to resume normal life and join the national mainstream? Without such an architecture bound by a time frame, accountability from both sides and integrated execution, these welfare measures tend to get dislocated, downgraded or even get hijacked. For instance, in the east infrastructure facilities have made good progress, but peoples struggle for livelihood continues as before.

When the Eelam War raged there were protests in Tamil Nadu by pro-Eelam and pro-Tamil Tigers segments of political parties on happenings in Sri Lanka. Then these were joined in by protests on human rights violations and humanitarian issues and war crimes. The protests were neither large nor spectacular. But they were there.

During President Rajapaksa’s visit this time - a year after the war - the protests have become significant because there is no Prabhakaran or war to give a boost to these protests. The protests had gathered sufficient public and media attention, even without the orchestration provided by the war.

The pro-Eelam leaders Vaiko and Nedumaran and about thousand followers courted arrest while protesting against the President’s visit. These protests have to be studied in sequence of Sri Lanka-centric events that have been happening. First there was pressure on film personalities to boycott the International Indian Film Awards function in Colombo. These were followed by protests in other forms in Tamil Nadu. There are indications of simmering discontent over Sri Lanka policy increasing into effervescence.

A Public Interest Litigation filed in the Madras High Court sought issue of directions to the government to arrest Sri Lanka Minister Douglas Devananda, who was part of President Rajapaksa’s entourage. The PIL alleged Devananda was a proclaimed offender, wanted in a slew of cases including murder in Tamil Nadu.

The moot point is the Tamil Minister, well known for his strong anti-Prabhakaran stance and equally strong support to the President, had visited India and Tamil Nadu a number of times even at the height of the Eelam War. And nobody thought of raising the issue on such occasions earlier. Why now, after the defeat of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and decimation of its leadership? Clearly the PIL was aimed at embarrassing New Delhi and the visiting dignitary.

The other incident was more sinister. Thanks to alertness of railway staff, the Rock fort Express train going from Kumbakonam to Chennai escaped from accident after a metre-long portion of the railway track was found blown up at Sithani, about 25 km from Villupuram junction on the railway link to Chennai. The incident happened a day after President Rajapaksa flew out of New Delhi. High-power gel-type explosive device ignited by electric power had been used indicating familiarity with handling of explosives. It was powerful enough to create 80-cm crater and blow up the sleeper along with a piece of the rail. The Police were quick to suspect the Tamil Nadu Maoist elements and later the Tamil Tiger acolytes in the act of sabotage. Both are capable of organising the sabotage. Even though they failed to derail the train, with their act they have sent a strong message of their extreme frustration at India’s inability to respond to the Tamil problems in Sri Lanka.

During the Eelam War, there were a few instances of the LTTE elements and the Maoists coming together for mutual benefit. But caught between the turbulence of caste politics and the allure of Dravidian political idiom, Maoists were always weak force in Tamil Nadu. Even those few fell out with the all India body of the organisation in the eighties over the question of supporting Tamil nationalism. They could not survive as a cohesive entity in the face of the Tamil Nadu police dragnet. So they scattered and have become embedded in one or more of the half a dozen small Tamil political outfits.

These fringe outfits have diverse agendas, but are united in the struggle to preserve exclusiveness of Tamil identity and Tamil nationalism which they feel are threatened by New Delhi and Colombo. They are unhappy that even the Tamil Nadu chief minister Karunanidhi, who used to tacitly support the Tamil identity issue, has joined the national political mainstream and let them down.

It is doubtful whether the disparate groups can come together to form a mighty insurgent body in Tamil Nadu like the LTTE and wage war as Prabhakaran did. That may never happen. But they represent the extreme edge of the anger many Tamils are feeling over India’s failure to respond positively to attend to the Tamil grievances in Sri Lana. This is more so because India had vigorously championed their cause in the past. This feeling has many takers among Sri Lankan Tamils both at home and abroad.

Usually police are left to handle developments of extremism in a knee jerk reaction. However, in Tamil Nadu the approach has to be more nuanced. We need to pay serious attention to the issues that have generated the discontent and act to produce visible results in Sri Lanka. And political parties of Tamil Nadu have a large responsibility in suggesting and steering New Delhi to positive courses of action than merely acting as listening posts, playing politics.
Courtesy: South Asia Analysis Group, June 17, 2010
URL:http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/%5Cnotes6%5Cnote589.html

Wednesday, June 16, 2010

India-China Relations: An Indian Perspective

By D. S. Rajan

At the request made through e-mail, of Senior Editor Ding Li, of Beijing-based weekly newspaper “Economic Observer”, being brought out both in English and Chinese, an article on “India-China Relations: An Indian Perspective”, containing personal views of Mr D. S. Rajan, Director, Chennai Centre for China Studies, CCCS, on the subject, was prepared; The “Economic Observer”, which began operating in 2000 with its website appearing in 2007, and which describes itself as an ‘independent’ organ nurturing ‘progressive spirit and journalistic integrity’, has now published the Chinese language version of that article for the benefit of its readers on 14 June 2010- URL: http://www.eeo.com.cn/eeo/jjgcb/2010/06/14/172597.shtml. The newspaper has informed the CCCS that such Indian perspectives will help the readers in China to better understand the bilateral relations.

The Chinese publishers have published a verbatim translation of Mr. Rajan’s article, with no attempt to censor. It is a good sign that the Chinese media like Economic Observer, have started educating their readers in such a manner about Indian sensitivities on bilateral issues. The original article of Mr Rajan in English is given below - SAAG

There is a growing perception now that the global economic gravity has shifted to Asia and that India and China, the emerging economic powerhouses in the region, will shape the Twenty-first century. In making such feelings a reality however, the nature of the future dynamics of domestic conditions as well as external relations of the two nations appears a crucial factor; this article attempts to focus in particular on the future prospects for India-China ties on the premise that this, along with the roles of other Asian powers like Japan, is going to be important in the matter of guaranteeing the stability and prosperity of the region as well as rest of the world. The article tries to present the Chinese side with Indian perspectives of key developments. Chinese perspectives are already being made available in India in a similar manner. The writer feels that put together, such exchanges will facilitate creation of a better mutual understanding between the two sides, impacting favourably on the overall India-China relationship.

Growing Optimism

Broadly speaking, India-China ties at government levels remain stable at this juncture; New Delhi and Beijing have established a ‘strategic and cooperative partnership for peace and prosperity’ and signed a document on ‘shared vision for the 21st century’, signifying that the Sino-Indian ties have gone beyond the bilateral context and acquired a global character. Accordingly, India and China are cooperating on international issues related to the diversification of global energy mix, climate change, arms control and disarmament, non-traditional security threats, counter-terrorism, WTO, WMD, human rights and South-South Co-operation. Bilaterally, the two sides now aim at building ‘a relationship of friendship and trust, based on equality, in which each is sensitive to the concerns and aspirations of the other’.

