India backs abrogation of CFA and offensive against Tiger terrorists

Of late Indo-Sri Lanka relations have ceased to see-saw and moved into an even plane where it has been running on parallel lines. The latest statements from both sides of the Palk Straits seem to indicate that the parallel lines too have moved closer to the point of intertwining and strengthening each other.

After abrogating the Ceasefire Agreement thrust down the throat of the nation by the Western powers manipulated by pro-Tiger Norway, President Mahinda Rajapaksa has announced that the Indo-Sri Lanka Agreement provides the best solution for the national crisis. India, for its part, has refrained from criticizing the abrogation of the Ceasefire Agreement. India has responded by distancing itself from the Ceasefire Agreement saying that it was never a party to it. Both are very decisive and significant statements pointing the way to new directions in foreign and domestic affairs.

Mahinda Rajapaksa has made a defining and strategic move by throwing out the Western interventionists and their CFA without alienating India. He has joined hands with India to revive the Indo-Sri Lanka Agreement. In other words, India and Sri Lanka have jointly moved to cut the feet under the Western powers and the Tamil Tigers in one swift move.

The Western powers have been pushing Sri Lanka to the nth degree, forcing it to seek alternative sources of strength. Western diplomats have been muscling in with various unacceptable threats. Though it is not official yet the emerging trend is clear: Sri Lanka is warming up to India and looking to the east to build new bridges of friendship. President Rajapaksa's visit to Iran and the solid support extended to Pakistan at the Commonwealth conference are clear signs of the failed policies of the West to force Sri Lanka to toe its line.

In any case, the center of global power is shifting, slowly but surely from the West to the East. Sri Lanka is moving in the right direction by not depending too much on the fading West. At this critical juncture, when Sri Lanka is drifting away from the West, Indian backing is vital in particular to find common ground on the internal conflict. And it has been forthcoming in loud and clear terms. India's External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee, spelt it out in two key answers at his interview with Karan Thapar of CNN-IBN.

Karan Thapar: Last week the Sri Lankan government announced that with effect from January 15 it intends to abrogate the ceasefire agreement with the LTTE. In your eyes is this a mistake or this given the spate of LTTE attacks in recent months both understandable and perhaps also inevitable?

Pranab Mukherjee: We shall have to see what impact it has. Of late clashes between Sri Lankan forces and the LTTE terrorists have increased. So far as terrorism is concerned India's position is quite clear: zero tolerance. Therefore, any country that takes action against terrorists is free to do so within their legal system.

Karan Thapar: But you are not criticising Sri Lanka for abrogating the ceasefire accord?

Pranab Mukherjee: Because we are not party to it, please remember that. We were never a party to it; attempts were made to drag us to be a party to it but we scrupulously avoided it for obvious reasons.

In saying that Sri Lanka is well within its right to take action against Tiger terrorists Mukherjee has articulated unequivocally the fundamental principle that has been accepted internationally in the post-9/11 phase. Considering the overwhelming threat from terrorism to global peace, stability and progress the right of states "to take action against terrorists" should be taken as an unquestionable and inviolable principle.

No state can allow a bunch of politically depraved terrorists to hold a gun to the head of a democratically elected nation, no matter what their cause is. If the bullet is allowed to reign supreme then democracies must give up the ballot and arm every citizen with a gun to let them settle issues confronting communities and individuals like the way they did in the wild west. It is as simple as that.

Oppositionists

In Sri Lanka the general thrust of the foreign-funded NGOs has been to deny the right of the state to take the necessary counter-terrorist strategies to tame the Tamil Tigers. In devious ways - examples: peace marches, propaganda meetings, seminars, inviting international guest speakers to threaten the state with dire consequences if it does not halt the war against terrorism etc - these NGOs and even the main opposition party, the UNP, have questioned the right of the state to combat terrorism. However, these oppositionists have been very backward in applying the same force to challenge the claim of the Tamil Tiger terrorists to wage their brutal war threatening the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the nation. Their overall mission has been to manufacture political excuses and justifications for the origins and the continuation of terrorism.

The manoeuvres and arguments of the NGOs and the UNP opposition boil down to the unrealistic formula that the government must continue to negotiate, without engaging in counter-terrorist manoeuvres, despite (1) the unrelenting violence unleashed against the state and the people by the Tamil Tiger terrorists and (2) the repeated refusal of the Tamil Tiger terrorists to negotiate a peace deal even under international and regional pressures. The government's counter terrorist manoeuvres are opposed as if the state has no right to confront the terrorists with the necessary force to end violence. For instance, the ICES, a foreign-funded NGO along with other NGOs, got into this act and imported Gareth Evans, head of the International Crisis Group, to threaten the state with Right to Protect (R2P) if the state goes ahead with the counter-terrorists offensive.

