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Perhaps what really left a bad taste was not so much the
statement issued by the foreign ministry but the PMs visit to
India last week which looked for all the world like an expression of
solidarity with India at this moment. The Prime Ministers
announcement that ETCA would be signed before the end of this
year was another indication that Sri Lanka was now firmly in the
Indian orbit. The Joint Opposition also reacted with outrage at
what they saw as a case of selling a firm friend of Sri Lanka down
the river. Speaking to The Sunday Island, Prof G.L.Peiris said
"There was no need whatsoever for us to issue that statement.
Four other nations had announced that they were not attending.
Which meant that the SAARC summit which was to be held on 9
and 10 November could not be held. The foreign ministry issued
this statement at 3.30 in the afternoon. The Pakistan government
announced at 6.00 pm that the summit was postponed." What
Peiris implied was that Sri Lanka could have kept quiet without
making any announcement at all.
Prof Peiris, a former External Affairs Minister added that this
statement was "a deliberate slap in the face for Pakistan and a
complete failure of diplomacy. It is an act of gross ingratitude. We
wont have friends if there is no reciprocity. Apart from the fact
that Pakistan supported us with logistical support during the war,
when we were being relentlessly pursued in Geneva, with
resolutions in three consecutive years, 2012, 2013 and 2014,
Pakistan worked round the clock to help us together with the
other Muslim countries. They worked with Saudi Arabia, UAE both
of which were members of the Human Rights Council. Pakistan
also helped us through the Organisation of Islamic States. Now for
us to have issued that statement was like a kick in the teeth for
Pakistan. This is also not going to go down well with the Muslim
countries."
Prof. Peris added that "When Pakistan was suspended from the
Commonwealth, President Mahinda Rajapaksa stood against that
saying that countries should not be suspended from membership
but that one must engage with those countries if there are
issues." Prof. Peris also said that The PMs visit to India at this
particular moment with all this going on over the line of control in
Kashmir was not appropriate and that even in the event where
the meeting had been scheduled much earlier, the circumstances
are compelling enough for a change to be made politely. Peiris
made the point that Mrs Sirima Bandaranaike was accepted as an
impartial mediator when conflicts broke out in the region. Mrs B
did not slavishly bow down to India. "But now we are just a lackey
of India. Then the statement to Nitin Gadkari that come what may
the ETCA would be signed by the end of the year shows that we
have simply become an acolyte of India. The basic problem in our
foreign policy is that we dont understand the difference between
friendship and servility. We are simply becoming an instrument for
the Washington Delhi axis".
The difference between servility and friendship
There was a point in what Prof Peris said. In 1971, when the war
between West and East Pakistan broke out, Mrs Bandaranaikes
government allowed Pakistani planes to refuel in flying between
the two countries. The Indians were very upset and a question
was asked in the Indian Lok Sabha on 25 November 1971 whether
Pakistani warplanes and naval vessels were re-fuelling in
Colombo. When the Indians asked the Sirima Bandaranaiake
government about Pakistani planes being allowed to refuel in
Colombo the answer given by the SL government was that no
planes or naval craft carrying arms, ammunition or military
personnel were being allowed to refuel in Colombo. And the Indian
government informed the Lok Sabha that they were satisfied with
that answer. It should be noted that Colombo had not denied that
Pakistani war planes and naval craft were re-fuelling in Colombo
all that was said was that these planes or naval craft did not carry
weapons, ammunition or armed forces personnel.
Later on 30 November 1971, Mrs Sirima Bandaranaike stated in
the Sri Lankan parliament that the policy of her government was
not to get involved in the war between the South Asian
neighbours or to take sides. Parliamentarian V Dharmalingam of
the ITAK had suggested that Sri Lanka should sever ties with
Pakistan because of the genocide that was being committed in
East Pakistan. Mrs Bandaranaike had chided Dharmalingam for
speaking like an Indian and not a Sri Lankan. Reacting to
Dharmalingams accusation that Sri Lanka had allowed arms and
ammunition to be ferried across her territory into East Pakistan,
Mrs B had asked angrily whether Dharmalingam had seen
weapons being transported and she also explained that only
planes moving from East Pakistan (Bangladesh) to West Pakistan
carrying evacuees had touched down in Colombo.
Yet when the JVP insurgency had broken out earlier that year in
April 1971 India was the first country to come to Sri Lankas aid
by sending emergency stocks of ammunition to quell the
insurgency. It was Anuruddha Ratwatte who had gone to
Bangalore to accept the ammunition given by India which was
transported in Indian planes to Sri Lanka because Sri Lanka didnt
have aircraft to transport the ammo to SL. However Pakistan too
had come to SLs aid by providing helicopters and the like. When
war broke out between India and Pakistan a few months later, Mrs
B took steps to ensure that that she remained neutral between
the two neighbours. One way she did that was not by asking India
whether to allow Pakistani planes to refuel in Colombo she made
that decision on her own as the leader of a sovereign nation. She
was a friend to both Pakistan and India and not servile to either.
Today however the situation is very different.
Later when Mrs Indira Gandhi visited Sri Lanka in April 1973
barely eighteen months after these events, there wasnt even a
hint of tension between Sri Lanka and India on this matter of the
re-fuelling. On the contrary the speeches made by both Mrs B and
Indira Gandhi were oozing with warmth and stressed the personal
friendship between their two families. Indira Gandhi did make a
reference to the war with Pakistan but that was to say that she
herself was keen to settle the problems between neighbours
amicably and she explained how any territory belonging to
Pakistan that India had overrun had been promptly handed back
to Pakistan and she went on to say that war and military tensions
between neighbours grappling with problems of poverty on the
scale seen in South Asia was a joke. Indira Gandhi was in so many
words, endorsing the equidistant posture taken by Sri Lanka
during the Indo-Pak tensions in 1971.
Elaga Tamil and the future of Tamil politics
A political activist in the north told this writer that there are three
views about the Elaga Tamil (Arise Tamils) movement which is
estimated to have a drawn the largest crowd in the north after the
end of the armed conflict. One such view has been given
expression to by Tamil Diaspora activist Brian Seneviratne, the
other by the Hindu Congress and another by Ahilan Kadirgamar.
Of these, Brian Seneviratnes piece in the Colombo Telegraph
unabashedly exulted at Wigneswarans rally. He referred to it as a
long overdue protest and had given his reasons for saying so at
great length. Seneviratne had said that the Tamil North and East
was under military occupation and that the change from
Rajapaksa to Sirisena has been just a name-change. The same
violations of human rights have gone on. He had said that the
white van disappearances have started again in the North and
East and he had also made allegations about the Buddhistization
and Sinhalisation of the Tamil areas and further that the armed