They are not viewing each other as a security threat and are by and large satisfactorily implementing confidence building measures in the disputed border, besides carrying out joint military exercises. Special Representatives of India and China have so far held thirteen rounds of border talks, though with no tangible results. Most important is that with an attitude of promoting ties looking beyond the unsolved and ‘complex’ border dispute, India and China are speeding up their trade and economic contacts. Bilateral trade is fast gathering momentum, with the volume to the tune of US$ 40 billion now and projections for US$ 60 billion by 2010.

China has emerged as India’s largest trading partner, replacing the US, in April 2008- February 2009 period. Also significant is the ongoing momentum in their exchanges of high level visits reflecting the desire of each party to forge stronger ties, of which the recently concluded state visit of Indian President Ms Patil to China is a prominent example. Notwithstanding the encouraging picture brought out above, there are issues deeply dividing India and China; resolving them once for all is of utmost necessity, to further strengthen their relations. There are some talks in India about the past civilisational contacts helping resolution of the issues; they however lack substance. As modern nation states, the India and China have developed geo-political interests, which often tend to clash. What follows is a discussion on the conditions contributing to India-China frictions and the likely scenario in bilateral ties in future.

PROBLEM AREAS

Boundary Issue

As this writer sees, the boundary issue comes foremost in the list of problem areas. It is most sensitive one for both India and China as it relates closely to territorial integrity and sovereignty in respect of each side. It therefore needs to be handled carefully by the two nations.

China’s understanding of Indian perspectives on the boundary issue will remain incomplete if it does not take into account the traditional doubts prevailing in India on China having been territorially ambitious. Examples being quoted in India in this regard include Mao’s description of China’s ‘palm’ (Tibet) and ‘five fingers’ (Nepal, Sikkim, Bhutan, NEFA and Ladakh); references are also being made in India to the PRC’s sense of ‘historical loss’ of territories expressed through their maps and atlas series, published in eighties. Such maps had even been seen claiming that India’s Assam, even Andamans, were ‘historically’ parts of China.

Proceeding from ‘doubts’ to substantive points, it is being seen in India that the border positions of India and China are in conflict with each other and hence are difficult to solve. China’s claims are based on its historical stand – all its borders, including with India, are as defined during the Qing dynasty period which ended in 1912.The root of the border problem with India lies in Beijing’s position that a large chunk of its territory, especially the 90,000 Sq km area in the Eastern sector, were illegally taken away by the British India, after the 1914 Simla Convention and that India inherited the British legacy.

This has provided the rationale for Beijing in rejecting the McMahon line, a product of the Convention and in claiming the entire Arunachal Pradesh state of India as part of Chinese territory, called by it as ‘Southern Tibet’ Authoritative scholars in China have categorically stated that Beijing cannot recognize the McMahon line; if it did so, it would amount to Chinese admission of the 1962 conflict as a ‘war of aggression’ as well as an implicit acknowledgement that Tibet was once independent of China . On the other hand, for India, McMahon line remains the ‘de facto’ border with China.

The Sino-Indian border problem remains complicated with the Chinese claiming recently the 2.1 Sq km ‘finger area’ of Sikkim, the status of which as an Indian state has already been recognized by Beijing ‘de facto’. On the current scenario, meriting attention are India’s concerns arising from various factors – the reported Chinese intrusions, said to number 270 in 2008, into the Indian border, the adverse reaction of Beijing to the visit of the Indian Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh to Arunachal Pradesh, China’s bid to stop the loans for Arunachal Pradesh from the Asian Development Bank and strong Chinese state-controlled media criticisms of India’s dispatch of additional troops to and positioning of advanced fighter aircraft in its Eastern border. Adding to India’s discomfort has also been the rise in the level of Chinese media rhetoric against India, noticed in 2009; this has however subsided now.

Sino-Indian border talks, despite thirteen rounds of talks so far between two Special representatives, have not led to any tangible result in finalising a ‘frame work’ for a boundary settlement in accordance with the Agreement on Political Parameters, reached in 2005. While Beijing’s stand is to approach the border issue in the spirit of ‘mutual understanding and mutual accommodation’, India wants ‘ground realities’ to be taken into account. About the reported Chinese claim over Tawang, an interesting argument is that besides strategic factors, the same has been due to the China’s fears that Buddhist monasteries in the border including the one in Tawang have been centers of Tibetan resistance to the Chinese authority and as such, they should be taken over by it. Interestingly, the Chinese have introduced some new elements to the border question by questioning the already agreed position of keeping areas with settled populations out of the dispute. Is China ready for accommodation on the border issue? The statement made by the PRC Ambassador to India in November 2006 that both sides should make compromises on the ‘disputed’ Arunachal may be meaningful in this regard.

China’s general stand is to ‘shelve’ the difficult border issues like the one with India and instead work for ‘common development’. For e.g the PRC wants to ‘shelve’ the South China Sea territorial dispute, leave the Senkaku issue with Japan for ‘future generations’ to solve and ‘put aside the Sino-Indian border dispute waiting for a suitable climate for solution’ (Deng Xiaoping to the then Indian leader Vajpayee, Beijing, 1979). What is being noticed in India is that China never gives up its claims on sovereignty over disputed areas. An example is Japan-China settlement on exploring the disputed Chunxiao gas field in the East China Sea.

Though Beijing has agreed for joint development of the field, it has declared that China’s sovereignty over the field is indisputable. The Chinese ‘shelving’ formula needs close scrutiny of India in particular. As this writer views, this formula has inherent flaws – for some at least, the projected completion of China’s military modernization in 2050 may create new pressures on the leaders in Beijing at that time to become aggressive on all border issues. What are therefore needed are serious efforts from India and China at their border talks, leading to a ‘compromise’ based solution to the issue, much sooner than later.

OTHER BILATERAL ISSUES

Tibet Issue

Tibet issue is prominent among other problems. It can be said that with India accepting the Tibet Autonomous Region as an integral part of China and standing firmly against any anti-China activity of the Dalai Lama from India’s soil, this issue does not figure in Sino-Indian state to state relations. However, Beijing appears to be having reservations on India’s motives with respect to the Dalai Lama. The State-controlled media allegation , made on the eve of Manmohan Singh – Wen Jiabao meeting in Thailand, that the Dalai Lama is colluding with India whenever Sino-Indian border talks are held, along with the Chinese official view that the proposed visit to Arunachal Pradesh by the Dalai Lama in November 2009, ‘further exposes the anti-China and separatist nature of the Dalai clique’ and a subsequent authoritative comment that such visits cast a new shadow on Sino-Indian relations, firmly point to Beijing’s approach linking the Dalai Lama factor with the Sino-Indian border question.

China’s fears need to be understood in the context of March 2008 unrest in Tibet, posing a challenge to China’s sovereignty over that territory, even weakening Beijing’s position in its border negotiations with India. Also, the question as to why India is tolerating the Tibetan Government in Exile in its soil, seems to be bothering China. Premier Wen Jiabao’s description of the Tibet issue as a ‘sensitive’ one in relations with India, assumes significance in the context of what has been said above. The writer feels that Chinese suspicions on India-Dalai Lama relations are not going to disappear soon; the picture may change if talks between Beijing and the exiled spiritual leader succeed, but chances in this regard appear to be bleak at least for the moment.

