Putting India on the Spot by Jehan Perera

Jayalalitha opposes LTTE entering Tamil Nadu……. News item

The latest LTTE proposal that India should play host to forthcoming peace talks with the Sri Lankan Government comes close to being yet another one of its prerequisites for creating conditions conducive to peace talks.

The LTTE has made its case in terms of a humanitarian issue-its chief negotiator Dr Anton Balasingham's poor health condition and requirement of the best hospital attention.

It is only the hospital facilities available in India that could keep Dr Balasingham alive and well during the protracted negotiation process that would require him to keep in direct contact with the LTTE leadership in the Vanni.

The LTTE previously used the vocabulary of pre-requisites for negotiations to foil the former Government's efforts to sit with it at the negotiating table from a position of strength.The LTTE's present unexpected proposal that India should play willing or unwilling host brings a key LTTE characteristic into focus.

It reveals an LTTE frame of mind that is highly innovative and full of surprises. Time and again the LTTE has caught its opponents by surprise, catching them in ambushes at the most unexpected time, and this has stood it in good stead militarily. But military combat in which the unilateral destruction of the opponent is sought is very different from political negotiations in which the willing participation of the other is necessary.

Putting the opponent on the spot, or publicly embarrassing him into conforming to one's own agenda, is not the way forward, but is only likely to evoke further mistrust and hostility. In order to strengthen its proposal that India should play host to the peace talks, the LTTE has accused the Indian Government of having armed and trained Tamil militant organizations in the past, thereby incurring an obligation to put itself out for them in the present. But India is unlikely to oblige for two sets of reasons.

First is that mainstream political opinion in Tamil Nadu has been opposed to an LTTE re entry into the state. The underground activities of the LTTE, the assassination of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in the state and the war with the Indian Peace Keeping Force in Sri Lanka have deprived the LTTE of much of the sympathy they once enjoyed in Tamil Nadu.

It is also likely that the political leadership of Tamil Nadu is not keen to host a rival claimant for the leadership of the world Tamil movement.The Indian Government is likely to be deferential to Tamil Nadu's political leadership when it decides on the LTTE's proposal. India was the first country to ban the LTTE-in 1992, a year after the assassination of its former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi on his comeback trail in Tamil Nadu. India has a second reason to view the LTTE in an unfavourable light. This is the reverse of what the LTTE argues.

The organization that India once nurtured and provided sanctuary to turned on it with fury in 1987 after the signing of the Indo-Lanka peace accord, and battled the Indian army, for two years, to a standstill. Individuals may practice the politics of forgiveness as Pope John Paul exhorted in his New Year message on peace. But Governments and governmental institutions, which are worldly creations, are less forgiving.

By making its request of the Indian Government, the LTTE may have demonstrated to its support base that it is prepared to let bygones be bygones and not nurture a grudge for too long. But from India's perspective the LTTE has done little as yet to merit it being hosted as a potential peacemaker.

If India does accept the LTTE's proposal it will come under pressure to take the LTTE off its list of banned terrorist organizations. This would pave the way for a renewal of the LTTE's legitimacy within the international community, which has recently been taking steps to ban the LTTE. Most importantly, by involving India at a very early stage of the peace process, the LTTE may be seeking to protect its leader who is on the Indian list of wanted men and has an Indian extradition warrant to reckon with in a post-conflict scenario.

While the LTTE's request makes sense from its own perspective it neglects some of the requirements of diplomacy and might even be counter-productive in terms of restoring its relationship with India. There is a need to do a great deal of spadework before a great diplomatic prize is won. Audacity in international politics is generally not appreciated. No one, and certainly not a Government of India's stature, would wish to be put publicly on the spot and be coerced either materially or morally to do what it would rather not do.

It appears that the LTTE's initial suggestion of India as a suitable venue for peace talks was not canvassed first with the India Government. Rather it appears to have been first aired through the media. This accounts for the Indian position that since no formal request had been made to them, there was no need to respond with a formal Government statement.

If a request is made to India it might be more reasonable that hospital facilities for Dr Balasingham alone be asked for, as this would be a purely humanitarian request, rather than to ask India to play host to the peace talks themselves.
There are, however, some important reasons why India would wish to play a bigger role in the Sri Lankan peace process, with or without the LTTE's invitation to them to play host.

The first would be to reaffirm India's diplomatic dominance over the South Asian region. The active diplomatic role currently being played by Norway in the Sri Lankan peace process could herald an increased western role in intervening in conflict resolution processes in South Asia as a whole. In fact due to heightened India-Pakistan tensions over the Kashmir issue, and the tragic inability of the two South Asian giants to resolve their problems by themselves, the United States is playing a conflict resolution role between those two countries.

It would be in India's longer-term interests to obtain some positive role in the Sri Lankan peace process. A Norwegian-led success in Sri Lanka would assuredly raise an interest in similar western third party initiatives to resolve India's internal and external conflicts, which show little signs of abating. On the other hand, if India could claim joint ownership to a successful peace process in Sri Lanka, its credibility for conflict resolution would be enhanced within its own polity.

However, the very costly and futile Indian effort to intervene directly in Sri Lanka's ethnic conflict from the period 1985 to 1989 will probably deter any further such initiatives. It is likely that a great deal more of diplomatic and tripartite relationship building will be necessary before India gets itself involved in a direct manner again. Therefore, in the present phase of the Sri Lankan peace process, it is likely that Norway will play the lead third party role, as it did with much sensitivity in the Israel-Palestine conflict also.
This would include obtaining a stable ceasefire, building in humanitarian and human rights protections into the ceasefire agreement, and getting an interim council underway.

It is in the subsequent phase, which may be several years down the road that India may wish to play a more leading role. It is likely that in the subsequent phase Norway will step aside for the greater power to come in. This is also what happened in the Israel Palestine peace process. The Norwegians commenced it but the United States took charge of it subsequently.

Of all the world's great powers it is India that has the biggest interest in Sri Lanka. Keeping out western powers from the South Asian region is only one of its interests. Another reason would be in respect of the final settlement arrived at in Sri Lanka.
There is no doubt that what happens in Sri Lanka will be closely studied in India by those who wish to forge a new polity in India. So far India has attempted to resolve all its own internal disputes within the framework of its own constitution, which offers its states a form of semi-federal autonomy.

If Sri Lanka were to go further than this to resolve its own ethnic conflict, India will have reason to be concerned. The peace settlement in Sri Lanka could be proposed as a model for India itself, or at least for some of its conflicts. For these reasons a future Indian role in the Sri Lankan peace process can be anticipated, even if it is not forthcoming at present.
- (Courtesy EelamNation)

(http://www.dailymirror.lk/archives/dmr170102/opionon/puttting.html)