Rajapakse’s Conciliatory Politics

(January, 06, Chennai, Sri Lanka Guardian) An impressive turnout, a couple of hundreds or more, was seen at the high-pitch demonstration in Chennai on Monday by the friends of the LTTE demanding that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh reject the invitation from Sri Lanka to participate in the National Day celebration at Colombo on February 4, the 60th anniversary of its independence.

Their fiery speeches accusing the Mahinda Rajapaksa government of genocide of the Tamils were punctuated by even louder slogans beseeching the PM to refrain from travelling to Colombo, as according to them that would signal India’s approval of the violent methods used to smother Tamil aspirations. Interestingly, Delhi has not yet reacted with either a “yes” or a “no” to the announcement made by the Lankan foreign minister Rohitha Bogollagama that the Indian PM will be the chief guest at the National Day celebration.

It is quite likely that India is even embarrassed by that statement, which might seem premature from Delhi’s point of view, but is actually a clever ploy by Colombo to make sure that Prime Minister Singh shares the podium with President Rajapaksa. And if he finally does that, it could well be at a very tricky stage in the relations between the two neighbours, as the Congress-led UPA government at the Centre must take care not to ruffle too much the Tamil nationalists down south, even while hoping that Sri Lanka does not embrace hostile powers such as China and Pakistan to fill its armoury.

Already, the successive Sinhala regimes have been flirting with these countries to ensure that their dependence on India to carry on the war against the Tamil separatists is never critical. And in recent months, this “globalising” of Colombo’s war effort has become even more pronounced as the Americans, the Norwegians, the Chinese and some others are seen more often than ever in Sri Lanka. But having said that, India must take care not to fall into any Lankan trap.

After all, President Junius Jayawardene had got Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi to sign the Indo-Lanka Accord in July 1987, and thereafter commit the Indian Peace Keeping Force to disarming the Tamil militants, with disastrous consequences. It is hoped that Prime Minister Singh ensures that before he boards the plane to Colombo, he is able to extract enough guarantees from his host that the Tamil question will be answered by a comprehensive political package for ending the war. Present indications are that President Rajapaksa is still obsessed with his war generals and is paying little attention to conciliatory politics.

( by CD)