Geopolitics of South Asia

by Neville Jayaweera; Confluence, January 2004

In 2001 the USA took the extraordinary and unprecedented step of convening a conference of some of the biggest international donors in Washington and persuaded them to pledge a huge sum as aid for the reconstruction of Sri Lanka. It then went on to co-sponsor another donor conference in Tokyo to get the donor countries to confirm their pledges. These pledges totalled a staggering $4.5 billion, slightly more than the total sum pledged for the reconstruction of Afghanistan. Not only that.

Contrary to long established conventions on protocol, and ignoring the strict requirement that a foreign envoy must at all times refrain from interfering in the internal affairs of the host country, the US Ambassador in Colombo has had the temerity to issue dire warnings to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), one of the main parties involved in the ongoing conflict. Also, several high level officials from the State Department in Washington have visited Colombo and have entered into close consultations with the government. Not least, US navy and air force personnel have been visiting Sri Lanka and taking a close look at its naval and airfield infrastructures while the US army has been providing the Sri Lankan army with a whole range of training opportunities International analysts are therefore bound to ask, what is it that instigates this sudden escalation of US interest in Sri Lanka. This article seeks to supply an answer.

Both for the US as well as for India, pre-emptive intervention in this instance means coping with the principal outgrowth of Moslem Fundamentalism which we may call Jihadism, for short. The destruction of the Twin Towers convinced the US, that even though the disintegration of the Soviet Union left them as the world’s only super power, they were still highly vulnerable. Though no longer vulnerable to ICBMs and conventional military assaults from a visible enemy they remained exposed to onslaughts, no less devastating, from an invisible enemy who could lurk anywhere, could strike anytime, and yet remain untouched and invulnerable to the US’s military might. That enemy is Jihadism, or the fanatic face of Moslem Fundamentalism, of which the Al Qaeda is only one manifestation, though currently the most potent.

Jihadism is a religious idea, and like all such ideas, has the capacity to mobilise and deploy volatile emotions on a massive scale. Currently, it is more potent than any religious idea that has hitherto animated the human mind, except perhaps the Crusades and the Inquisition. Over the past one thousand six hundred years Islam has moved from being a religion of a few nomadic Arabic tribes into being the world’s second most numerous religion. So much so, that it now encompasses within its fold, not only Arabs, but Spaniards, Moors, Black Africans, East Europeans, Turks, Kurds, Armenians, Iranians, Afghans, a whole swathe of ethnic groups in Central Asia, Mongolians, Chinese, Pakistanis, Indians, Bangladeshis, Malaysians, Indonesians, and Filipinos as well. Within all these groups, and scattered even within traditionally European countries, Jihadism is a time bomb ticking away, its specific target being the destruction of the US and its allies. Its weapons are varied, numerous, mostly impossible to detect and for that reason no less potent than the arsenal of nuclear weapons assembled by the former Soviet Union.

A particular focus of Jihadism is the Indian Ocean. If one looks at the map of the region, the Indian Ocean emerges literally as a Moslem lake. It is bounded on the east by what is virtually a Moslem rampart, made up of Bangladesh, Malaysia, Indonesia and the southern Philippines. Likewise, on the west, it is bounded by an equally formidable Moslem formation, comprised of Mozambique, Zanzibar, Somalia, Sudan, Egypt, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, and all the other countries washed by the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Sea, including Pakistan, and not forgetting India which has over 250 million Moslems. In some of these countries, particularly in Saudi Arabia and within some of the Persian Gulf territories, and in Pakistan, the US is already under enormous pressure and their embassies and personnel live in constant fear of life and limb. In the other Indian Ocean Moslem states, though anti-Americanism is not quite so overt, the hostility lurks just below the surface. However within these countries as well, powerful Jihadist cells are multiplying rapidly, fostered and trained mostly by Al Qaeda and the US knows that its presence in these countries will come increasingly under threat.

It is not only the oil supplies from the traditional Middle East countries that are at stake here. One of the primary reasons for the USA’s intervention in Afghanistan was to secure a safe outlet for the pipe line it is constructing through that country for exploiting the enormous oil reserves around the southern Caspian Sea and that investment requires that both the Straits of Hormuz and Suez be protected at whatever cost.

