Pax Indiana's opacity

by Inderjit Badhwar

A flawed understanding of President Mahinda Rajapakse's politics keeps India away from playing a crucial role in Sri Lanka. Needed, a policy corrective

Two developments have brought Sri Lanka back on the Indian regional radar within the last fortnight: the retaliatory air strikes following the acceleration of terrorist activities by the LTTE, and the recently-concluded trip of President Mahinda Rajapakse to Pakistan.

The Pakistan visit so miffed South Block mandarins that they gave a simultaneous red-carpet welcome to his defeated opponent Ranil Wickremesinghe whose photographs with the Indian Prime Minister were flashed all over the press. The South Block story line was that while Rajapakse was rubbing shoulders with General Pervez Musharraf, Ranil was on a goodwill mission to India to discuss the finer points of a "federalist" solution to the strife in Sri Lanka that has over time cost some 60,000 lives.

Rajapakse has been portrayed as a domestic hawk and a geopolitical doubledater reaching out to China and Pakistan as a counterpoise to Indian hegemony in the Indian Ocean. Actually the opposite is true. Almost immediately after he was elected to the highest office in Sri Lanka, Rajapakse has taken several key decisions designed to reverse concessions made by the Chandrika Kumaratunga government to other foreign powers that may have been detrimental to Indian interests.

Consider the following facts that have never before been made public:

The Norwegian government that has been brokering the fragile peace process in Sri Lanka following the 2002 CeaseFire Agreement (CFA) with the LTTE, is headed for a showdown with Rajapakse over Sri Lanka's insistence on inviting India - without competitive bids - to carry out oil exploration in one of the most productive offshore seismic blocks.

Why Norway? The contract for Sri Lanka's entire offshore exploration was given to a Norwegian company by Ranil Wickremesinghe when he was Prime Minister. It was signed on February 13, 2002 between TGS-NOPEC Geophysical Company and Daham Wimalasena on behalf of the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation. The relevant minister at the time was Karu Jayasuriya who is now Deputy Leader of the Opposition United National Party (UNP).

Objections

The Norwegian government has lodged strong objections to Rajapakse's initiative to give oil exploration rights to India. The Norwegians claim that under the contract, they alone have the right to decide which countries will do the actual exploration in the different seismic blocks. From the Indian point of view, this is an obnoxious agreement that allows Norway to become a gateway through which other countries are brought in as a counterweight to India's interests in the Indian Ocean.

But for the Sri Lankan President to take on Norway is not as simple as it sounds. The Norwegians, as peacekeepers, play a significant role in influencing world opinion, especially the European Union where the LTTE has fund-raising offices, and the IMF donor countries, about the nature of the conflict and attitudes toward the LTTE. But Rajapakse is a stubborn man who, according to sources close to him "is not about to back down on this issue."

When Rajapakse took charge as the fifth Executive President of Sri Lanka, he found the Indian government complaining bitterly about two other agreements that India believed to be detrimental to its security interests.

One was an agreement to contract China to provide 3-Dimensional radar coverage for the capital city of Colombo. India saw this as a security risk. One of Rajapakse's first acts was to cancel the Chinese agreement and invite India to provide the radar cover. India does not have access to 3-D radar technology, so Rajapakse settled for the purchase of a less sophisticated 2-D radar cover from India.

The other Indian complaint was about a contract with a Danish company for dredging the strategically important port of Kankasanthurai, not far from Jaffna, and developing the port's infrastructure. Despite the legal implications that may follow, Rajapakse has cancelled the agreement with the Danish company and invited the Indian government to undertake the task of dredging and developing the KKS port only a few miles away from India's eastern coast.

Both these agreements, too, had been signed by the Chandrika Kumaratunga government. Yet, when Sri Lanka went to the polls, the Ministry of External Affairs appeared to project Rajapakse as pro-Chinese and pro-Pakistan, and a man who would break the CFA and plunge his country into war. This is partly because his ally - the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) - is reputed to be pro-China and against the Ceasefire, and partly because of a lack of homework on Rajapakse's background.

Pro- Indian

A perusal of his speeches over the last decade when he held positions as an MP, Fisheries Minister, Leader of the Opposition, shows that he has indeed, been hawkishly pro-Indian even to the point of publicly hailing India's nuclear weapons programme as a stabilising force in Asia.

He said in a recent speech: "As the country with which our cultural and religious links are the closest and our emotional bonds are the strongest we have looked to India for strength and support throughout our history. We do so today as we confront one of the world's most sinister terrorist organisations whose activities threaten the stability of both our countries."

In domestic affairs, he has shown remarkable restraint against the LTTE. He first snubbed those who thought he would unilaterally abrogate the Ceasefire. Despite an electoral understanding between him and the JVP that on coming to power, the government would demand change in the terms of the reference of the CFA, Rajapakse moderated the stance of the JVP (that has 13 per cent of the vote) and invited the LTTE for continuing talks.

Despite the LTTE stepping up violence in the North and the East - assassinations, bombings, attacks on Sri Lankan naval vessels - Sri Lankan armed forces were told to show total restraint. And in order not to jeopardise the second round of the Geneva talks from which the LTTE has now backed off - Rajapakse even offered safe passage to LTTE leaders to travel to the east to confer with their counterparts.

Peace process

The suicide bombings, the counter-terror air attacks and their destabilising consequences are another wake-up call for India. Significantly, Rajapakse's first foreign visit after he became President was to India. But because of official prejudice against him, he was accorded a lukewarm reception.

On his agenda was a request for Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to play a more active and pro-active part in promoting the pease process in Sri Lanka. Among the security related requests he made were spare parts for his country's Air Force, and India stepping up naval patrols in the Trincomalee region. The Indian response was lukewarm, perhaps because of the sensitivity of the Tamil Nadu elections and South Block's jaundiced view of Rajapakse.

Pushed to the wall, Sri Lankans sometimes turn to Pakistan as a temporary friend of last resort. In 2000, when the LTTE had laid siege to Jaffna, Sri Lanka appealed desperately for help to India but India did not respond. Ultimately, Pakistan shipped multi-barrelled rocket launchers to Sri Lanka that proved to be the key weapon that broke the siege.

Small nations on the borders of large countries can become more than just pinpricks. Look at Cuba and the US. Today, Sri Lanka supports the view that India, now recognised by the US as the dominant power in the region, should enforce the Indian Ocean as a zone of Par Indiana. Any masterly inactivity by India in the Sri Lankan crisis can only hasten the process that could turn the island into a battleground of big power rivalries.

The writer is a senior Delhi-based journalist.

Tehelka The People's Paper.