Page 2 of 2 South Asia gets a makeover By M K Bhadrakumar
to the international ban on it as a terrorist organization; its stockpiles of
arms and ammunition have been vastly depleted. The capture of Kilinochi enables
the military to advance towards the strategic Elephant Pass and to take control
of the highway to the northern province of Jaffna. There is undeniably a
yearning for peace among the Tamil groups and civilians after the bloody strife
lasting a quarter century.
On the other hand, the government successfully created a rift within the LTTE
and took complete control of the Eastern Provinces. Besides, the Sri Lankan
armed forces are today much better equipped and trained than ever before. The
high level of
coordination between the army, navy and the air force in the current operations
on Kilinochi have shown a very resolute and highly motivated armed forces. To
cap it all, Colombo is fully conscious that international opinion is also
extremely favorable to the military campaign against the LTTE. There has been
hardly any criticism of the massive human-rights violations by the Sri Lankan
military. Colombo's excellent media management techniques cannot quite account
for the acquiescence of the international community with the rout of the LTTE.
But the decisive factor has always been New Delhi's stance, which Colombo has
optimally exploited. Over the years, India has shed its heavily nuanced
approach towards the Tamil insurgency. Several factors have come into play. The
Sri Lankan Tamil problem is no more the emotive issue that it used to be in the
politically sensitive southern state of Tamil Nadu. Mainstream Indian opinion
has abhorred the LTTE ever since the assassination by a Tamil of former prime
minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1991. Government-to-government ties between New Delhi
and Colombo have steadily improved. Despite (or because of) the strong
undercurrent of suspicion regarding Indian intentions, successive governments
in Colombo have assiduously cultivated the Indian elite.
Most important, New Delhi cannot afford to have double standards if a
democratically elected government in Colombo chooses to relentlessly wage a war
against terrorists and separatists. Indian opinion is hardening about
trans-border terrorism afflicting the region. Therefore, New Delhi took a clear
stand that while paying attention to the welfare of Tamil civilians, it would
in no way interfere with the Sri Lankan government's offensive on the LTTE. At
the same time, India trained and equipped the Sri Lankan armed forces and
ensured that the LTTE was denied safe havens in the southern Indian state of
Tamil Nadu. The Indian navy cooperated with its Sri Lankan counterpart in
cutting off the LTTE's supply lines.
What lies ahead? There should be no doubt that the LTTE remains far from
vanquished as a terrorist organization, though the fall of Kilinochi is a huge
blow to the organization politically. If a parallel is to be drawn with the
Irish Republican Army, the LTTE can go on and on for many more years. All that
the Sri Lankan government can legitimately aspire to at this juncture is to
incrementally reduce the LTTE to a residual force. Its key objective will be to
capture or eliminate the LTTE leader Prabhakaran. Within hours of the fall of
Kilinochi, a LTTE suicide bomber struck in the heart of Colombo at the
headquarters of the Sri Lankan air force. All indications are that LTTE armed
formations have moved into the jungles of Mullativu district neighboring
Kilinochi, and may take recourse to guerilla tactics.
The million-dollar question is whether New Delhi can expect Colombo to
reciprocate its helpful stance on the war by heeding its advice to rewrite Sri
Lanka's constitution as a federal structure that guarantees equal rights to the
Tamil community and opens the way to a durable settlement of the Tamil problem,
which casts its shadows on the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu and impacts
on India's national security, apart from vitiating the regional security
climate. Clearly, without popular support, the LTTE cannot survive. Hence the
importance of a credible political package that wins over the Tamil community
and isolates the LTTE.
Unfortunately, there are no signs of that happening any time soon. To put it
mildly, the Sri Lankan government is in no tearing hurry. It is instead busy
mobilizing Sinhalese chauvinism. Notwithstanding Colombo's propaganda of a "war
for peace program" in the Eastern Provinces, which slipped out of LTTE control
from 2004, the ground reality is that violence continues and the government is
not able to deliver what it promised. Nothing much has happened by way of
rebuilding the Eastern Provinces. In sum, a credible political package is
missing.
What seems likely is that President Mahinda Rajapakse will cash in on the
current wave of Sinhalese nationalism and call for early parliamentary
elections to obtain an increased mandate for his political party. Meanwhile,
the Tamil issue might be put on the backburner. Rajapakse is a shrewd
politician and he will probably count on the easing of pressure from New Delhi
on this score as India too is heading for parliamentary elections in May.
Rajapakse will estimate that he has respite from Indian pressure for another
six months until a new government is formed in New Delhi. He will make sure to
touch base with New Delhi, but essentially wait and take stock of the emergent
equations between the two capitals before moving on a Tamil political package.
Sri Lankans, both at the level of the elite and at mass level, resent India's
perceived interference in their country's internal affairs. Therefore, a
section of the Indian strategic community has voiced criticism that New Delhi
has "lost the game" to Colombo and that a diminution of Indian influence on Sri
Lanka has become all but inevitable. Their insinuation is that New Delhi should
have kept a "back channel" open to the LTTE and to use the Tamil problem as a
geopolitical trump card. Their main grouse is that adversarial powers like
China and Pakistan have been stepping up their presence in Sri Lanka and unless
New Delhi keeps Colombo on a tight leash, the island will diversify its
patrons. It is actually a kind of Monroe Doctrine that New Delhi used to
practice in the 1980s and 1990s.
However, on balance, New Delhi has followed a wise policy that gave weight to
South Asia's security and stability. Curiously, the current Indian stance bears
a vague resemblance to China's strategy of "peaceful development" as the core
of its foreign policy in the neighboring regions. Indeed, the Indian strategic
community has quite some way to catch up with the seamless sophisticated
Chinese idea that in the present-day era of globalization, the concept of
national interest has become a "hybrid with certain 'international
community-esque' traits" - to quote Professor Shi Yinhong of Renmin University
in a recent article in the government-owned China Daily newspaper.
As Shi put it, "The strategic benefit of peaceful development is apparent. It
is overwhelmingly dependent on peaceful and non-military sources of power and
projection of influence. It is by nature non-violent and non-invasive, all-win
and mutually beneficial, and, relatively speaking, least likely to evolve
strong resistance while its result is most acceptable. That makes it effective
and worthwhile at the same time."
Sri Lanka indeed promises to become an interesting test case of a Chinese-model
nascent Indian regional strategy in South Asia. Detractors in the Indian
strategic community may have a point that power politics cannot be wished away
as it remains a basic characteristic in regional politics, especially in
geopolitical contexts such as highly strategic Sri Lanka, which has profound
implications for India's territorial security. But New Delhi's priority in Sri
Lanka has been steadily shifting from military-security to economic development
and soft power and interdependence between the two national economies.
Rajapakse can draw comfort that it is only a remote, almost non-existent
possibility that a new government in New Delhi six months hence will
significantly depart from the current approach. The heart of the matter is that
Indian sights are definitely focused on terrorism and regional stability as
never before. It simply can't be otherwise. The festering wound in Afghanistan
is almost becoming a gangrene affecting regional security and stability and New
Delhi will be loathe to see that in another tip of the Indian sub-continent
another wound lies open.
Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar was a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign
Service. His assignments included the Soviet Union, South Korea, Sri Lanka,
Germany, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Kuwait and Turkey.
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