India must act to end Sri Lanka conflict: moderate Tamils

By M.R. Narayan Swamy Jul 27, 2007, 5:59 GMT

New Delhi, July 27 (IANS) Two decades after India's bid to bring peace to Sri Lanka ended with a bloody nose, moderate Tamils in the island want New Delhi to take decisive steps to end the raging conflict there.

Political and rights activists from the Tamil community also insist that the India-Sri Lanka agreement of July 29, 1987, could have led to a lasting solution if only it had not been sabotaged by Colombo and the Tamil Tigers.

In any case, India should act more forcefully to bring about a settlement between the government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), they told IANS in separate email and telephonic interviews.

'India has an important role to play, all the more as the nationalists on both sides in Sri Lanka have held a political solution hostage,' said Ahilan Kadirgamar of the Sri Lanka Democracy Forum (SLDF), a group of mainly diaspora activists.

'India can contribute towards guaranteeing any credible solution that emerges within Sri Lanka, and strengthening the forces of democracy and pluralism which occupy the middle group in the country,' the SLDF spokesperson said.

K. Vigneswaran, general secretary of the Akhila Ilankai Tamil United Front who was a senior official in the north-eastern provincial government in Sri Lanka in 1988-90, said it was time for India to play 'a more proactive role'.

'India must help Sri Lanka to work out a solution that would be acceptable to the majority of the Sinhalese, the majority of the Tamils and the majority of the Muslims,' he said.

'Such a solution is not likely to satisfy Sinhala or Tamil extremists,' he added. 'India has to seriously think of reverting to the active diplomacy of the Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi period.'

Rajan Hoole of the University Teachers for Human Rights (UTHR), a prominent rights group, said the deteriorating affairs in Sri Lanka 'desperately calls for external actors to impose sanity and change the course of things'.

'There is not going to be any decisive action without India taking the lead. India needs to get its act together to deal with the problem in a multilateral context, if previous mistakes are not to be repeated.'

Kadirgamar said SLDF also wanted a multilateral role by New Delhi. 'India is already involved in numerous ways,' he said. 'If that is to continue to enhance peace efforts in the country, India ought to be part of the global structures that support peace efforts in Sri Lanka.'

He said: 'Even the LTTE continues to call for Indian role to find peace in Sri Lanka. There is a sense of regret among Tamils in general that if the LTTE had not destroyed its relationship with India, India would still extend its support and good offices to settle the conflict and obtain justice for the Tamils.'

The varying comments come on the 20th anniversary of the India-Sri Lanka pact that led to the deployment of thousands of Indian troops in a bid to bring peace in the island. The troops ended up fighting the LTTE and came home in March 1990 after losing nearly 1,200 men and suffering hundreds of casualties.

Since then, and more particularly after the LTTE assassinated former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi in May 1991, New Delhi acts as if it has washed its hands off Sri Lanka, a situation moderate Tamils say needs to change - and fast.

A Tamil activist based in Britain said India needed to persuade the Sri Lankan government and the international community to grant 'genuine devolution of power and constitutional change that meets legitimate Tamil aspirations'.

Like him, all Tamil moderates admitted that the 1987 accord was a sincere attempt to end the violence in Sri Lanka that had raged for four years, even if the pact had some loose ends.

'It was a golden opportunity for the Tamils,' Minister for Social Services and Social Welfare Douglas Devananda said, blaming the government and 'Tamil representatives' of the day for its failure.

Hoole added: 'It was the best that could have happened at that point of time to end the Sri Lankan conflict. At that time the Tamils could not have hoped for anything more.'

© 2007 Indo-Asian News Service