Menon’s Message
Editorial
July 10, 2013, 6:42 pm
It looks as if the implementation of the 13th Amendment to Sri Lanka’s Constitution had become India’s biggest problem. Indian National Security Advisor Shivshankar Menon, who was recently here for two days, meeting President Mahinda Rajapaksa and other leaders, has told the Colombo-based Indian journalists, that Sri Lanka should go beyond the 13th Amendment. We reported the other day that President Rajapaksa’s special envoy, Minister Basil Rajapaksa had been told the same thing in New Delhi during a recent visit.
This is an interesting development tinged with intrigue, we reckon. The 13th Amendment provides for the maximum possible devolution India was willing to grant Sri Lanka’s North and East at a time the Tigers and other armed groups were eating out of the late Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi’s hand. Why is New Delhi now cranking up pressure on Colombo to go beyond India’s own solution to Sri Lanka’s problem? Its Newspeak rendered into plain English means that the 13th Amendment should be considered only a starting point. What, does it think, is the solution?
This kind of ambiguity naturally becomes a rich seam to mine for the opponents of devolution. They will now claim India has let the cat out of the bag and bolstered their argument that the 13th Amendment will pave the way for secession or at least the creation of a federal state in the North and the East, servile to New Delhi.
Menon wants Sri Lanka to fulfil its commitments to India and the international community. But, had India gone full steam ahead to fulfil its commitments as stipulated in the Indo-Lanka Accord at the very outset, devolution would perhaps have taken root here. All the proposals in that agreement which the then President J. R. Jayewardene signed under duress were made ‘conditional to the Government of India taking the following actions if any militant groups operating in Sri Lanka do not accept this framework of proposals for a settlement, namely’:
(A) India will take all necessary steps to ensure that Indian territory is not used for activities prejudicial to the unity, integrity and security of Sri Lanka. [Indian soil continues to be used for anti-Sri Lankan activities.]
(B) The Indian Navy/Coast Guard will cooperate with the Sri Lankan Navy in preventing Tamil militant activities from affecting Sri Lanka. [This pledge was reneged on and the Sri Lanka Navy curbed LTTE’s maritime activities almost single-handedly.]
(C) In the event that the Government of Sri Lanka requests the Government of India to afford military assistance to implement these proposals the Government of India will cooperate by giving to the Government of Sri Lanka such military assistance as and when requested. [The forcibly inducted Indian army failed to contain the LTTE.]
(D) The Government of India will expedite repatriation from Sri Lanka of Indian citizens to India who are resident there concurrently with the repatriation of Sri Lankan refugees from Tamil Nadu.[Nothing of the sort has happened.]
(E) The Governments of Sri Lanka and India will cooperate in ensuring the physical security and safety of all communities inhabiting the Northern and Eastern Provinces. [India failed to do so and the LTTE carried out a countless number of massacres of civilians and ethnically cleaned the Northern Province. Sri Lanka had to neutralise the LTTE on its own.]
Above all, the annexure to the Indo-Lanka accord says, inter alia: "The President of Sri Lanka and the Prime Minister of India agree that the Tamil militants shall surrender their arms to authorities agreed upon to be designated by the President of Sri Lanka. The surrender shall take place in the presence of one senior representative each of the Sri Lankan Red Cross and the Indian Red Cross." [India pathetically failed to disarm the LTTE and, worse, the Premadasa government armed the outfit.]
When the parties to an agreement fail to fulfil the main conditions thereof, it is not worth the paper it is written on. India has failed more than Sir Lanka anent the fulfillment of the conditions in the Indo-Lanka accord. Therefore, how could New Delhi expect Colombo to abide by that pact which is now defunct to all intents and purposes?
Regrettably, Menon’s message, camouflaged as it is with diplomatic frou-frou, has, instead of pouring oil on troubled waters, allaying the fears gnawing away at the people abhorring terrorism and helping Sri Lanka solve its problem, only added fuel to the flames.