China-Pakistan Nexus

China-Pakistan nexus is the next major bilateral issue. A better understanding is required in China about India’s sensitivities on this account. The Chinese military, missiles and nuclear help to Pakistan continues, but Beijing is not in a position to give a guarantee to India that Pakistan will not leverage such support from China, to fight against India. Not surprisingly, New Delhi perceives that China’s military assistance to Pakistan has direct implications for India.

China’s Defence Modernisation

On the third issue of China’s military modernization programme, India’s concerns are being expressed through its important government documents, for e.g. the Defence Ministry’s Annual Report (2008-2009) has said that the programme has implications for India’s defence and security. Asking Beijing to show greater transparency in its defence policy and postures, particularly on the double-digit growth in defence spending in last two decades, it has observed that China’s stated aim in its Defence White Paper for 2008 to develop missiles, space based assets and blue water naval capabilities will have an effect on the overall military environment in the neighbourhood of India. The Chinese side should properly address such concerns of India.

China’s policy towards India’s Neighborhood

India’s concerns also relate to China’s attempts to establish a strategic presence in India’s neighbourhood, for e.g port projects like Gwadar (Pakistan), Hambantota(Sri Lanka), Chittagong (Bangladesh). They are giving rise to fears in India of a Chinese encirclement of the country, under what has come to be known as a ‘string of pearls strategy’. The PRC has taken care to officially repudiate such concerns, by asserting that it has no plans to try for domination of the shipping lanes in the Indian Ocean and has no intentions to establish a chain to encircle India. An India-China understanding on the issue is a must for further improving bilateral relations.

India-US Relations

Chinese critical positions on the India-US relations are also a matter of India’s concern. The Chinese have welcomed the India-US Strategic Dialogue and are themselves promoting ties with the US. Still, China seems to nurture fears about US-India collusion against it. Its official media description of India’s policy as one ‘befriending the far and attacking the near’ is unmistakably an indirect, but strong criticism of the developing strategic relations between India and the US.

East Asia Integration

It would be necessary for China to pay attention to the Indian perception that it hesitates to accept India’s leading role in the East Asian regional integration process on the plea that the process should only be based on ASEAN+3 (China, Japan and South Korea) cooperation, and that ‘ outsiders’ like India, Australia and New Zealand have no place in it.

India’s Defence Strategy

Reports in India about the country’s defence strategy visualizing war on two fronts- Pakistan and China, have been commented upon in China. A Chinese comment (China Youth Daily) has said that India’s real target is China, not Pakistan. Indian strategic planners have only done a scenario building; war is not an option for India, which wants to settle its historic problems with its two neighbours peacefully. Under the strategy, both land and sea power are getting emphasis in India, which reflects a logical consideration of the country’s geopolitical position.

How to read Chinese Media?

The Indian public does not understand the reasons for appearance of hawkish views on India in some of China’s strategic journals/websites. Global Times and writers like Colonel Dai Xu, have often given controversial views on India. How far such views reflect official thinking remains a question in India. Is the People’s Liberation army (PLA) influencing China’s foreign policy making? Even the US Defence Secretary Robert Gates has hinted to such possibilities (Shangrila Dialogue, Singapore, 2010).The answer to such misgivings may lie in the need for reporting transparency in China.

Economy

Questions are being asked in China on how India will use its economic power. They are similar to doubts in India and abroad about China’s intentions once its modernization programme gets completed, say in 2050. China has announced peaceful development as its goal. India’s objectives are on the same lines – enriching the entrepreneurial and economic potential of the country through a suitable reform strategy as well as integrating the country with the world’s economic system under a new order. India’s increasing role in G-20 mechanism speaks for the latter in particular. Another basic point relates to attempts to compare the development models of India and China. Which one is the better? A debate may be unending in this regard- generally, the Indian model based on democracy is being viewed favourably from a long term point of view than that of China which rests on a one-party system. The main difference is that while China has been following a model based on investment flow from abroad and exports. India has been giving a boost to entrepreneurship and free enterprise. In the opinion of the writer, the Indian superiority in the service sector notwithstanding, it will not be easy for India to catch up fast with China, which has already emerged as a manufacturing giant.

What will be India’s global interests as an emerging power is another topic getting focus in China. As Dr Manmohan Singh, the Indian Prime Minister puts it, India’s goal is to gain its rightful place in the comity of nations, making full use of the opportunities offered by a globalised world, operating on the frontiers of modern science and technology and using modern science and technology as important instruments of national economic and social development. The emerging India’s partnerships with the US, China and other powers, India’s role in the G-20 mechanism etc stand to explain its interests in the 21st century. Realising its responsibilities as a growing power, India is cooperating with other nations on addressing issues of global concern like terrorism, climate change, disarmament, world trade etc.

In conclusion, it can be said that there are mixed views on China in India; Indians are noticing the prevailing good atmosphere in bilateral relations at state levels, but their concerns are continuing on China’s strategic intentions vis-à-vis India. More and more people to people contacts between the two sides can bring a beneficial change to such conditions.

(The writer, Mr D. S. Rajan, is presently Director of the Chennai Centre for China Studies, Chennai, India. Views expressed are his own. This article is a contribution to the Chinese newspaper, “The Economic Observer’, www.eeo.com.cn).

Courtesy: South Asia Analysis Group www.southasiaanalysis.org

Monday, June 14, 2010

My take on ‘Who is Running Sri Lanka’?

I read with interest Mr Gamini Gunawardane’s piece ‘Who is running Sri Lanka’ in the opinion column of The Island dated June 11.

As he has referred to my article published in The Island on June 8 ["India's Concerns in Sri Lanka" published in this blog on June 7, 2010], I would like to share my views on some of the points he has raised in his letter.

President Mahinda Rajapaksa has won an overwhelming popular mandate than any of his predecessors in both the presidential and parliamentary polls. To raise the question ‘who is running Sri Lanka’ when he is visiting India will be ignoring not only the President’s remarkable ability as a goal achiever but also the public affirmation of his performance. Surely there should be no doubt ‘who is running Sri Lanka.’ I fear his rhetorical question will not find many takers in India as India has its handful running its own country.

My article was primarily written for Indian readers, who generally have a hazy view of developments in Sri Lanka, to focus on some of the gritty issues between the two countries on the eve of President Rajapaksa’s visit to India. So naturally my analysis had been India centric. I welcome Mr Gunawardane’s comments even though they are critical of India as they enable me to appreciate diverse points of view.

India and Sri Lanka are physically, culturally and socially (and as a corollary economically) too close to ignore developments in each other.’ This is inevitable as it affects them. And whatever be their differences, they have to coexist and thrash out their problems by promoting a healthy dialogue. This is a reality whether some people in either country like it or not. And however much one may admire China, this does not apply to China’s growing relations with either India or Sri Lanka. Foreign relations are not a zero sum game. As Sri Lanka’s relations with India and China are on different planes, growth of one does not cancel the other. The same applies to India also.

