It is ironic that a lead article in a reputed journal in India blurts out that a Rajapakse win in the elections in sovereign Sri Lanka will be ‘an implicit vote for India’; a win for India. This author canvasses for a Rajapakse win not a Sarath Fonseka win espousing the cause of the South Block, Sri Lankan (SL) genocide regime’s partner. Whether a Rajapakse win is a win for Sri Lanka and/or its principal stakeholders (the Sinhala/Buddhist majority and the Tamil minority the victims of the SL genocide) is debatable. The phenomenon of a re-emerging opposition including the Tamil National Alliance (TNA); the popularly elected and legitimate Tamil representatives of the victims of the SL genocide aligning with Sarath is not discussed adequately.
Though Sarath Fonseka offers nothing tangible to resolve the Tamil national question TNA’s support for him will be a vote by the victims of a genocide against the Rajapakse regimes’ brutality. It is also a vote against the South Block the partners of the Rajapakse regime.TNA’s studied decision for the Tamil people is that Sarath’s harm to the Tamils was limited to his victory in the war which meant a humiliating defeat for the Tamils. The harm caused by the Rajapakses was its world renowned genocide in which massacres, mass internments and rampant human rights abuses were conspicuous elements. These were far more cruel and brutal. Sarath’s revelations point to the Rajapakses who as the political master gave direction for that ferocious genocide. The Mullativu massacres in May 2009 involved tens of thousands of civilians and the surrendering white flag carrying LTTE leadership that puts other notorious massacres around the world to shame. By his revelations Sarath disassociates himself from the Rajapakse war crimes, upstaging him as an upright military professional of the IPKF Harikirat standing who refused to obey Rajiv’s 1987 political order to kill off the LTTE leader, Prabhaharan, an invitee to an IPKF meeting. Fearing that Sarath like general Harikirat would disobey the orders to kill surrendering white flag carrying resistance leaders Gothabhaya issued the lethal orders directly to compliant field commanders ready to overlook the jealously guarded professional military conduct/standards and commit grave war crimes. According to Gothabhaya the Delhi trio was in the loop when these war crimes were committed.
The massacres occurred when the South Block pressured SL to end the war sooner by May instead of August 2009. Shortening the period to end the war in military terms meant more intensified and concentrated attacks and heavy civilian casualties. This occurred during the fatal two weeks in May to become war crimes. The South Block trio’s geo-political contrivance was to enhance Delhi’s status as a regional power and keep the US out of the SL theatre at whatever cost. This was Delhi’s reaction on learning that the US had firm plans to rescue the leadership of the resistance from the narrow ‘no fire zone’ densely packed with civilians which Delhi perceived as the US’s attempt to regain its traditional foothold in SL. Delhi views the US leaning towards Sarath as the US’s attempt to engineer the end game for Delhi in Colombo. Delhi’s traditional suspicions of the US actively seeking a foot hold in Colombo at Delhi’s expense re-surfaces though Delhi flaunts that its policies were intended to prevent China gaining a foothold in Colombo and the region. The latter was for domestic consumption. The consequence of Delhi’s pressure turned out to be more lethal than all the weaponry that Delhi accuses China of supplying SL. It also entrapped the key leaders of the Rajapakse regime into committing serious war crimes.
The undercurrents that drive the South Block’s anti-Tamil prejudice flows from its traditional hostility to Periyar’s popular vision for Tamils in TN especially in the area of social reforms. This was also distasteful to Delhi which the South Block artfully exploited to nurture strong anti Tamil prejudice in the Delhi political establishment. Using the bogey of Dravida separatist tendencies in TN emerging from an Eelam example Delhi distrusted TN Tamils’ support for the Tamil brethren victims of SL genocide. Delhi muzzled the TN Chief Minister; a Periyar progeny into silence at a time when massive massacres of Tamils were occurring in SL. South Block delights in flaunting the SL model for dealing with separatist tendencies as deterrence for those in TN harping on Periyar’s vision. Delhi’s silence is also explained by analysts to the Delhi trio’s role in SL in those critical weeks when the war crimes were committed. The South Block is nervous that Gothabhaya and others in SL implicated by Sarath in the war crimes could drag in the South Block players into an orgy of war crimes accusations. This nervousness drove Delhi diplomacy to kill off war crimes initiatives against SL in the UNHRC meeting in May 2009. Thus the South Block’s culpability explains Delhi favouring the return of a ruthless genocider/human rights abuser, the Rajapakse, in the Presidential election not the upright Sarath, to ensure that war crimes issue does not muddy up Delhi politics and its international standing.
In RAW the South Block’s influence is pervasive. It made effective use of RAW most in the SL case. RAW as past masters in manufacturing self serving intelligence planted the Sarath coup plot intelligence which its Delhi political masters pushed with the gullible Rajapakses to downsize the popular Sarath creating a major split in the SL political establishment most damaging to SL and the Sinhala/Buddhist interests. The very survival of the Rajapakses regime is at stake. Delhi still yearns for a Rajapakse president not a Sarath president to ensure SL was weakened to remain compliant enough for Delhi to play its regional role vigorously and unchallenged. RAW successfully planted intelligence to split up the Tamil resistance to cause its eventual demise. Only a Sarath president (god willing) is needed to save SL and the Buddhist/Sinhalese not the Tamils from South Block RAW’s antics. Only then will it not be an ‘implicit vote for India’ or Delhi win at the expense of all stakeholders in Sri Lanka that the South Block apologists boast about.
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