Indo-Lanka Accord, Crisis For The LTTE – The High Cost Of Politics Through Rhetoric
Rajan Hoole
The Indo-Lanka Accord and Sri Lanka’s Fault Lines: July 1987 – Part – 2
India had in late 1983 become the patron of several militant groups, which were kept in a position where they competed for India’s favour. When the LTTE had decimated the TELO in May 1986, it resulted in a break in the arrangement maintained by India. By a series of attacks on Sinhalese civilians immediately afterwards, and in turn making the Tamils more insecure, the LTTE naively hoped to be accepted as India’s sole protege. For, it was soon to make itself the only force on the ground after similar strikes against the PLOTE and EPRLF as well. India’s hands seemed to be tied unless she was willing to countenance a total collapse of the Tamil militancy, resulting in a situation where she had no role in Sri Lanka.
Thanks to their advisers among the Tamil elite who fancied themselves to be ingenious strategists in international relations, the LTTE came to believe firmly in their monopoly of India’s goodwill. They openly boasted from platforms that they as the future rulers of Tamil Eelam, would be agents for India’s control over the South of Sri Lanka. They failed to take note of India’s repeatedly expressed commitment to Sri Lanka’s unity and integrity (see Rajani Thiranagama in The Broken Palmyrah, p.352). A section of India’s intelligence agencies sincerely or otherwise kept the LTTE in hope. But overall, India’s policy was to keep the LTTE at arm’s length, while pressing both the Sri Lankan Government and the LTTE to agree to a settlement.
When the Sri Lankan Army was poised to take Jaffna, the LTTE orchestrated demonstrations in Jaffna calling upon India to provide military hardware, including SAMs, to the LTTE. Without acceding to it, India used it to apply pressure on the Sri Lankan Government, which feared the consequences of such aid, to agree to an Accord. Both the LTTE and the Sri Lankan Government had reached a point of bankruptcy where they were forced to accede to the Accord. But implementing it would have required far greater resourcefulness on India’s part since both the LTTE and an influential section of the Sri Lankan cabinet were waiting for a pretext to sabotage the Accord. As for the LTTE leader having accepted the Indo- Lanka Accord, there can be no doubt (Narayan Swamy pp.243-4 and his note on p.246). We also understand that in Prabhakaran’s meeting with Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, as part of the settlement, the LTTE was awarded a monthly sum of Ind. Rs. 5 million (USD 300,000) of which Rs. 10 million for the first 2 months was subsequently paid.
An interesting incident that illustrates the relationship between the urge for total power and political purity (as originally conceived by the TULF) took place in Madras in November 1986. It also illustrates the dilemma faced by the LTTE in the coming years when it came to choosing between real power within a united Sri Lanka and a distant hope of Tamil Eelam. Read More
To be continued..
*From Rajan Hoole‘s “Sri Lanka: Arrogance of Power - Myth, Decadence and Murder”. Thanks to Rajan for giving us permission to republish. To read earlier parts click here
