By Shenali WadugeThe Jain Commission confirms so, Dixit confirms it, India’s
intelligence does not deny it, memoirs of former officials give
details, Tamil Nadu leaders have accepted it and there are enough of
affidavits to prove that on the explicit orders of India’s government
it applied the replica of the Bangladesh strategy by organizing
clandestine training camps in India numbering over 30 bases to train
Sri Lankan militants well before 1983 the oft used reason for India’s
interference in Sri Lanka. Pretending to maintain cordial relations
with Sri Lanka and clandestinely running training camps to train
terrorists like LTTE to create mayhem in Sri Lanka while supplying
arms to them puts India in no position to be claiming it is a friend
of Sri Lanka or even the Tamils. If creating Bangladesh and Sikkim was
of national interest to India and not allowing Khalistan and Tamil
Nadu Eelam Homeland out of national interest shows India’s cunning.
Were 1980s LTTE killings under India instructions?
The 1983 July riots said to have been caused as a response to the LTTE
killing of 13 soldiers remains a very contentious topic even 30 years
later. It was the first time that a large number of military personnel
had been slaughtered in one go and was a shock to not only the
families of the deceased but a shock to the military itself. Aware of
its own limitations in military hardware Sri Lanka was unaware that
India had not only been training LTTE and other militant groups but
had also been arming them and financially supporting them as well.
This means that whatever weapons, ammunition and even LTTE targets had
to have been with the explicit knowledge and even instructions of
India and its intelligence agencies who were handling them.
We cannot also rule out that India’s intel ligence agency and these
trained militants could have also been part of the mischief of the
1983 riots because in reviewing the rampage and plunder of homes that
took place it is totally out of context to conclude that only
Sinhalese Buddhists committed these offenses – this is far from the
truth which is why we continue to say that the Sinhalese were not part
of the July riots as is being portrayed. Why have the Tamils not come
forwarded to say that they were protected and kept in the homes of the
Sinhalese?
The first batch of Tigers were trained in Establishment 22 based in
Chakrata, Uttarakhand, India.
“The second batch, including LTTE intelligence Chief Pottu Amman, was
trained in Himachal Pradesh. Velupillai Prabakaran himself visited the
first and the second batch of Tamil Tigers to see them training. Eight
other batches of LTTE were trained in Tamil Nadu.” The training was
imparted by former Indian army personnel who provided Tamil militant
youth training in arms handling, swimming, boat driving, handling of
light machine guns, handling transport vehicles, guerilla warfare,
boat driving and physical training. India cannot claim ignorance or
profane insult if we wonder how many of the LTTE atrocities committed
on Sri Lankan civilians – bus bombings, slaying of moderate Tamil
leaders and politicians, claymore mine attacks, assassinations and
even suicide missions may have been designed and instructed by India
with LTTE simply carrying out orders? To think that the manner LTTE
slaughtered innocent villagers including pregnant mothers and children
asleep was planned by India should make India feel ashamed.
In this scenario India cannot blame us for also wondering if the
assassination on Mayor Alfred Duraiappah and shooting down of Tamil
policemen was also planned and plotted by India. Generally, the
initial years the student is always at the mercy of its teacher and we
can safely say that the student decided to part ways with India only
after the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi in 1991.
While we hold LTTE responsible for 30 years of brutal killings we can
but wonder how many of these initial murders were on the suggestion
and planning of India with LTTE and other Tamil militants simply
carrying out orders because they were being trained, they were being
supplied arms and they were being financed by a country that claims to
be Sri Lanka’s friend. It was far later that LTTE learnt the ropes and
set up its own clandestine network running ships and other nefarious
activities once it became masters of the art which India had taught
them.
Therefore if we look back at the LTTE atrocities prior to 1991, Sri
Lanka has every right to hold India directly responsible and
accountable for the deaths that occurred though even post-1991 for all
the suffering that Sri Lanka went through India cannot escape blame
and no amount of superfluous statements coming from Indian Premier,
its high commissioners or other officials can change the perception of
what India has done to Sri Lanka. No amount of diplomatic or PR
tamashas can ever change the fact that Sri Lanka does not trust India
and will never trust India. A country that clandestinely gathers
youth, takes them under their stewardship, trains them, provides arms,
financially supports and instructs them to destabilize a nation is a
cowardly nation and does not deserve to become a superpower. What
national security threat does Sri Lanka a country of 20million people
pose to India a country of 1.2billion people? Incidentally, the IPKF
operation was known as “Operation Cactus” and it certainly proved a
thorn to India with over 1200 Indian soldiers being killed as a result
of the very arms India had supplied and the training retired Indian
army had taught the LTTE while Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated by a
woman who had been raped by the IPKF!
We are ashamed of what India has done. Just as we demand compensation
from the colonials who plundered our nation for hundreds of years it
is time India compensated for every loss of life that LTTE terrorists
committed because LTTE and Prabakaran would not have become as
ruthless as they did if not for India’s milking them and instructing
them to kill the civilians of its neighboring nation and to
destabilize Sri Lanka so that it would be alway s running to India for
assistance.
The RAW and the Ministry of External Affairs are provided Rs 25 crore
annually as “discretionary grants” for foreign influence operations.
The US District Court in Baltimore sentenced Lalit H Gadhia, a
naturalised US citizen of Indian origin, to three months imprisonment
after he confessed to being the conduit between the Indian Embassy and
Indian-American organizations that used funds to influence US law
makers. Over $46,000 from the Indian Embassy was distributed among 20
Congressional candidates. Gadhia’s source was Devendra Singh, a RAW
official assigned to the Indian Embassy in Washington. These funds had
been given to Democratic candidates including Sens. Charles S. Robb
(D-Va.), Paul S. Sarbanes (D -Md.) and Reps. Benjamin L. Cardin
(D-Md.) and Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) in 1995.
We next wonder how far India is influencing Sri Lanka’s lawmakers and
pol itical parties?
India’s premier can make Tamils the masters of their destiny in Tamil
Nadu not Sri Lanka
When Prime Minister Manmohan Singh informs Chief Minister J
Jayalalithaa that New Delhi will work towards ensuring that Tamils are
“masters of their own destiny within framework of a united Sri Lanka.”
All we need to say is Jayalalitha is the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu,
an Indian State. She has no business in Sri Lanka. Yes, the Tamil Nadu
Tamils have been demanding for a separate Tamil Homeland in Tamil Nadu
far before the same quest took off in Sri Lanka, therefore if India
wishes to ensure “Tamils are masters of their own destiny” India must
rightly create that scenario in Tamil Nadu and not Sri Lanka as it did
in Bangladesh and Sikkim.
Sri Lanka’s leaders need to know the history of the LTTE and India’s
role to ensure that India does not have any stake in Sri Lanka and
already the large number of stakes given to India must not go beyond a
specific term that does not run into hundreds of lease years and with
a clause that every deal can be re-scrutinized if Sri Lanka’s national
security is ever at risk of Indian incursion. However, our leaders
have made grave errors in tying deals with India in areas of
communication, power and energy supply, pharmaceuticals, oil refinery,
tea and when a country can create mayhem using LTTE have our leaders
not thought of what India can do using all the current stakes India
has been given?
If we blame previous leaders for the folly that the current leadership
has to suffer the same criteria applies so that future leaders will
not have to suffer another Indian terrorist chapter of a different and
far more dangerous capacity. – Eurasia Review