India is a big country not out of choice and it cannot help being so. And India should definitely not conduct its relations with its smaller neighbour as a big brother. But this is not always easy. India had been having a problem in handling its size and growing economic power while formulating its foreign policy. But it is learning. India and Sri Lanka have been striving to have healthy relations based on mutual respect. Similarly neither India’s political nor economic models are ideal. At the same time, one cannot ignore the remarkable progress India has made in many aspects, despite its enormous problems. It will be useful for Sri Lanka to avoid India's mistakes and understand how India overcame them to make progress. The same applies to India also. If either country chooses to ignore such learning, they only will be the losers.

I am surprised to see Mr Gunawardane has chosen to blame India for the growth of Tamil militancy. This is over simplifying a complex problem and travesty of history. He has chosen to ignore the fact that it was the very same Indians who fought to disarm the Tamil Tigers and sacrificed the lives of 1255 of their own soldiers in the process. And if the LTTE had continued to flourish for another 20 years after India kept its hands off the Sri Lanka ethnic conflict, apparently there was something wrong with Sri Lanka’s approach to the problem. President Rajapaksa succeeded in eliminating the LTTE because he realised this home truth. And the 13th Amendment is part of the Sri Lanka constitution introduced to decentralise power to the provincial level; ultimately it is the people of Sri Lanka who should decide whether to enforce their own constitution or not. I have not understood why Sri Lanka should feel humiliated when India requests Sri Lanka to do so because the Tamil issue has political fallout in India. This is what friendly nations do all the time.

As one who had spent most of his professional life fighting insurgents, I am always opposed to arming of non state actors (militant groups) by the state. Even in the case of arming Tamil militants I had made my objections clear in our own service channels. But the point to note is even then India had always stood for a unified Sri Lanka. However, such acts leave a scar on relations; they only aggravate mutual suspicion. So I can understand the author’s criticism of India on this count. Such had also been our own reaction when President Premadasa started arming the LTTE even as the Indian army was fighting on in Sri Lankan soil to eliminate it. But digging up evidence of aberrations in relations can only increase acrimony and does not solve present problems of either country.

I agree India as a bigger country should go out of the way to help Sri Lanka. And Sri Lanka should help this process. I have always been for promoting greater understanding between the two countries. I agree with him that India should pay greater attention to Sinhala sentiments. The establishment of Sinhala language departments in Indian universities would help in this. But India should do this for its own reasons and not because China is doing so. There will always be areas of acrimony and admiration in any close relationship between India and Sri Lanka (I dare not call it husband wife relationship as Mr Gunawardane has chosen to do). I am confident that the leaders of both countries are fully aware of this, though their actions at times might belie it FOR reasons of political expediency.

When the two countries take any action that would impinge upon the other, they would do well to remember what Chanakya wrote in third century BC: "Before you start some work, always ask yourself three questions - Why am I doing it, What the results might be and Will I be successful. Only when you think deeply and find satisfactory answers to these questions, go ahead."
Col. R. Hariharan retd

Courtesy: The Island, Colombo, June 15, 2010
URL:http://www.island.lk/2010/06/15/opinion1.html

Sunday, June 13, 2010

LTTE Remnants & Sympathisers

By B.Raman

The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) as a terrorist-cum-insurgent organisation is dead. So is most of its leadership at the senior levels, including Prabakaran, its head. One cannot say with equal confidence that all its trained cadres----whether in insurgency or terrorism or both----have been fully accounted for----either killed or captured. Its dead leaders have not left detailed documentation of their set-up giving details of the number trained, the number of losses, the number still alive towards the end of their fight with the Sri Lankan Army, their deployment, their capabilities, weapons-holdings etc. As a result, it is difficult to assess with some accuracy the risks of a revival of the Tamil militancy in some form or the other in Sri Lanka as well as in Tamil Nadu.

2. One can assess with some confidence that there is little likelihood of the revival of a Tamil insurgent movement. The losses in trained personnel and capabilities suffered by the LTTE at the hands of the Sri Lankan Army will rule that out. The enhancement of the deployment of the Army in the Tamil areas----already under way---- will ensure that Tamil insurgency cannot stage a come-back in Sri Lanka like the Taliban did in Afghanistan.

3. However, one cannot rule out the dangers of a revival of a terrorist movement by the unaccounted for remnants of the LTTE in Sri Lanka as well as in Tamil Nadu. The LTTE had trained an unquantified number of its cadres----men and women--- in different kinds of terrorist operations, including suicide terrorism. One does not know how many were trained, how many were killed or captured by the Sri Lankan Army and how many have managed to evade capture and are biding their time in Sri Lanka and Tamil Nadu. They have a high level of expertise in the use of terrorism as a modus operandi as well as in the fabrication of explosive material by using substances easily available in Sri Lanka and Tamil Nadu.

4. So long as these remnants with the required expertise are available, a determined and motivated Tamil leader can rally them round and create sleeper cells for a new Tamil militant movement. A new generation of Tamil militant leadership is not yet on the horizon a year after the decimation of the LTTE. However, there is still anger in pockets of the Tamil communities in Sri Lanka and Tamil Nadu over the manner in which the Sri Lankan Army carried out its counter-insurgency operations and over what is seen as foot-dragging by President Mahinda Rajapaksa in carrying out his assurances for a fair political settlement made to the Tamils before the LTTE was crushed. Now that the LTTE has been crushed, he is no longer showing a sense of urgency and fairplay in addressing the problems and grievances of the Tamils.

5. The fact that this anger is present not only in the Tamil community of Sri Lanka, but also of Tamil Nadu became evident recently from the protests in Tamil Nadu over an Indian film festival held in Sri Lanka, which was boycotted by Tamil actors, the protest demonstrations during the recent visit of Mr.Rajapaksa to New Delhi and the unsuccessful attempt by some unidentified persons believed to be sympathisers of Prabakaran to cause a derailment with locally-procured explosives in Tamil Nadu in the early hours of June 12. The Kumbakonam-Chennai Rockfort Express escaped what could have been a tragedy when two alert drivers---one of a train which preceded the Rockfort Express and the other of the Express---- noticed a possible terrorist attempt to cause a derailment. According to media reports, pamphlets purported to have been drafted by supporters of the late Prabakaran claiming responsibility for the attempt were found on the spot. Only a police investigation can establish whether the attempt was made by supporters of Prabakaran as claimed in the pamphlets or by Maoists as a mark of solidarity with the LTTE. In the past, when Prabakaran was alive, there were unconfirmed reports of contacts between the LTTE and the Maoists.

6. Anger is often the mother of militancy and terrorism. The LTTE is dead. Most of its senior leadership is no more. But anger in sections of the Tamil community is still there. Motivated individuals, who are prepared to give vent to their anger by using terrorism, are available. Only leadership to rally them round is not there. The post 9/11 history of terrorism shows that the absence of a leadership capable of uniting the terrorists and orchestrating their activities does not mean the end of terrorism. Autonomously operating individuals itching to give vent to their anger have been behind many recent acts of terrorism. Terrorism analysts have been speaking of an emerging phenomenon of leadersless terrorism due to acts of angry individuals.

