The positive contribution of the brutal Rajapakse genocide (2004 – ) liberated Eelam Tamils of the dated thinking that for over six decades paralaysed progress on the Tamil cause seeking a historically logical solution. This involves Tamil Eelam acceding to India via Tamil Nadu.
“In view of these the Tamils need more reliable solutions …to guarantee Tamil survival in an Eelam as part ..of TN/India.. returns the Tamils to India…(of the past). The accession..would confer Indian citizenship automatically guaranteeing Tamils lives and Tamil identity, strengthen India’s own regional supremacy and secure India’s south underbelly. TN opinion is bound to bounce back strongly in support of the Indian/TN/..model as SL moves stridently Sinhalising SL totally.” (‘Sri Lanka trauma – Rajapakse’s village level/Indo-SL Accord/Cyprus devolution models?’ Groundreport of 10 February 2010).
For Eelam Tamils today the top most concern is survival that the standard panacea (devolution, elections, development) that is debated is meaningless. The truth that the British left the Eelam Tamils as an orphaned defenseless people in the step-motherly care of the likes of Rajapakses with a vision of a united Lanka- ‘a Sinhala land’ cleansed of ‘para demalas’ or Tamils only dawned gradually.
In the pre-Rajapakse period for ethnic cleansing the state used mobs and police to assault, kill, destroy homes, assets and livelihood that thousands were displaced internally and thousands fled overseas as refugees. Almost every Eelam Tamil was a victim. The world outraged over these atrocities then was too mild for SL to successfully continue it with impunity. Yet an over stretched international community humanely accepted and generously provided for the 1.2 plus million Eelam Tamils (the ethnic cleansed victims) to successfully rebuild their lives.
The greatest tragedy occurred in the Rajapakses (2004- ) period when ethnic cleansing of the remaining ‘para demalas’ turned deadly. With no country in the world with capacity to absorb any more refugees SL’s ethnic cleansing assumed a vicious and monstrous character. Physically eliminating the Eelam Tamils emerged as the preferred method. A Harvard estimate puts those killed at .4million two years ago. Hence the recurrent massacres were not in hundreds as in the past but in tens of thousands. Heartless herding into camps for interning was not in thousands but hundreds of thousands. These were possible only with a dense militarization or military occupation of the North and East. Though the world conscience stirred, but a curious axis comprising China (of Tiananmen fame), Israel, Dharmic India/Delhi, Russia, Islamic Iran and Pakistan collaborated with the SL genociders to kill off the war crimes initiatives meant to deter SL’s war crimes in the May 2009 UNHRC meeting. A novel ‘geo-politics’ entered the lexicon of the Delhi South Block to justify India’s active support for the SL genocide; the contents of which changed with the personal whims and prejudices of those sectarians ‘in the (SL) loop’.
The John Kerry report (Senate Committee on Foreign Relations US) is candid on the geo-politics of the China factor in US-SL relations to formulate US policy responses to overcome the loss of the critical LTTE leverage. Curiously to policy makers in Delhi in such close proximity and with regional role the loss of the LTTE leverage did not emerge as a major concern. Despite Anil Athale’s ‘Threat to India’s soft underbelly’ (Rediff Jan 2008) and Bhadrakumar ‘loss of the LTTE leverage’ thesis in ‘Blood in our hands’ (Rediff May 2009) Delhi’s Indo-SL policies drifted rudderless unchanged for TN/India to plunge into a catastrophic security debacle (another Bombay debacle) while the US was addressing the same issue with an urgency. Undeterred the Delhi trio under the Narayanan supremo persisted with policies that effectively brought the China peril the closest ever to the Indian/TN shores. Narayanan’s strange geo-politics drastically changed direction from the Delhi’s Dixit military (IPKF) style intervention to an ‘over appeasing’ Rajapakse diplomacy. In justification, the South Block apologists downgraded the tragedy of the genocide massacres whose only worth was as a cheap trade off for the peanut commercial benefits accruing from the far fewer commercial projects SL awarded to Delhi than to China. The Kerry report points out how SL conscious of its clout without the LTTE deterrence is using the ‘strong bargaining platform in global rivalries’. Here Kerry poses ‘If the LTTE had succeeded, the US would have gained control of two thirds of Sri Lanka coastline. (to) …interfere if and when the need arose, with the flow of…resources … interfere with free trade in the Indian Ocean and undermine stability in India …Rajapakse..was responsible for the country’s drift towards China..one of the biggest challenges to US ..’. When the loss of ‘control of two thirds of Sri Lanka coastline’ and ‘the country’s (SL’s) drift towards China’ on the LTTE defeat alarms a super power like the US how could Delhi under the Narayanan trio spell be ‘in the (SL) loop’ collaborating actively in the very dismantling of the very leverage thus facilitating ‘the (SL) drift towards China’. A curious Narayanan ‘geo-politics’ decoction!.
China that in the pre Rajapakse/Narayanan period was nowhere close regionally except in Burma and Pakistan cheaply gained a firm foothold in SL (Hambantota) under terms that contractually allows China to employ only its own labour (an euphemism for combat cadres; China projects with similar labour provisions led to brutal civil strife in several African states). An assertive SL without the LTTE deterrence launching Israeli style forays into TN from the heavily militarized North and Katchchativu facing the TN coastline with sensitive security assets are grave risks to India. SL regularly puts TN/Delhi on notice of its new clout with its navy carrying out frequent outrageous attacks on unarmed TN fishermen in the Palk Straits. LTTE navy kept the SL navy moored at all times within the few naval ports in the North that the TN fishermen were well protected. Likewise The LTTE kept the SL armed forces in the North within their bases.
To counter these emerging threats Delhi needs to pursue on the Tamil Eelam accession to India/TN initiative. The relevance of the Indo-SL Accord devolution was long lost more so after the painful experience of the Rajapakse May 2009 brutality for Tamils to actively seek for internationally guaranteed security for their lives. Tamil Eelam’s accession also provides a security buffer between TN/India and China/SL. Further penetration of the China threat to India via SL needs to be addressed urgently.