Last Days of the LTTE: India’s Dubious Role

Well before the last days of the civil war in Sri Lanka had begun to be counted, it was clear to the world at large that the Mahinda Rajapaksa Government was determined to pursue its military campaign single-mindedly to its logical conclusion, that is, the crushing of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and a definitive end to Tamil separatism.

The world also knew—its interests kept alive by a constant barrage of expressions of concern for the enormous human cost that this all-out war against its own citizens was surely entailing —that Tamil civilians, either fleeing before the advancing troops or being herded as a human shield to protect the LTTE fighters, had been caught in-between and were being literally slaughtered.

The Indian Government adopted what it prefers to call a pragmatic policy. At this juncture, it was to indirectly support the military campaign by choosing not to oppose the forward march of the security forces. Secret US diplomatic cables, exposed by Wikileaks and now accessed by The Hindu (March 17), inform us that New Delhi also steadily warded off rising international pressure, led by the Obama Administration, to persuade President Rajapaksa to ease the military onslaught, call a halt to combat and initiate peace negotiations.

What the WikiLeaks exposé also makes clear is that the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) apparently lost its way in trying to formulate its policy at the time.
As the Indian newspaper points out, a perusal of the cables suggests that towards the end of the war, as the rebel territory was rapidly shrinking in the face of the onslaught of the Sri Lankan forces, the MEA was indirectly lending a very valuable support to the Rajapaksa Government by steadily warding off the rising international pressure, led by Washington, to facilitate inter-national intervention and persuade the govern-ment to go into negotiations with the LTTE. Time and again, while seeming to agree with the approach of the international community on the humanitarian issue, New Delhi would actually succeed in blocking moves to bring direct pressure on President Rajapaksa to cease hostilities.

In a twisted move, the US embassy was first informed of the Indian Government’s decision to make “a new appeal to pause military operations” and provide relief to civilians trapped in the war zone. Then, Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon and National Security Adviser M.K. Narayanan paid a short visit to Colombo on April 24, 2009. On the following day, the US embassy was informed that President Rajapaksa had “more or less” committed to “a cessation of hostilities”, and that he would make an announce-ment to that effect on April 27. For a good measure, the embassy was advised to wait till April 27, and Narayanan specifically asked the Americans to “keep quiet” till then.

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AS the newspaper notes, an announcement by the government did indeed come on that day but it conveyed something quite different. Declaring that combat operations had ended, the Sri Lankan Government clarified that while heavy-calibre weapons would not be used, this would not be a cessation of hostilities or ceasefire.

Placed in the context of the subsequent developments in Sri Lanka, the contents of this particular cable suggest that either Indian diplomats were playing around with the international community and the Americans, or that the Sri Lankan Government was being too sharp for the Indians provided the latter were acting as honest brokers between the two sides.

However,the cables suggest more, and this is where the professionalism of the very end of the war—to be precise, in April 2009—New Delhi also began to rationalise with Colombo with a view to ease the pressure on the LTTE and thus allow some relief to the civilians. This slightly altered Indian approach was necessarily rebuffed because it flew directly in the face of thIndian diplomacy may be called into question. For, the cables show that towardse so-called “Rajapaksa doctrine” which Sri Lanka was following.

This essentially dishonest approach was necessitated by the rather transitory exigency of the parliamentary elections in India at the time, with the ruling Dravida Munnetra Kazhagham (DMK) feeling the heat as the Sri Lankan war and the resultant plight of civilians became a highly sensitive issue in Tamil Nadu.

Earlier, at a two-hour meeting at President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s residence in end-January 2009, India’s then External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee had stressed that he was in Colombo with “no objective other than to ensure that human rights and safety of civilians were protected”. The newspaper commented rightly that from the Minister’s statement at the end of his visit, it was clear that India did not oppose the operations. The Minister said he stressed that military victories offered a political opportunity to restore life to normalcy in the Northern Province and throughout Sri Lanka, after twentythree years of conflict. In other words, Colombo was being told that it was solely its own business how it conducted the operations. It now sounds ironical to read that the President assured the Indian Minister that this (a military victory followed by a political opportunity) was his (very) intent.

After so much understanding between the two governments, it was only logical that India would continue to covertly acquiesce in Sri Lanka’s deliberate neglect of the civilians’ plight while overtly pretending to be concerned over the humanitarian situation. In a cable to the State Department, dated May 15, 2009, only four days before LTTE chief Velupillai Prabhakaran’s dead body would be displayed, an American diplomat reported that during a discussion on the “urgent humanitarian situation” the Indian Foreign Secretary had acknowledged that pressure needed to be put on the Sri Lankan Government to avoid civilian casualties. But, once again the Indian diplomat cautioned that “bilateral diplomacy would be more effective than highly public pressure in the UN Security Council or the Human Rights Council”.

If this reading is correct, it would be a surprise because the Indian Foreign Office is generally considered to be the last word in understanding and dealing with Sri Lanka, and usually other governments tend to value its interpretations and advices. But the cables, as made available by WikiLeaks and published by the Indian newspaper, allow room for doubts as to the intrinsic worth of such consultations.

On the other hand, consider the following. Despite the Rajapaksa Government’s successful clamp on the national and international media in reporting the intensified fighting and consequent humanitarian crisis in the Wanni, international humanitarian and relief organisations were smuggling out apparently authentic information about the situation in the war zone at tremendous risk, and repeatedly paid the price for their temerity.

Last year, following the WikiLeaks exposure of cables sent by the US ambassador in Sri Lanka, Patricia Butenis, to the State Department relating to the final days of the war, the Human Rights Watch remarked: “…Butenis’ cable is consistent with the frustration US officials often express over what they view as their lack of influence in Sri Lanka. Indeed, in the final months of the war, the Rajapaksa Government thumbed its nose at governments that called on it to stop military abuses. It relied on its friendship with China and the quiet acquiescence (italics added) of India for cover. And the Government has aggressively resisted international inquiries into alleged war crimes. “(Globalpost, December 16, 2009)

In a sharp contrast to the Indian Government’s stand that US diplomatic cables were the property of a sovereign government and could not be commented upon by others, the exposure of the Butenis’ cable led to a public reprimand of the American ambassador by the Sri Lankan Foreign Affairs Minister, Prof G.L. Peiris, alleging that the cables contained “glaring” instances of allegations “totally unwarranted by the ground reality, being conveyed to Washington”.

While dwelling on the subject, it may be profitable to note that Colombo waged a far more effective campaign to ward off the threat of external intervention than New Delhi’s seemingly subversive diplomacy sought to achieve on its behalf. Under the able supervision of the President’s brother, Basil Rajapaksa, the principle to “keep the neighbours on the loop” (one of the principles enunciated by President Rajapaksa in his doctrine) sought to isolate the neighbouring countries from the international community, keep the former invariably informed of the steps being taken to defeat the rebels, and oppose the world powers tooth and nail by constantly invoking Sri Lanka’s sovereignty and right to set its house in order. Quite intelligently, the Rajapaksa Government realised that the neighbouring states, and in particular India and China, would appreciate the independence and nuances of its foreign policy.

Apratim Mukarji is a scholar of South and Central Asian affairs.