Defense pact to expand India's Sri Lanka
role By Sudha
Ramachandran
BANGALORE - India and Sri Lanka are
in the final stages of concluding a bilateral defense
cooperation agreement. The proposed pact, which is
expected to be signed by the end of the year, could see
India's role in the island nation increase
significantly.
The pact has been
under discussion for the past year. Talks were put on hold
for a while after the change of government in both
countries. But with the new governments in both
countries keen on carrying forward the pact, things
started moving quickly over the past couple of months.
Last week, officials from the two countries met
in Colombo to finalize the draft agreement. According to
a Sri Lankan Defense Ministry press release, officials
discussed military training, exchange of military
intelligence and information, maritime surveillance to
prevent illegal activities affecting both countries,
official visits and bilateral meetings at different
levels, participation in training programs and joint
military exercises. India is likely to sell Sri Lanka
advanced light helicopters, small arms and ammunitions,
artillery pieces, special clothing, and other items.
The proposed pact has been described as "general
in nature, falling in the category of a standard
bilateral, a kind of agreement which India has with many
other countries," officials said. According
to officials, "It formalizes existing cooperation and
provides a framework for cooperation in the future."
Sources in the Indian Ministry of External
Affairs say in private that the pact is "far-reaching"
and "historic", a "milestone in India-Sri Lanka
relations" that could see India "return as a player in
the Sri Lankan conflict in a major way".
In July
1987, India and Sri Lanka signed an agreement aimed at
politically resolving the ethnic conflict in the island
but which eventually led to India deploying its troops
in the northeast of Sri Lanka. From October 1987 until
March 1990, the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) was
engaged in military operations against the Liberation
Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), a bloody
counter-insurgency operation that cost the Indian forces
almost 1,200 lives.
The IPKF experience in Sri
Lanka and the rather arbitrary manner in which the then
Lankan government called on India to pull out its troops
plunged India-Sri Lanka relations to an all-time low.
The events of 1987-90 cast a long shadow on India's
policy toward Sri Lanka, the LTTE and the ethnic
conflict, contributing to India adopting a "hands-off
approach" towards the Lankan crisis thereafter. In May
1991, former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi was
assassinated by the LTTE. A year later, India became the
first country to ban the LTTE.
While India's
relations with Sri Lanka slowly warmed with Chandrika
Kumaratunga becoming the Sri Lankan president in 1994,
its role in the ethnic crisis remained low profile. Even
when it seemed that the Jaffna Peninsula might fall to
the LTTE in 2000, New Delhi refused to come to the
assistance of the Sri Lankan military, preferring to
limit its help to humanitarian assistance. On the
economic front, bilateral relations have deepened
substantially in recent years.
But its
"hands-off policy" notwithstanding, India has been very
much involved in the Lankan quest for a solution to the
ethnic crisis. Norwegian mediators as well as the Lankan
government have been keeping India briefed on
developments related to the peace process. And far from
being a neutral observer of the peace process, India has
been quietly supportive of the government by not
demanding extradition of LTTE leader Velupillai
Prabakaran, the prime figure accused of masterminding
the Rajiv Gandhi assassination, and at the same time
keeping the pressure on the LTTE by keeping in place the
ban on the organization. Training of Lankan soldiers has
been going on. Besides, the two countries have been
cooperating in naval surveillance of the waters around
the Jaffna Peninsula, keeping an eye on LTTE attempts to
ferry arms and fuel into the peninsula.
This
overtly aloof, quietly supportive role India has been
playing is now poised to change with the defense pact.
India's role is likely to become more assertive and
overt in its military support to the Lankan government.
Marine surveillance is one area in which India
and Sri Lanka will work together. The two countries are
separated by a mere 22 miles of shallow waters at its
closest point, and for years the Tigers have treated the
Indian state of Tamil Nadu as their rear base, turning
to it for supplies and sanctuary. Although India has
dismantled much of this support infrastructure in Tamil
Nadu, the entry of Tigers into the state cannot be
stopped completely as Tigers posing as fisherman can get
through.