One of the primary targets of Jihadism must be the Suez Canal. Although the canal is under Egyptian control, given that within Egypt itself Jihadists are very active, it is only a matter of time before they target the canal. The Suez is the artery though which the oil that the western world needs to sustain itself flows, but all it takes to choke it off for months or even for longer, will a simple nuclear device in the hold of one of the hundreds of ships that ply it daily, detonated either by a time device or remotely. When ( not if ) that happens, the oil life line to the West will be severed, the entire global economy will go into a steep recession. and its effects will far exceed those wrought by the destruction of the Twin Towers. Likewise, if a couple of mammoth oil tankers can be sunk at the entrance to the Straits of Hormuz, the oil from the Persian Gulf and the Caspian Sea can be choked off. Similarly, though not so effectively, the shipping traffic through the Malaccan Straits to Japan can also be constricted.

To make matters worse, it is also only a matter of time before an extreme fundamentalist Moslem group ousts Musharraf and takes over the government of Pakistan. When that happens the Jihadists will for the first time have access to a considerable arsenal of nuclear weapons. That will completely upset the strategic balance in the region, primarily for India, but for the West as well.

Furthermore, India has already had serious problems with Jihadism within its own territory, and shares the US’s concerns about its potential for regional and global instability. It would therefore like to see the US make its presence evident within the region and provide them with a strong umbrella in the form of a quick response strike capability.

The US already has a military base at Diego Garcia in the southern Indian Ocean where some 900 US personnel are stationed to support the Fifth Fleet and a squadron of B52s which also use it from time to time. Attacks on Afghanistan were carried out by planes and carriers based in Diego Garcia. However, the agreement that allows the US to use Diego Garcia runs out by 2017 and in any case the US would prefer to have a base closer to the likely areas of future action, which are the southern shores of the Asian sub-continent.

One would expect that several places along India’s long coastline would serve that purpose ideally, but that option is also open to Jihadist penetration and, besides, might upset Pakistan. Therefore the US needs an internationally more neutral and a less vulnerable platform. Some years ago the very thought of an American base in the Indian Ocean, too close to its own shores, would have set off alarm bells in New Delhi. In fact, when Sri Lanka under J. R. Jayawardena tried to seduce the US to take over Trincomalee as an insurance against the rampaging LTTE, New Delhi made its displeasure known very explicitly. Times have changed since then. Now, India would explicitly seek an American presence close at hand to insure itself against the day that Pakistan is taken over by a Jihadist regime and to protect itself against Jihadism from within its own territory.

Sri Lanka has another strategic value for both the US and India. Within the next few decades, China will emerge as a formidable Asian super power and will have to be contained. Its demand for oil has already exceeded its local supplies and for the first time, China has in recent years started importing oil from the Middle East. There is concern in Washington as well as in New Delhi that China may begin to covet the oil resources of Myanmar, as well as the resources of Indonesia, in much the same way as Japan sought them in the 1940s and fought a war to obtain them. China already has a considerable blue seas fleet which will expand in numbers and strength as the years pass and which it will use to push its interests in the region.

For these reasons, i.e. for pre-empting Jihadism along the Indian ocean rim, for keeping open the oil supply routes from the Middle East through Suez and Hormuz and for containing Chinese expansion into the Indian Ocean, both the US and India find that Sri Lanka is of paramount strategic value for them. However, they have a major problem. The internal ethnic conflict between the Sinhala and the Tamils must first be tidied up. Therefore, the first interest of the US and India in Sri Lanka is to somehow speedily resolve or pacify this conflict.

1. There shall be no Eelam or a separate Tamil state and the unity of the Sri Lankan state must be preserved. The prospect of a separate Tamil state in Sri Lanka, adjacent to Tamil Nadu will not be acceptable to India because of it potential for de-stabilising the Union.

2. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) which claims to be the sole representative of the Tamil people must formally renounce terrorism and violence as the way of redressing their grievances.

3. The Government of Sri Lanka (GOSL) must amend its constitution and convert the present unitary state into a federal state.

4. Within this federal state, the Tamil people must be given the right of full internal self-determination.

5. The Moslems will have adequate representation within the federal state and their interests will be guaranteed.

6. The principles of democracy and human rights shall be observed by all components of the federal state.

7. The release of the $4.5 billion pledged for the reconstruction of the country would be strictly contingent on the GOSL and the LTTE fulfilling these requirements.