7. Till the cause of the anger of the Sri Lankan Tamils is satisfactorily addressed, the danger of a revival of terrorism in sections of the Tamil community will remain present.

( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presetly, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and Associate of the Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
Courtesy: South Asia Analysis Group, June 13, 2010

Tuesday, June 8, 2010

First, Right to Childhood

The Central and State governments, and the people as a whole, have to be involved in making the RTE Act work

by Col R Hariharan

HIGH expectations have been kindled with the coming into force of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act, 2009 from April this year. Education Minister Kapil Sibal’s description of it as “a momentous step forward in our 100-year struggle for universalizing elementary education” summed up the hype built around it. Only, it should have come eight long years ago when the 86th Amendment to the Constitution was passed, ensuring children’s right to education as a fundamental right. Without the RTE Act, the 86th Amendment had remained where most of the other rights of Indians remain – on paper.

When the Amendment was passed, it was called “a historic milestone” in the country’s struggle for children’s right to education. If “a historic milestone” amendment is given teeth only after eight years, can we expect immediate change in the fate of millions of children deprived of this right?

Passing the RTE Act is not enough; for it to become effective, both states and Centre will have to take a whole set of “mundane” actions – political, legislative and budgetary. The process is somewhat like designing a concept car and marketing it as a viable model. A soothsayer would be as good as any bureaucrat or analyst in predicting when children will gain from the Act.

In certain States, run by feudal minded societies, the girl child is sentenced to die in bondage as a worker in fields, bonded labour or domestic help. Elected governments are reluctant to enforce existing laws to protect children due to the fear of offending rural vote banks. Caste panchayats continue to flourish as an extra-judicial authority to preserve exploitative practices. They pass death sentences and get away with murder 60 years after we proclaimed our fundamental rights. Vote bank politics is the only ideology.

To give form to RTE is a mammoth task on two counts – the sheer number of marginalized children, and the size and complexity of enforcing the Act in an amorphous federal system where the Centre and states rule over education. Sibal himself admits that though “over 100 per cent children are now in school, 98 per cent of our habitations have a primary school within one kilometre, and 92 per cent have an upper primary school within three kilometres,” there are “invisible” children outside this charmed circle. These are kids enrolled in school but who havedropped out to work in dhabas, petty shops or fields. In addition, there are a whole lot of children too poor to go to school or who live in remote areas where access to school is not there.

Realizing the complexity of the task, Sibal has spelled out a whole matrix of actions required to be taken by the various Ministries and governments both at the Central and state level. These are beyond Education Ministries; they range from Rural Development and Panchayati Raj to Women and Child Development departments because secondary initiatives are equally important to make RTE work.

Even within government schools, vast differences exist between Central and state-managed schools and between urban and rural schools. They range from inadequate infrastructure to insufficient staff and unrealistic policies that drive parents to seek private schools. That is why Sibal has attempted not merely to universalize education, but also to provide quality education and is seeking private sector participation. As the Act provides for 25 per cent reserved seats for poor children in all private schools as well as Central schools, private schools are up in arms.

States that are a little more “enlightened” on education like Kerala or Tamil Nadu have taken advantage of the Constitutional space provided to them in giving jurisdiction over education to States. Their literacy rates have increased dramatically. But the children of Tamil Nadu and Kerala also continue to drop out of school to work as domestic helps or in sweatshops and petty businesses. Tamil Nadu had gained notoriety for killings of girl children. Mothers are known to abandon girl children in government orphanages, creating a new genre of “cradle babies”.
Such aberrations exist as there is a large disconnect between legislative action and social perception. That is why many acts of redemption of children from hunger and poverty are announced with a lot of fanfare and then routinely ignored. At best, they taper into nothingness after handing out doles to kids, gestures meant more for photo opportunities for politicians than to make a difference in young lives.

Take the case of the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) scheme in Uttar Pradesh. It has been hit by a funds crunch from end-2009 onwards because the state government has not allocated any money for it. The reason: some districts have not submitted the last year’s expenditure report! So children everywhere in the state are going without nutritious food promised by the state. More than deprivation of nutrition, such callous acts reinforce in young minds the popular belief that governments generally don’t mean what they say. After all, Chief Minister Mayawati could find money to install a thousand statues of her mentor!

THE home truth is that everything in society and government is loaded against children’s right to childhood. Many a time, vengeful acts start at the foetal stage just because children belong to the wrong gender. And it has nothing to do with poverty or social status as female foeticide is as much practised by the educated in Punjab as the ignorant in Rajasthan. Not surprisingly, this has led to skewed gender ratios.

And there are other predators: child traffickers who turn them into prostitutes, beggars and petty thieves. Interstate child trafficking is a growing “business”, as illustrated by a recent case in Tamil Nadu in which 76 children between 12 and 14 years were rescued from Chennai and sent home to Manipur and Assam after a TV channel followed the trail of 200 children picked up in Manipur and sent to Chennai.
It will be a great achievement if we can give substance to the Right to Education for all children in the next five decades. So it is not only Sibal or the Central and state governments but the people as a whole who have to be involved in making the RTE Act work. And that has to be done in an environment VS Naipaul described as “chaos of uneconomical movement, the self-stimulated din, the sudden feeling of insecurity, the conviction that all men are not brothers and that luggage was in danger”.

Courtesy: GFiles Magazine, June 2010 issue.
URL: http://www.gfilesindia.com/title.aspx?title_id=136

Of Honey Traps and Intelligence

Historically, from time immemorial sex has been used to entice enemies not only to shed their clothes but also to part with hidden state secrets

by Col R Hariharan

THREE decades ago, Michael J Barrett, assistant general counsel of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), called espionage “the world’s second oldest profession and just as honourable as the first”. This remains true even in this age of permissiveness, and sex continues to be an effective weapon in the armoury of intelligence agencies.

The Old Testament tells us how Philistine spy Delilah used her charms to lure Samson and render him powerless. Our own history has rich tales of spies. Chanakya, the strategic counselor of emperors, considered spying part of state craft. Akbar was credited with having 5,000 spies working for him. They all used courtesans regularly to lure and kill victims, including foreign spies.

Intelligence agencies use three major human weaknesses – wine, women, and money/power – to make those with access to secrets part with information. The use of sex to lure the victim, known in intelligence parlance as a honey trap, is common among intelligence agencies. Particularly after World War II, when Europe had fewer eligible men, use of sex in intelligence gathering operations gained prominence. And the dreaded Soviet secret service, KGB, used honey traps regularly.
The Profumo affair, involving John Profumo, Secretary of State for War in the Macmillan government in Britain, and Christine Keeler, the British showgirl, is probably the most publicized honey trap case. Keeler’s lover, Yevgeni Ivanov, naval attaché at the Soviet embassy in London, probably used her cleverly to get at Profumo and access state secrets though this was never proved. When the scandal broke in 1963, it cost Profumo his job.