Professor V Suryanarayan, an Indian
expert on Sri Lankan affairs, points to the "emergence
of the 'Sea Tigers' [the LTTE's naval wing] as a
credible fighting force in India's maritime
neighborhood". In an op-ed article in The Hindu, he
draws attention to the objectives of the Sea Tigers,
their impressive military capacity and the dangers posed
by maritime terrorism to India.
The LTTE has
been claiming "rights" in the seas along the coast of
the northeast. Their 2003 proposal for an LTTE-dominated
interim self-government in the northeast envisaged
control over the marine and offshore resources of the
"adjacent [to the northeast] seas and the power to
regulate access thereto". Implicit in this, according
the Sea Tigers, is a de facto naval status and a
maritime boundary dividing Sri Lankan territorial waters
that would leave the LTTE in charge on one side of Sri
Lanka's international boundary line with India.
Suryanarayan warns that in case Colombo were "to accept
these proposals, two-thirds of Sri Lanka's coastline
will come under Tiger control".
Suryanarayan
warns that "if effective steps are not taken, the LTTE
will expand its geographic space as well as range of
operations, posing a threat to South Asian security."
India, he writes, "should work with the objective of
neutralizing the Sea Tigers at the earliest
opportunity."
The increased cooperation with
regard to naval surveillance that is likely under the
proposed defense pact would be a check on Tiger activity
in the seas. A retired Indian diplomat told Asia Times
Online that "for Colombo, it would be a step towards
choking off Tiger transport of weaponry from overseas;
for India, it would help neutralize the threat of
maritime terrorism posed by the LTTE." It could also
provide India access to Lankan seas and ports "and
enable India to project its force more effectively in
the Indian Ocean".
The draft pact will now move
for approval by the political leadership in the two
countries. Since it was Sri Lanka's opposition United
National Party that mooted the pact proposal last year
when it was in power, its objections to the defense
agreement will be muted. The Janata Vimukti Peramuna
(JVP), a Sinhalese nationalist party that was at the
forefront of the violent anti-India campaign in the
1987-90 period and is now part of the ruling coalition,
has changed track on the issue of Indian involvement in
Sri Lanka. Earlier this year, JVP leader Somawamse
Amarasinghe "warmly embraced the proposed defense pact"
between India and Sri Lanka and had said the defense
pact "should be made an important aspect of our [Sri
Lanka's] foreign policy". The JVP is virulently
anti-LTTE.
It is from the LTTE that the pact
will face the most ferocious opposition. The Tigers had
warned earlier this year that the defense agreement with
India could damage the already fragile ceasefire between
them and the government. Unlike the previous government,
which was anxious to keep the truce alive at any cost,
the present Lankan government is unlikely to feel as
inhibited by the possible LTTE response - a withdrawal
from the ceasefire.
In India, opposition to the
pact is likely to come from within the government. The
Dravida Munethra Kazhagam (DMK) and the Marumalarchi DMK
are sympathetic to the LTTE. Indian officials seem
confident that they will be able to overcome resistance
from these two Tamil nationalist parties once the
strategic goals are explained. A critical issue that
will determine how the Tamil parties respond would be
what provisions the pact makes for India's response to a
military emergency in Sri Lanka. The Tamil parties will
have to be convinced that Delhi's military co-operation
with Colombo does not undermine Sri Lankan Tamil
interests - a tough task.
The India-Sri Lanka
defense pact is the first of its kind in the region, the
proposal a Colombo initiative. Delhi will be looking to
others in the region to follow Colombo's lead.
Sudha Ramachandran is an independent researcher/writer
based in Bangalore, India. She has a doctoral
degree from the School of International Studies,
Jawaharlal Nehru University, in New Delhi. Her areas
of interest include terrorism, conflict zones and gender
and conflict. Formerly an assistant editor at the
Deccan Herald (Bangalore) she now teaches at the Asian
College of Journalism, Chennai.
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