The fulfilment of these conditions is proving to be more difficult than anticipated. However, contrary to a popular assumption that the LTTE will never abandon their demand for a separate state, they have in fact renounced their long cherished hope of an Eelam and have opted instead for complete internal self determination within a federal union of Sri Lanka. The GOSL itself has publicly acknowledged this gesture as a historic paradigm shift. Furthermore, without formally renouncing “terrorism” as such, the LTTE has also given an assurance that they will not resort to war to obtain their demands and will instead opt for negotiations and for a political solution as opposed to a military one. The difficulty however, seems to lie with the government side.

The real stumbling block is that to amend the existing constitution and draft a federal constitution, the government will need a 2/3rds majority in the House. Given the system of proportional representation now current, it is extremely unlikely that any party will obtain that majority in the House to push through the necessary reforms. It is not just a question of the arithmetic of party voting or the numbers game. It is simply a fact that the Sinhala majority, of whatsoever party, and in whatever formation or coalition of parties, is extremely unlikely to accede to the federal principle. Therefore the unwelcome truth is that the PP has reached the end of the road, at least as far as it can be carried through while conforming to democratic practice and is unlikely to deliver on the pledge to adopt federalism as a solution to the conflict.

That truth may not have yet dawned on the US, India and Japan, but they will soon see the light. However, the strategic needs of the US are so overwhelming that they will not be thwarted by such a triviality as a constitutional conundrum internal to Sri Lanka. If Sri Lanka cannot sort out their internal squabbles themselves, things will be sorted out for them externally, ex machina. Which is to say, the US, working in collaboration with India and Japan, will find a way physically to intervene in the island and impose a new constitution and even install a puppet regime, which will provide the frame for the kind of Sri Lanka that the US and India will deem best suited to their own purposes.

The commitment of the US to the democratic principle in its relations with foreign countries has been notoriously fickle and inconsistent. In umpteen instances across the globe the US has had no compunction about ignoring the principle, quite cynically and callously, whenever they have perceived that it is in their national interest to do so, even unto supporting the most barbarous regimes, provided they are willing to do their bidding. One can expect that in this instance, too, the US’s strategic interests in the Indian Ocean are so overwhelming as to justify in their eyes, not merely a direct intervention in Sri Lanka, but even installing a puppet regime who will dance to the piper’s tune.

Confronted by such intransigence, the LTTE will turn to the international community, and in particular to the US, India and Japan, who have already committed themselves to the federal principle, and say to them “ Didn’t we always tell you so. Now you can see for yourself why we have had to fight these past thirty years. It is not we who are intransigent and unyielding, but the Sinhala majority.” There is already an enormous sympathy for the LTTE’s point of view, particularly within the European Union ( EU ) and even within the US, India and Japan there is growing exasperation over what they perceive to be the Sinhala people’s intransigent, divisive and fractious ways. The US and India will justify their intervention as being prompted by the overriding need to ensure international and regional stability- i.e, the Bush-Blair doctrine. What is more, quite paradoxically, their intervention is likely to be welcomed jointly by the GOSL as well as by the LTTE. By GOSL, because they know that there is no other way for Sri Lanka to have a new constitution and fulfil its pledge to adopt federalism. So now they can say that an invading force, a deus ex machina imposed the federal constitution on the country. However, there is bound to be great deal of violence and civil disorder before the Sinhala polity is suborned and reined in.

I will simply conclude by saying that just as during the past five hundred years, its geo-political significance sucked Sri Lanka successively within the Portuguese, the Dutch and the British spheres of influence, likewise its current geo-political importance will drag Sri Lanka back into the vortex of international politics, this time as a pawn in the hands of the USA, India and Japan. How the internal affairs of Sri Lanka will unfold thereafter, fall outside the scope of this article. Suffice it to say however, that a decade or two down the road, its territorial configuration, its internal political structures, its economy, the balance of power between ethnic groups and its entire culture will have been transformed so radically that the new Sri Lanka will be hardly recognisable to those living today.

Courtesy: Confluence, January, 2004

Originally posted April 9, 2004