The KGB used not only women but also men. It used the homosexual inclinations of William John Vassall, a clerk in the British naval attaché’s office in Moscow. It trapped him with his male partners and threatened to expose the homosexual liaisons, forcing him to work for the Soviet spy agency.

In our own neighbourhood, women have frequently been used as tools for spying. The recent arrest of Madhuri Gupta is a case in point.

So it is not surprising that, in our own neighbourhood, women have frequently been used as tools for spying. The recent arrest of Madhuri Gupta (53), Second Secretary in the Press and Information Wing of the Indian High Commission in Islamabad, is a case in point. According to the media, the Pakistan Intelligence Bureau used her occupational grievance against the Ministry of External Affairs to turn her into a spy for Pakistani intelligence. Perhaps sex was also used as icing on the grievance cake as she had an affair with her Pakistani intelligence pointsman, Jamshed. If the media is to be believed, Jamshed, though a member of the “second oldest profession”, had some honour left as he offered to marry her!

Gupta’s case came close on the heels of another possible honey trap involving Commodore Sukhjinder Singh. The naval officer headed the Indian team overseeing the refit of Admiral Gorshkov, the aircraft carrier the Indian Navy is procuring from Russia. The Commodore is now facing an inquiry on whether his liaison with a Russian woman in 2005-07 in Russia had any connections with the Gorshkov deal, which suffered a steep cost hike.

Chinese and US intelligence agencies have also used honey traps to lure Indian officials. Manmohan Sharma, an officer of the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), was dismissed from service after it was discovered that he fell for the charms of his Chinese language teacher during his tenure in Beijing in 2008. The woman was suspected to be an informant of the Chinese government. Three decades ago, there was the notorious case of KV Unnikrishnan, another RAW functionary, who leaked official secrets of India’s role in Sri Lanka to the CIA. His liaison with an American woman was said to have played a part.

GOVERNMENTS in the Indian subcontinent operate with a comparatively low level of technology orientation. This imposes limitations on intelligence agencies in the use of sophisticated electronic gadgetry to collect information. Espionage using human sources, rather than technology tools, will continue to be a preferred option to gather state secrets in South Asia. Sex is a major human weakness, making its use in intelligence gathering indispensable. We can expect Pakistani intelligence to continue to exploit all weaknesses in their potential sources to unravel state secrets just as their Indian counterparts do. So use of human intelligence sources continues to have primacy, as Americans are discovering in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
The Profumo affair, involving John Profumo, Secretary of State for War in the Macmillan government in Britain, and Christine Keeler, the British showgirl, is the most publicised honey trap case.

But use of sex for espionage continues to bug the West also. Last year, MI-5, the British counterintelligence agency, distributed a booklet among business and financial institutions on Chinese efforts to use sexual blackmail to unravel business and trade secrets from Western businessmen. It cautioned them about Chinese intelligence services trying to cultivate “long-term relationships” to exploit vulnerabilities such as sexual relationships to force individuals to cooperate with them.

Human intelligence in active military operations has its limitations. As US operations in Afghanistan show, it is being replaced by technology intelligence tools like the use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) to provide actionable intelligence in real time. UAVs were extensively used in Sri Lanka’s war against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. Coupled with other battlefield sensors and communication intelligence, such tools play an important role in our own operational theatres, including Jammu and Kashmir.

However, human intelligence will continue to be an indispensable tool of state craft. It is also necessary not only to validate technology intelligence but also probe tools of technology intelligence even when they are still on the drawing board. And the use of sex in espionage and counterintelligence operations will probably continue forever.
Courtesy: GFiles magazine, June 2010 issue.
URL: http://www.gfilesindia.com/title.aspx?title_id=132

Sunday, June 6, 2010

India’s concerns in Sri Lanka

By Col R Hariharan

LEADERSHIP CHALLENGE

When Sri Lanka President Mahinda Rajapaksa visits New Delhi from June 8 to June 11 he will be stronger than ever before. The three things he achieved in his first term of office – wiping out Prabhakaran and his Tamil Tigers, re-election for a second term with increased margin of votes and an unprecedented victory in parliamentary poll with 60% mandate from the voters - give him the confidence to talk from a position of strength to New Delhi.

Added to this Rajapaksa, in spite of his deceptive simplicity, has cleverly turned the Sinhala triumphalism in the wake of victory in the Eelam War to eliminate potential rivals. The popular hero of the Eelam War General Sarath Fonseka is facing court-martials. And the suave and articulate UNP leader Ranil Wickremesinghe is locked in a survival struggle to retain his position as leader of the United National Party.

With Sri Lanka under his sway for next seven years, New Delhi will be contending the rejuvenated Mahinda Rajapaksa - the most powerful head of state from Sri Lanka ever to visit the Indian capital.

Is New Delhi ready for the rejuvenated Rajapaksa? It should be because Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh has his own success story. He is stronger politically after an enlarged mandate from the people for his second term of office. The destructive coalition partners and opposition he faced in earlier term have been cut down to size. The Congress-led coalition’s economic management, despite complaints of absence of transparency, cronyism and corruption, has maintained the country on the growth path. Dr Manmohan Singh’s aspiration to take India-US relationship is getting a further lease of life. Of course this is largely due to the US coming to terms with the limitations in building a win-win relationship with China ignoring India.

In spite of all this, New Delhi continues to show a subsuming hesitancy in handling Sri Lanka. If we look at the silent support New Delhi had provided the President ever since he was elected in 2005 and all along thereafter, both sides appear to have worked out a flexible model of collaboration, co-ordination and at times mutual condescension.

The collaboration came with India providing Sri Lanka all facilities, short of modern weapons, to improve the capability of its armed forces. It provided real time intelligence to control, curb, and destroy the international logistic and support system of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). But Indian leadership could not trumpet its support as it had to tread the ground carefully at home as the ruling Congress-led coalition was weak and depended upon octogenarian leader Karunanidhi and the Dravida Munnetra Kazagham (DMK) party in Tamil Nadu.The shrewd Tamil Nadu chief minister milked the Eelam issue to gain maximum clout in New Delhi and divided the sympathy votes for Eelam Tamils at home in Chennai.

As the war is over logically India should be expecting dividends from Rajapaksa for its support. And the expectations are probably on three major fronts: equity for Tamil minority, closer economic bonds, and greater strategic convergence between the two nations with India remaining a favoured partner in Sri Lanka’s strategic horizon. President Rajapaksa’s style is to turn compulsions into favours to be dispensed at a time and situation of his choosing. So how will India handle him?

INTERNATIONAL DISCOURSES OF SRI LANKA

As K Venkatramanan of the Times of India said in a recent seminar, the Eelam war and its aftermath in Sri Lanka has thrown up a few international discourses. India has to show a sustaining interest in handling these discourses to fulfil its responsibilities as a nation. What are these discourses?

