Sunday Observations: The Political Column

What next for the LTTE after the Indian snub?

It's official. The LTTE played its last remaining card and lost yesterday when the Indian Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh refused to meet the five Tamil National Alliance (TNA) MPs led by R. Sampanthan.

The TNA MPs, who are known proxies of the LTTE, packed their bags and flew out of Delhi yesterday after hanging around for days, hoping to get through the closed door of the Indian Prime Minister.

In a desperate bid to win back the favor of India the TNA MPs tendered an abject apology for the killing of Rajiv Gandhi by the LTTE.

Even that card failed to soften the heart of India. Janata Party president Subramanian Swamy said on Wednesday that he could not believe that the Dr. Singh he knew for the past 40 years would do such a "crass thing" as meeting "stooges" of the LTTE, which he described as a "murderous terrorist outfit,." The Hindu reported.

They could not get anywhere near Douglas Devananda, the leader of the EPDP, who was introduced to Dr. Manmohan Singh by President, Mahinda Rajapakse in Havana.

Unable to score any convincing victories against the Sri Lankan forces, LTTE was making a last minute bid to revive the flagging hopes of its cadres and Tamil diaspora. The Indian rejection comes as a deadly blow at this juncture where the LTTE is, more or less, on its knees, according to political analysts. This rejection completes the isolation of the LTTE. It has no allies to fall back on at this critical point except, perhaps, Norway. It is time for the LTTE hierarchy to sit round a table and consider what steps they should take for their own survival. The Tamil community can survive. It has enough sensible leaders to negotiate a peace deal with President Mahinda Rajapakse. It is the future of the LTTE that is at stake now.

What is apparent now is that the diplomatic offensive launched by President Mahinda Rajapakse has paid off dividends. Combined with the ground realities where his forces have given the Tamil Tigers the beating they never expected it is clear that he has outwitted and outgunned the LTTE - a landmark victory for him.

The Tamil diaspora that financed the "Final War of Victory" - meaning the capture of Jaffna - is now in the doldrums. Their millions that funded the Tiger war chest are now floating down the Mavil Aru.

The big boast of the LTTE's power to influence the Tamil Nadu bloc to swing the centre in Delhi too has been blown to bits. Let alone Delhi the LTTE proxies could not even get to meet M. Karunanidhi, the chief of Tamil Nadu. In short, India has cut the LTTE down to size. Besides, Delhi's decision not to meet the TNA proxies of the LTTE is bound to restore the confidence in the role of India which was rather "iffy" in the minds of Sri Lankan political circles.

Dr. Manmohan Singh meeting the TNA MPs would have been like President Rajapakse having tea with the representatives of the Kashmir separatists, or the Indian Prime Minister entertaining the representatives of Nathuram Vinayak Godse, the assassin of Gandhi.

On a very touchy issue like this the Indian Prime Minister meeting TNA proxies of the LTTE would have been read as a reversion of Indian policy back to the time it armed, trained and financed terrorism that opened the way for the LTTE to emerge as a destabilising agent of India. Better sense has prevailed in Delhi.

If India continues this policy without wavering, it can help to restore India's image as a reliable stabilising agent of South Asia. Dr. Manmohan Singh's advances to improve relations with Pakistan too are a pointer in this direction.

As for the LTTE, if it has any political nous it should realise that it is back to square one. It is in the same position as the then Leader of the Opposition, Appapillai Amirthalingam who went round the world, with a diplomatic passport issued by President J. R. Jayewardene, and returned home to inform the TULF that the world is not prepared to give the Tamils a separate state.

Amirthalingam used the diplomatic passport to gain entry into Western corridors of power to argue his case for a separate state. But this manoeuvre like all other gambles of the Tamil political class failed.

The TNA proxies were also playing the sympathy card accusing the Sri Lankan government of committing "genocide". S. Chandrahasan, the son of the leader of the Tamil separatist movement, S. J. V. Chelvanayakam, is on record saying that Velupillai Prabhakaran has killed more Tamils than all the other forces (including Indian IPKF) put together. The latest tragic pictures of the Tamil corpses strewn around the FDLs in the combat zones confirm this. Are they dying for the elusive Eelam or to prop up Prabhakaran and his one-man regime?

S. P. Thamilchelvam, the political commissar of the LTTE is reported to have said: "It is our moral responsibility to keep India informed about the conditions prevailing in Sri Lanka." Cynics read this as an ominous sign. Does this mean that the LTTE will keep "India informed" when it decides to assassinate the next prime minister for opposing the LTTE politics?

(HLDM)