YOU TOO INDIA?

Ratnajeewa Halpita

Sri Lanka has been a very good neighbor and a friend to India through out history. Apart from the instance in the historic Ramayana, when the King of Lanka (we believe it is Sri Lanka) invaded India to grab the pretty princess Sita, Sri Lanka has never been hostile towards India nor have we robbed anything from them. But India has let her regional leaders invade the tiny neighbor quite a few times and thus were forced to pay back dearly (directly or indirectly) even during the times of ancient kings! But all in all both countries have enjoyed and thrived from the bilateral cultural and economic ties they have shared.

In the very recent pass India seems to have gone back to it’s big bully’s stand and even supported the terrorist group in Sri Lanka. She was responsible for creating and nourishing the terrorist cub by training them and letting them grow to the most gruesome group ever. So if any one is to be blamed for creating the worst terrorist group in the world, India has to get a major share of it. Ironically, India was bitten by its own offspring, that is when the LTTE killed India’s most beloved son prime minister Rajeev Gandhi and also gave the Indian army a major set back with 1200 troops being killed for no military or political gain. (The LTTE has a bad reputation of biting the had that fed them.)

It was a bitter lesson for India and any right thinking person or leader in India will not even dream of supporting the terrorist group that caused so much grief to her. Subsequent leaders of India made sure that the LTTE was isolated and had nothing to do with them. (We all thought that India realized the truth and would play it fair.)

It is in this context that we are surprised to see a new era of thought emerging in India with several quarters shouting out for intervention in Sri Lanka in terms of helping the LTTE. It is a sad situation that these parties have not really realized the ground situation of Sri Lanka and also forgotten the treatment received by India at the hand of the LTTE.

Sri Lanka is a friendly nation to India and poses no economic or military threat to her in any form. Sri Lanka has at all times maintained good relationship with India. It is a sad situation if She decides to consider intervening in internal politics of a sovereign neighbor. What India and other countries in the world must realise is the situation in the north is created by a few trigger happy murderous bunch of terrorists who keep innocent civilians as shields. The majority of the Tamils living in Sri Lanka are living out of the LTTE controlled areas. Out of the 2 million Tamils in Sri Lanka a well over a million lives among the Sinhala community in areas other than the LTTE controlled areas. Another estimated 800,000 make up the Tamil Diaspora around the world and only a hand full of about 200,000 live in areas of conflict. If anyone is interested in the true well being of these people in LTTE controlled areas, they should be pressing the LTTE to release these people to safer areas. This way the civilians could be easily fed and their needs looked after by the large number of aid agencies who are ready to fire off and the LTTE could fight their war as they boast (which they refuse to stop until Eelam is acquired) without harming the innocent civilians!

It is very clear that the LTTE is not keen in the welfare of the Tamil people living in their areas as they have refused to let the food convoys go through the A9 road. They make the issue of refugees to achieve their goal of getting the A9 road opened for “All traffic” so that they can transport lethal weapons that could be employed against the innocent civilians in the south, they could collect their illegal taxes to buy weapons for destruction of human lives and also continue to bring the terror activities to the rest of the country without a hindrance. This is the reason that they oppose the decision to allow only food and items with sealed convoys pass their territory.

What India should realise is that the Tamils in Sri Lanka are NOT represented by this terrorists. There are enough and more Tamil representatives who are really keen in the welfare of the Tamil community and even the onetime LTTEer Karuna Amman has turned out to be a man who has given up the armed struggle to a democratic pathway! It is the LTTE that threatens the very existence of these moderate Tamil leaders and continue to implicate terrorism in to the lives of these people.

No negotiated settlement to the North and the East problem in Sri Lanka could be achieved when a group of terrorists demand for “the pound of flesh” with their terrorist tactics and holding civilians at ransom. They have repeatedly threatened with terror activities against the civilians of all communities living in the rest of the country (Threats of attacking schools and reservoirs) and India or any country has not even condemned these up to now. It is hard to understand this attitude and we believe that this could be due to the fact that these countries are mislead by the false propaganda by the LTTE rather than deliberate acts to destabilize a country that has huge potential to develop if peace prevails. We kindly request these super powers to consider the true ground situation in Sri Lanka before jumping in to conclusions. Hastily drawn out decisions could bring immense hardship to the already suffering masses and instead of freeing them from distress, they could be pushed to worse situations. These could bring disgrace and disrepute to the country that intends to interfere in the internal matters of another country.