Human rights and humanitarian issues

How to deal with Sri Lanka (or any other nation in a similar situation) that has chosen to ignore international calls for improving its accountability on human rights as it feels it infringes its sovereignty. The European Union and the UK will continue to pressurise Sri Lanka on this count in the coming months. What should be India’s attitude on this moral issue cloaked in politics? India cannot afford to be either wholly idealistic or coldly real politick when human rights skeletons are rattling in its own counter terrorist operations. Can India continue to depend only upon back room diplomacy to prevail upon Sri Lanka to produce results, particularly when it is dealing with an ever more powerful Rajapaksa?

Increased profile of the U.S. and China in Sri Lanka

In Sri Lanka’s war and its aftermath both the U.S. and China asserted their roles with greater visibility and gained a strong foothold. India facilitated this by playing a muted role due to self imposed restraints due to internal political considerations. After the war Sri Lanka is facing two major problems in resolving which it needs international help.

The first is the huge financial outlay required to rebuild north and east, and to speed up economic recovery to repair the crippling effect of war. The second is the growing pressure on Sri Lanka articulated by the UN Secretary General Ban ki Moon and in the UN human rights forums.

Though India can match either the U.S. or China in meeting Sri Lanka’s economic needs, only the U.S. and China, as UN Security Council members with veto powers, can influence the UN course of action against Sri Lanka. This is going be crucial as the international lobby against war crimes in Sri Lanka is gathering more momentum. So logically, President Rajapaksa will have to accommodate the U.S. and China more in the national strategic spectrum without treading upon India’s toes. Will he do it is a more difficult question than can he do it? And what is going to be New Delhi’s strategy?

Tamil issue

During the war, many Sri Lankan Tamils rightly or wrongly perceive India as the villain that helped Rajapaksa bury the Eelam dream. Of course, in their passionate denouement they conveniently forget that India had always been opposed to independent Tamil Eelam. But this disenchantment of India has not been countervailed by increase in favourable Sinhalese attitude towards India. Even half-hearted Indian efforts to bring ethnic amity in Sri Lanka are still looked upon by many of them with suspicion. So unlike in the past, India has a problem at hand in carrying its voice heard in Sri Lanka in the midst of cacophony of its detractors.

As the Tamil issue has an umbilical connection with Tamils in India and the Diaspora elsewhere its tugs and pulls go far and wide. This should not be understood merely in terms of electoral politics in which it continues as a peripheral issue. It has larger moral and social implications for Tamil society and its sensitivities. It should not be forgotten the Tamil society is only recently overcoming the sense of exclusivity and alienation that had bugged it since early days of India’s independence. A recent manifestation of this phenomenon was seen in the strident calls that came from Tamil movie industry for boycott of the non political International Indian Film Academy awards function in Colombo. Thus India’s actions and their impact on Sri Lanka continue to be relevant to Tamil people everywhere regardless of their attitude to India.

This sensitivity rules the minds of many among Sri Lanka Tamil Diaspora still recovering from the elimination of the Tamil Tigers as a powerful entity. They are smarting under the loss of face as many Sinhalese are trumpeting their triumphalism. And President Rajapaksa had shown no hurry to address Tamil sensitivities on the issue of autonomy, perhaps because there is no Prabhakaran to threaten Sri Lanka’s unity. He has largely chosen to ignore the need for animation of the 13th amendment that is serving only as a wall paper of the Tamil issue. India had been promoting its full implementation as a face saving device; but Rajapaksa had so far shown a marked reluctance even to save India’s face, let alone tackle the Tamil issue head on. So what is India’s strategy?

Economic discourse

For some years now India had been building its economic relations with Sri Lanka. By signing its first ever the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) in 1998, India has shown Sri Lanka has a preferred status in its relations over other countries of South Asia. It is not merely Sri Lanka’s demonstrated capacity to remain with the highest human development index and highest GDP among South Asian countries that triggered India’s economic foray. Sri Lanka’s domination of the Indian Ocean also has a part to play in its economic strategy.

In the last nine years since the FTA came into play India-Sri Lanka trade has increased by four times to US $ 2719 million (2009). In fact, in the SAARC region Sri Lanka is now India’s second largest trading partner. The two countries set up a Joint Study Group in April 2003 to enlarge the scope and content of the FTA and work out a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA). After 13 rounds of negotiations the CEPA has been given a final shape.

The CEPA when signed will take the mutual trade between the two countries to higher levels of cooperation and coordination. The proposed agreement addresses four areas: trade in goods; trade in services; economic cooperation (in mutually agreed areas like fisheries, energy, pharmaceuticals, textiles, financial, infrastructure, tourism etc) and investment issues. In real terms it provides for seamless customs procedures, consumer protection standards and procedures.

There had been some delay in signing this agreement due to opposition among sections of local business community in Sri Lanka. This is understandable as India is already a dominant trading partner with large economic clout. Both countries will have to convince them of the advantages in signing the CEPA. Of course, traditional India baiters among political parties now using the CEPA bogey will have to be tackled politically. President Rajapaksa who is supportive of the agreement will probably sign it at a time of his choosing - a politically opportune moment.

From India’s point of view signing of CEPA is important as it signifies the growth of relations between the two nations to a higher level. It could also signal the graduation of SAARC from a talk shop to a forum of solid achievement as the CEPA would set a precedence for other members to enhance economic cooperation. Thus it will have implications for the region and beyond. So how India is going to push it through?

TALKS IN NEW DELHI

Considering the complex issues cooking in India-Sri Lanka platter for sometime, President Rajapaksa’s visit assumes importance. However, according to media reports emanating from New Delhi, out of the 11 agreements under negotiation, only five have been finalised and are ready for signing. The five agreements do not include crunch issues. They relate to cooperation to fight terrorism, transfer of sentenced prisoners, mutual legal assistance in criminal matters, cultural cooperation, and Indian assistance for small development projects in Sri Lanka. So apparently there are not going to be any dramatic breakthroughs except for the usual diplomatic rhetoric. But President Rajapaksa is a man full of surprises, as Prabhakaran discovered to his detriment. So what is going to come out of his visit? We will have to wait and see.
Courtesy: South Asia Analysis Group; URL: http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/%5Cnotes6%5Cnote586.html

Thursday, June 3, 2010

Sri Lanka Perspectives - May 2010

[This assessment written on May 31, 2010 exclusively for www.security-risks.com is reproduced here with their permission.]

Issues at stake

As Sri Lanka celebrated the first anniversary of its victorious war against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s appears to have shifted his to refurbish Sri Lanka’s international image weathered due to allegations of human rights violations and war crimes committed during the Eelam War IV.

There is also the major problem of rehabilitation and reconstruction of the north. The Asian Development Bank has asked Sri Lanka to prune the size of its budget stressing the need for a sustainable budget deficit. The ADB President Haruhiko Kuroda has pointed out that .top priority now was to rebuild infrastructure in the ravaged north and east; and ensure economic stability reaches everyone in the country.