The irony is that the R2P theorists have been dodging the issue of protecting the victims of Tamil Tiger terrorists, virtually granting them the right to perpetrate their crimes outside R2P, outside UN, outside international humanitarian laws and outside the norms of the elected state - a condition that will not be tolerated by any Western democracy. Nevertheless, these theorists and activists galvanized into action the moment they saw the state advancing to defeat the Tamil Tiger terrorists. Mukherjee's statement is a slap in the face of the R2P theorists who claim that the international community can intervene arbitrarily to stop the Sri Lankan Security Forces from advancing into the one-man Pol Potist regime in the Vanni and end violence.

India has boldly given the green light for the Sri Lankan forces to crush the Tamil tiger terrorists. The West and its CFA is out. India is in with its old Indo-Sri Lanka Agreement. This dramatic political shift, coming from a leading member of the international community and the regional super-power to boot, knocks the R2P theory into a cocked hat.

Sadistic delight

Besides, if a representative government, consisting of members of all communities, does not have the right to combat a Pol Potist regime engaged in committing war crimes and crimes against humanity through brutal acts of terrorism then it is time for the international community and the UN to re-write the laws to protect democracies from the likes of incorrigible and ruthless Prabhakaran violating all known canons of international humanitarian laws.

There is another notable significance in Mukherjee's statement: he applies this principle directly to Sri Lanka at a time when garrulous Gareth Evans, Jayantha Dhanapala, the little Napoleon of the R2P forces intended for Sri Lanka, and Radhika Coomaraswamy, who has a penchant for twisting fashionable theories with sadistic delight, are promoting R2P to halt the Sri Lankan government's "right to take action against terrorists". not surprisingly, the R2P theory is invoked to protect the Pol Potist regime and not the victims of its subhuman terror. Unlike the blinkered hypocrisy of the R2P champions mentioned above, Mukherjee has taken a realistic view of the right of states to combat the perpetrators of the worst crimes of our times. Mukherjee's declaration of zero tolerance of terrorism is aimed at dealing with terrorism in the region as a whole.

His statement is intended not only for Sri Lanka. It also applies to India which has never been free of terrorism in its post-colonial years.

Furthermore, in defending the right of Sri Lanka to defend itself against terrorism he has obliquely rejected the Tamil Tiger call to intervene on their behalf.

It is also in keeping with one of the key principles of Panchaseela - the principle of non-interference in each other's domestic affairs proclaimed at the first Non-aligned summit held in Bandung, 1954.

This forthright stand of India defending Sri Lanka's right to defeat terrorism should put an end to the futile efforts and the unwanted interventions of Western diplomats, their local agents in the foreign-funded NGO circuit and other assorted pundits who question the validity of the military operation against the Tamil Tiger terrorists. This coalition of holier-than-thou critics raises objections on two main grounds: (1). human rights violations and (2). in not finding a political solution before ending terrorism.

The "Mukherjee doctrine" is not an endorsement of either. India is concerned about both. But India, having been in the Sri Lankan quagmire from its inception, has revealed its pragmatic wisdom in prioritizing the need to combat terrorism before getting down to the other issues. Confusing the primary need to defeat terrorism with political solutions is to draw a red herring. Besides, the Oslo Ceasefire Agreement, backed by the West, stands as monument to the failure of thrusting political solutions before ending Tamil Tiger terrorism.

Defeating terrorism, therefore, is the first step for defining a political solution for peace.

The on-going military operation to end Tiger terrorism is not aimed at denying a political solution, at the end of the day, for all communities to co-exist in a multicultural society within an undivided Sri Lanka. Right now, the only political factor that stands in the way of confidence-building leading to a political solution is the intransigence of the Tiger terrorists. Removing Prabhakaran out of the political equation - and there is unprecedented backing for this in India - has been the only untried path to peace. The common consensus is that it is worth going down this untried path to find a political solution. It is equally significant that Mukherjee has refused to criticise Sri Lanka for abrogating the ceasefire pact with the Tigers saying that India refused to be a party to the Oslo Agreement despite pressures to drag them into it.

Indian realism on both counts - i.e., distancing itself from the CFA and endorsing action against terrorism - is a positive contribution to one of SAARC's most vexed problems.

Read together, the meaning is very clear: India has rejected the plea of Tamil Tigers terrorists to intervene on their behalf as they did in 1987. The Tigers are on their last legs and, what is more, they are all alone.

The international community, particularly India, has consistently refused to go along with the political goal of Tiger separatism and their violent methodology (i.e., terror tactics) to achieve that political goal.

Impunity

The Tamil Tigers and their backers in the Tamil diaspora, and the foreign-funded NGOs at home, have been beating their chests and wailing incessantly to (a) legitimize Tiger terror and (b) Tiger political goals in the eyes of the international community.

Mukherjee's statement confirms emphatically that the Tamil Tigers have lost on both counts. Reason: Tigers have lost credibility as partners in any international or national deal for peace.

Overestimating their power to take on the world, the Tigers have posed as a supra state with a military might to tear up international and national agreements with impunity, to commit war crimes and crimes against humanity, to behave arrogantly claiming a non-existent right to violate international humanitarian law in the name of a "liberation struggle", to ride rough shod over anything that opposes it, etc. The Tigers miscalculated and overplayed their hands in the belief that terror tactics can get whatever they want, wherever they want, any way they want. Now they are paying for it with interest. Now they are in a tight corner with no friends either abroad or at home.

