India must change its Colombo policy, pleads
Sri Lankan MP
Monday January 21, 2013 07:58:01 PM,
IANS
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Chennai:
A prominent Sri Lankan MP wants India to change its Sri Lanka
policy, warning that its hands off attitude was encouraging
Colombo from meeting the legitimate political aspirations of the
island's Tamil minority.
Suresh Premachandran also said in a telephonic interview that the
government of President Mahinda Rajapaksa was not sincere in
having a dialogue with the elected leaders of the Tamil community.
"One could understand a certain Sri Lanka policy India followed
when the LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) was there," the
Tamil National Alliance (TNA) member told IANS here.
"Now that the LTTE is no more, India must change its (Sri Lanka)
policy," he said. "Otherwise the Sri Lankan government's attitude
will not change."
India solidly -- both tacitly and openly -- backed Colombo when
the latter waged war on the LTTE, leading to its destruction in
May 2009.
Since then, however, the Rajapaksa government has gone back on
some of the promises it made to Indian leaders on pursuing a path
of reconciliation with the Tamil community.
And Tamil leaders say that India is not putting enough pressure on
Sri Lanka to implement what it told Prime Minister Manmohan Singh
including on providing genuine autonomy to Tamil areas.
According to Premachandran, Sri Lanka was emboldened vis-a-vis the
democratic world because of the support it gets from China.
"They (the regime) don't care about the US and Europe, and they
say they can manage India too," said the MP, whose TNA is the main
Tamil voice in parliament and which was earlier seen as the LTTE's
political arm. "They feel that with China with them, they can
manage the UN too."
He accused the Rajapaksa government of militarizing Sri Lanka's
Tamil dominated north and allowing the security forces to have a
stranglehold over the vast region where the Tigers once held sway.
"The government says they are building infrastructure there but
that only amounts to building roads and providing electricity to
military camps. The Tamil villages don't get any benefits.
"Those who were with the LTTE are being re-arrested after release.
There are military checkpoints everywhere. The government
virtually wants to drive away the Tamil youths. The entire Tamil
population is suspect
"When we say all this, people say the TNA is exaggerating. We are
not."
According to Premachandran, Sri Lanka's northern province was now
like a Palestine - "an occupied territory".
Although the war against the Tamil Tigers ended in 2009, Sri Lanka
still battles allegations of human rights abuses, some of it
relating to the period when the government defeated the LTTE in a
war that left thousands dead and maimed. Colombo routinely denies
the charges.
He said the numerous military camps in the northern province were
being built with Chinese help. "China also provides heavy military
and economic support (to Sri Lanka)."
Premachandran said a TNA delegation would travel Jan 27 to South
Africa, which is trying to bring together the Tamil leaders and
the government to the negotiating table -- a role once played by
India.
But he made it clear that South Africa was unlikely to succeed in
its stated mission.
"Personally, I fail to see how South Africa can achieve what it
has set out to achieve," he said. "We feel they (Colombo) are
doing all this just to make the international community believe
they are serious about resolving political issues.
"The harsh reality is the Sri Lankan government is not sincere
about talking to the Tamil representatives. They don't want to
talk to us.
"They keep telling us to talk to the Parliamentary Select
Committee (to resolve political issues). But this committee is
dominated by Sinhalese parties, and they will never agree to
anything we suggest. Frankly, the government is not serious about
a dialogue."
(M.R. Narayan Swamy can be contacted at narayan.swamy@ians.in)
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