In 2009 Sri Lanka's fiscal deficit shot up to 9.7 percent of GDP well above the target of seven percent set by the International Monetary Fund when it released a $2.6 billion dollar bailout package in July 2009.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) has assessed that 76,568 of the displaced were still residing in temporary camps run by the government. On the other hand 214,227 people sent out of camps in the last few months have reached their home towns and villages across the northern, eastern and central provinces. And majority of them were without livelihood. In addition to this it estimated that 93,329 former inmates of the camps were residing with families that have hosted them.

President Rajapaksa has said he would complete the task of rehabilitation by end 2010. To resolve this colossal problem Sri Lanka needs all the help from the international community to recover from the ravages of war. So the President has little choice but to do mend fences with international community. His efforts to ward off international cricism so far had not convinced his detractors. Both the Human Rights Watch and the Amnesty International have raised their pitch with more evidence on government complicity in violating human rights and humanitarian issues.

On top of all this, the International Crisis Group (ICG) in its report on Sri Lanka issued during the month claimed that it possessed ‘credible evidence’ to show that both the LTTE and the security forces had committed war crimes. It called for an independent international war crimes probe. The ICG held top government and military leaders as potentially responsible for those crimes.

Not to be out done, domestic opposition has also taken the government to task on this issue. General Sarath Fonseka leader of the opposition Democratic National Alliance (DNA) in the parliament also focused on human rights violations during the war although he absolved the army of committing any war crimes. And the issue has also become a foil in the opposition United National Party (UNP) in its fight for survival.

These issues have already done some damage to Sri Lanka. The EU has already suspended import tariff concessions extended under the GSP+ scheme affecting the nation’s exports. Despite Sri Lanka’s strong objections, the UN is in the process of selecting the members of a panel to advise UN Secretary-General Ban ki-moon on the implementation of Sri Lanka’s commitments made on human rights accountability. Irritated by this, Foreign Minister GL Peiris on the eve of his meeting with the UN General Secretary had asked the UN to keep off Sri Lanka. He said: "...There is no justification legal or moral for this step (UN probe) to be taken at this time."
In a bid to take some wind out of the UN sail, President Rajapaksa appointed an eight-member ‘Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation’ Commission (LLRC) to report on the lessons to be learnt from the events in the period Feb 2002 to May 2009. The LLRC was also tasked to study attendant concerns and to recommend measures to ensure no recurrence of such a situation. However, in spite of lofty wordings the commission’s mandate is worded vaguely. In an interview the President has made it clear that if the LLRC points out war crimes he would look into them. So it was not surprising that the UN Secretary General had been lukewarm in his comments on the LLRC.

However, Sri Lanka can derive some consolation that India welcomed the appointment of the LLRC describing it as “an important first step.” The U.S. Secretary of State Ms Hillary Clinton has also welcomed the Sri Lankan initiative in appointing the LLRC. In her statement after meeting with Foreign Minister Peiris, she said the U.S. expected its “mandate will enable them to fully investigate serious allegations of violations and to make public recommendations that commission members and potential witnesses must enjoy adequate and effective protection” underscoring the real concerns about the working of the LLRC. However, she would not comment on the UN panel.

It is significant that the U.S. has lifted the travel advisory on Sri Lanka on the eve of the first anniversary of the end of the Eelam War. This would indicate that in the U.S. assessment LTTE threat does not exist within Sri Lanka anymore.

Indian moves

India and Sri Lanka appeared to have once again appear keen to push through the mutual trade pact - the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) which will bring in greater trade integration between the two countries. However, this could run into trouble in India as political parties in Tamil Nadu could link the issue to issues of resettlement of displaced people and greater devolution of powers to Tamils. At the same time in Sri Lanka there are sections of trade and politics which see the CEPA as a sign of Indian hegemony which have to be convinced to give the go ahead.

Ms Nirupama Rao, Secretary, Indian Ministry of External Affairs has once again drawn Sri Lanka’s attention to the need for speedy implementation of 13th amendment to Sri Lanka constitution that gave a level of provincial autonomy. This issue is likely to gain more momentum in the coming months as there are detractors within Sri Lanka’s ruling United Peoples Freedom Alliance (UPFA) who are opposed to it. Moreover it could get entangled in the constitutional revision proposed on abolition of executive presidency and proportional representation electoral system.

LTTE and Tamil Diaspora affairs

The crackdown on LTTE and its supporters among Tamil Diaspora has continued both within and outside Sri Lanka. Police arrested an alleged key woman supporter of the LTTE on her arrival in Colombo from Frankfurt. She is said to have raised funds for the LTTE in Frankfurt.

In Vancouver, Canada Prapaharan Thambithurai, 46, was convicted of "providing financial services, knowing that they will benefit a terrorist group, namely the (LTTE)" and sentenced to six months jail. This was the first case to be tried under new Canadian legislation against financing foreign terrorist organizations. Thambithurai, a low level LTTE fund raiser, pleaded guilty.

The Special Task Force (STF) has arrested two suspected LTTE cadres in Kalmunai and Kalawanchikudi in eastern province for engaging in anti-state activities and promoting the LTTE.

The controversial Transnational Government of Tamil Eelaam (TGTE) held its inaugural sessions in the city of Philadelphia in the U.S. from May 17-19. A committee of 13 ‘experts’ known to be sympathetic to the LTTE cause has been formed. The TGTE claims it would lobby for the support of the inter-national community to find a political solution to the Tamil national question on the basis of Nationhood, Homeland and the Right to Self-determination through political and diplomatic channels.

However, the formation of the TGTE by the former LTTE cadres and supporters has caused a great deal of concern in Sri Lanka. It had been cautioning the inter-national community on the need to curb TGTE in order to prevent resurgence of LTTE in their soil. In particular Sri Lanka has urged the European governments not to provide any political or symbolic support to the TGTE. Sri Lanka is also investigating suspected LTTE activity in Venezuela after receiving a report from its ambassador in Havana.

Despite all these efforts as of now, the Diaspora shaken by the wiping out of the LTTE is disillusioned. It will take quite sometime for the TGTE to cause any major impact as its support inside Sri Lanka is probably minimal and muted.

Hariharan's MI blog

Monday, June 21, 2010

Dr Dayan Jayatilleka explains why for Sri Lanka, India is indispensable

Sunday, June 20, 2010

Chinese Interest in Hambantota, Chittagong Ports --- An Update

Recommended Reading

Thursday, June 17, 2010

Sri Lanka: Much ado about few things

Wednesday, June 16, 2010

India-China Relations: An Indian Perspective

Monday, June 14, 2010

Recommended Reading

My take on ‘Who is Running Sri Lanka’?

Sunday, June 13, 2010

Recommended Reading

LTTE Remnants & Sympathisers

Tuesday, June 8, 2010

First, Right to Childhood

Of Honey Traps and Intelligence

Sunday, June 6, 2010

India’s concerns in Sri Lanka

Thursday, June 3, 2010

Sri Lanka Perspectives - May 2010

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