Prabhakaran's last annual speech and the subsequent declarations of pro-Tiger websites are clear admissions of their failure to win international backing. In the heady days of post-1983, the Tamil diaspora - hats off to them! - did a splendid job of winning support in Western capitals for Jaffna-centric politics based on the vile stupidity of the Sinhala lunatic fringe that went on the rampage.

Tragically for the Tamils in the diaspora, the goodwill they achieved for their cause was destroyed by the gross brutalities of Prabhakaran, who outdid the violent Sinhala mob in beating the Tamils into submission through sheer terror. The violence of the Sinhala mob was sporadic and spontaneous like the fizz of a soda bottle. Prabhakaran's violence against the Tamil people, on the contrary, has been unrelenting, unceasing, beastly and organized methodically, under his supervision, in the so-called quasi state of Eelam to serve his unattainable political ends.

The Tamil diaspora, living in safe havens abroad, had no qualms about funding the humiliation, persecution and the decimation of the Tamils. It is their dollars that liquidated the entire Tamil leadership.

Blinded by the initial successes of Prabhakaran's killing machine they raised him on a pedestal, worshipping him as their saviour. They overlooked every crime he committed - particularly against the Tamils - in the mistaken belief that he was committing these crimes in the interests of the Tamils. They concocted excuses and/or covered up the war crime of plucking Tamil children from the arms of Tamil parents and feeding them as fodder to a futile war that has no future for the Tamils.

They must take full responsibility for arming the cruellest enemy of the Tamils who has killed more Tamils than all other forces put together. They encouraged Prabhakaran's petty vindictiveness and violence against their own Tamil people by blaming the majority Sinhalese.

They took cover by focusing on the mote in the eyes of the demonized Sinhalese and defended the beam in the Pol Potist regime.

Lost propaganda

Initially, they boasted that he gave dignity to the Tamils. Today they hang their heads in shame not only for leading the Tamils to death and destruction but also for denying the Tamil people the right to live without the dreaded fear that comes with a knock on the door demanding their children to serve in Prabhakaran's dwindling army. They did not protest against the persecution of dissident Tamils tortured in concentration camps in the Vanni. Today the Tamils cannot go to Jaffna - the heartland of Tamils - though they roam freely in the vilified south. Today the Tamils have lost more than the military power: they have lost the moral power that sustained the Tamil diaspora in the post-1983 days.

Prabhakaran is solely responsible for undermining the earlier gains of the Tamils in the diaspora. He killed the goose that laid the golden egg for him abroad through his terror tactics. The diaspora cannot regain the lost propaganda initiative to save him now though they are making desperate attempts to manipulate the West through some misguided churchmen and left-wing politicians who are dependent on the Tamil vote banks.

Except for the hard core who have a vested interests in oiling Prabhakaran's killing machine with dollars the disillusioned Tamils are walking away from the political illusions that fired their imagination in the pre-Prabhakaran days. The greatest loss to the Tamils is India. The "Mukherjee doctrine" has plainly pushed Prabhakaran into a corner from which he cannot get out. Prabhakaran has nowhere to go except to the negotiating table. Even if he goes to the negotiating table he would be sitting without the earlier bargaining strength which enabled Anton Balasingham and Erik Solheim to lord it over at peace talks where nothing concrete materialized.

The Tamil diaspora, even though late, must reconsider their strategies in the light of the crimes they had funded against their own people. They have been partners in the crime against the Tamils with Prabhakaran. They have no future in clinging on to dreams that were turned into nightmares by the Vanni villain they backed with their time, energy and funds. The Tamils, like all other communities, have a future only in a peaceful Sri Lanka where they are destined to live side by side as neighbours, friends, workmates, relatives and citizens - not as enemies, mark you - of a united nation.

They have no future either if they keep on blaming the Sinhalese (for how long have they been doing this and for how long can they go on doing this?) without taking responsibility for their crimes against their own people. Breeding ethnic hate or surviving on old political myths of discrimination will not serve them to see reasons or move on towards reconciliation. Even a cursory comparison with the Malaysian Tamils will confirm that Sri Lankan Tamils have had a better deal in every segment of life. For instance, the Sri Lanka Tamils have had the political space to pursue even their separatist politics - a movement that would have been snuffed out even before it could raise its head in Malaysia.

S. J. V. Chelvanayakam, the father of the Tamil separatist movement, would not have had a chance to breathe, or sponsor a separatist movement, if he remained with his father in Malaysia. Not only in professional terms, the Jaffna-centric politicians advanced to the heights they did because the democratic system gave them ample space to pursue their brand of mono-ethnic politics without endeavouring to co-exist harmoniously in a multi-cultural society.

The time for blaming is over. It is time for reconciliation. Tamils need a new leader for reconciliation because they have no future in following the leadership of the Vanni. The pragmatic Tamils are fully aware of it. But are the Tamils capable of producing a democratic personality that can save them from the horrors of the present and the future?