by T. Sabaratnam; originally published February 3, 2004
Weekly Review
2 February 2004
India to delay signing the Defence Agreement
India has decided to delay the signing of the Indo-Sri Lanka Defence Agreement, Colombo-based Indian diplomats said.
This information was conveyed to President Chandrika Kumaratunga by Indian High Commissioner Nirupam Sen during the one and a half hour meeting they had on Saturday.
He cited the impending dissolution of the Indian Parliament and the general election that would follow in April as the reasons for the delay. Sen told Chandrika that Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee would like the new government to proceed with the matter.
Diplomatic sources attribute different reasons for India’s decision to delay the signing of the defence agreement. They say, firstly, India wanted to avoid defence agreement being made use of as a propaganda tool by either the president or the prime minister. The defence agreement was the initiative of Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, who persuaded Vajpayee to agree to it when he met him in October.
Ranil wanted to blunt the criticism of his Buddhist extremist critics who attacked his peace process saying he had conceded the LTTE too much. He wanted to show the defence agreement as the whip he had obtained to keep the Tigers under check. “Look here, I have got India on our side. That is enough to deal with the Tigers if they show their true colours,” Ranil told his critics by implication.
Things changed when Chandrika took over the ministries of defence, interior and media on November 4. She wanted to snatch the credit for the signing of the defence treaty with India and show the Sinhala people that she was the one who had obtained the whip. She sent a 3-member defence team headed by defence secretary Cyril Herath and included Army Commander Lionel Balagalle and a lawyer to New Delhi and urged the Indian officials to expedite the signing of the treaty.
Ranil did not want to lose the propaganda benefit. He sent his minister Milinda Moragoda to ask his Indian ‘friends’ not to give the propaganda benefit to his rival, Chandrika. “Delay it till we get over the election,” Moragoda pleaded. But for the Indians, who had got into a mess, their own election came to their rescue.
Tamil Reaction
Diplomatic sources said the second reason for India’s delaying decision was the adverse reaction it generated among the Tamils. The build up of Tamil resentment disturbed Indian officials. They did not want India to be seen as the promoter of Sinhala chauvinism. Indian diplomatic officials in Colombo had taken great pains to dispel that view taking root among Tamils. They met influential groups of politicians, intellectuals, educationists and media personnel and reiterated India’s commitment to the attainment of the aspirations of the Tamil people.
Tamil groups told the Indians of the unintended mindset the defence pact is promoting among Sinhala extremists. “They are already gloating about the defence pact. They are talking about getting India to contain the Tigers’ military power. If the Tigers lose their military superiority, Sinhala chauvinists will not permit their leaders to concede anything to the Tamils,” they told the Indians.
They told the Indian diplomats to read J. N. Dixit’s book Assignment Colombo to understand the stratagems of the Sinhala leadership.
Former foreign minister Lakshman Kadirgamar’s comments in New Delhi last weekend helped to heighten Tamil suspicions. Kadirgamar, who attended the Asian Security Conference organized by a New Delhi-based think tank told Indo-Asian News Service that the proposed India- Sri Lanka defence pact would upset the military parity the LTTE had with Sri Lankan armed forces in Colombo’s favour. That is why, he said, the LTTE was worried about the defence pact.
“I don’t see any other way to move forward,” he added, suggesting militarily weakening the LTTE as the way to the solution of the ethnic problem.
Kadirgamar, who met India’s National Security Adviser Brajesh Mishra, Defence Minister George Fernandes and senior government officials, as usual, tried to upset them about the LTTE’s proposals for an Interim Self-Government Administration. “It’s in India’s interest to see the implications of the LTTE’s peace proposals that clearly go beyond a federal solution,” he said.
India’s Concerns
Though his intention might have been to provoke India against the LTTE, he had accepted a basic truth: “India is the dominant geo-political reality of the region and we all have to respect India’s security concerns,” he said.
It is in making the Sinhalese accept this reality that India has notched a major diplomatic victory. The Sinhala community, which called India all sorts of names a decade and a half ago- “big bully” and “an occupying force”- ,is now calling India its friend and is asking it to intervene in the Sri Lankan ethnic dispute. It is also talking about respecting India’s security concerns.
The Sinhalese are now trying to tell India that it is the LTTE that is going against India’s security concerns.
Sounding almost desperate, Kadirgamar told India to send signals to the Sri Lankan government and the LTTE.
He said: “Time has come for India to show interest. India cannot shut its eyes to it. It can be back channel, low key, anything, but begin to send signals both to us and the LTTE.”
Foreign Minister Tyronne Fernando, too, sought India’s moral support for moving ahead in the Norwegian-brokered peace process.
Indian policy planners are pleased with this turn of events. The Sinhalese, who blocked all roads leading to Colombo when Rajiv Gandhi flew in to sign the Indo-Sri Lanka Agreement in July 1987, are talking of respecting India’s security concerns. The Annexure that included the letters exchanged between Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and President Jayewardene enumerated the main Indian concerns of that time.
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They were: (a) presence and employment of foreign military and intelligence personnel, (b) making available for military use by any country Trincomalee or other ports in Sri Lanka in a manner prejudicial to India’s interests, (c) restoring and operating the Trincomalee Oil Tank Farm as a joint venture between India and Sri Lanka and (d) restricting the use of foreign broadcasting facilities in Sri Lanka to non-military or non-intelligence purposes.
Of these four matters the last- the Voice of America Broadcast Station- has lost its importance and the Trincomalee Oil Tank Farm has effectively come under Indian dominance. The presence and employment of foreign and military and intelligence personnel, especially the Israeli, British and Pakistani tie-ups, have ceased.
Trincomalee harbour remains the major concern of India and military supplies have emerged as the new concern.
India sees a disturbing trend in the recent revival of US interest in Trincomalee. The US military establishment, the Pentagon, evinced interest in signing a Acquisition and Cross Servicing Treaty (ACSA) with Sri Lanka a year ago. When New Delhi got to know of that move it reminded Sri Lanka of its obligation under the 1987 Peace Accord and dissuaded the US from proceeding with that matter.
India’s current security concern is military training and supplies. Though Rajiv Gandhi mentioned that concern in the letter he exchanged with Jayewardene, it was not fully explained and adhered to. Rajiv Gandhi’s letter states:
Provide training facilities and military supplies for Sri Lankan security forces
and
India and Sri Lanka have agreed to set up a joint consultative mechanism to continuously review matters of common concern in the light of the objectives stated in para 1…
India wants to get Sri Lanka’s compliance in these matters through the proposed India- Sri Lanka Defence Cooperation Agreement. Sri Lanka has since 1993 gradually slide into the US sphere of influence in the matter of military training. In 1993 training began as the medical and evacuation training of injured soldiers from the war theatre. It gradually expanded into jungle warfare, deep penetration attack and other sophisticated methods. The India- Sri Lanka Defence Cooperation Agreement will stop the US from becoming the central player in Sri Lankan military affairs.
India also wants to build and broad base its defence industry. It wants to enter the global arms market.
Analysts here say that Tamils must recognize these long-term objectives of India and adopt attitudes and approaches that would win India’s appreciation. For India, which is vying for superpower status, its concerns and interests are supreme.
The LTTE has already begun the process of winning back the confidence of India. Its theoretician has declared that the LTTE would respect India’s security concerns. That process has to be taken further.