Ira de Silva Canada

Mr. Gaurav Ahluwalia

First Secretary Political

Indian High Commission

Colombo, Sri Lanka

Dear Sir:

Having read your comments regarding the editorial in The Island of April 2,2015 regarding India’s actions in Sri Lanka, I am constrained to write to you. The Island stated “If India had not created, trained, armed and funded militant groups including the LTTE as part of its gunboat diplomacy Sri Lanka would never have had to fight a protracted war, as is public knowledge. KP, a founder member of the LTTE and self-appointed Tiger leader, had been supplying weapons to the outfit until Prabhakaran cashed in his chips. So, he will be able to shed light on India’s role in arming the LTTE. Most of the Indian military officers and politicians responsible for that heinous crime are still around and it will be interesting to see what they have got to say”.

Reference to your response published April 8,2015 could you clarify the following:

You claim that the editorial “mischievously draws in India and the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF)”. Are you claiming that in 1987 India was mischievously drawn into interfering in  Sri Lankan politics by Sri Lanka? Are you denying that prior to 1987 it was the policy of the Indian Government to create, train, arm and fund the LTTE? If you are, you are perhaps not aware of Indian policy during that period and as suggested by The Island at least read J. N. Dixit’s book, Makers of Indian Foreign Policy. After 1987 Mr. Dixit,  reflecting India’s attitude, tried to behave as if he was the new viceroy of Sri Lanka. The Indo-Lanka Agreement was signed in the backdrop of Indian warships outside Colombo and Indian fighter jets flying over Sri Lanka, not at Sri Lanka’s invitation.

I would also ask you to read the remarks made by Mr. Rajiv Gandhi who, after forcing the Indo-Lanka Agreement on Sri Lanka flew directly to Chennai, Tamil Nadu to make a political speech claiming that he had got for the Sri Lankan Tamils all they wanted. You seem to be unaware that it was based on this agreement that the IPKF was sent to Sri Lanka not at the “invitation” of Sri Lanka. The IPKF was withdrawn because the new president of Sri Lanka asked it to leave. It is also pertinent to bring to your attention that as India did not do what it agreed to under the Indo-Lanka agreement, that agreement is null and void. Any rational person who has knowledge of India-Sri Lanka relations should be well aware that India’s aggression and interference in the internal matters of Sri Lanka are not of a friend but of an aggressive neighborhood bully which has characterised India’s policy towards all it’s neighbours.

You claim that nearly 1200 Indian soldiers made the supreme sacrifice for the unity and territorial integrity of Sri Lanka. That is a figment of your imagination or an indication of how little you know about India’s machinations regarding Sri Lanka. Are you aware of how many Sri Lankans they killed, robbed, raped and subjected to other atrocities in making their “supreme sacrifice”?   Are you aware that in Sri Lanka the IPKF stood for Indian People Killing Force? You really need to educate yourself and take  note of  actions by the IPKF such as entering the Jaffna hospital and randomly killing doctors, nurses and patients and ask yourself who was been sacrificed in India’s grand scheme of trying to be a regional superpower.

That India was to blame for decades of  violence in Sri Lanka is NOT a gross distortion of facts” but the truth. Are you denying that India trained, armed  and funded the LTTE to terrorise  Sri Lanka? There is plenty of documentation in India to support this claim which somehow seems to have escaped your attention.  In 1987, when it seemed that India’s plans for the LTTE and Sri Lanka were at risk because Prabhakaran was surrounded and could have been captured by the Sri Lankan forces, your Indian forces  rescued him and took him to India so you could  send him back well armed and funded to terrorise Sri Lanka again as required by India. Those are the facts. Check your Indian records. It is you who is making gross distortion of the facts. It is a fact, supported by Indian documentation, that India stands condemned for terrorism in Sri Lanka.

India continuously repeats the lie of India and Sri Lanka enjoying friendly relations from time immemorial. Again, it indicates your gross ignorance of history. Should you care to check the true facts of history you will find that regional rulers of India have from time immemorial followed a policy of  invasion, aggression, murder and attempts to make Sri Lanka an Indian colony. Today that same policy is being followed by the Indian-U.S. axis to divide Sri Lanka and give control of the north and east through the Tamils of Sri Lanka to India. In 1987 India forced the Indo-Sri Lanka Agreement on Sri Lanka by a show of force. Sri Lankans did not want it and to this day refer to it as an act of aggression. Since then, continuous interference has taken place in the internal affairs of Sri Lanka under the guise of ensuring that Tamil rights are safeguarded even though all Sri Lankans enjoy the same rights and the only right” denied to the Tamils of the north is to break up the  Sri Lankan state, which is what  India and the  Tamil separatist forces   want. While in 1987 Mr. Rajiv Gandhi stated in a speech in Tamil Nadu that he had got for the Sri Lankan Tamils all that they wanted, Mr. Modi the current Indian Prime Minister on his visit to Sri Lanka in March 2015, makes a statement that he wants more than what is in the 13^th Amendment! I presume the”more” he wants is a separate Tamil state under the control of India. The aggression and invasion” continues. Most Sri Lankans will agree that with a “friend” like India who needs enemies.

Finally, what you call an inflammatory and erroneous editorial meant to arouse passions to serve a narrow and bigoted agenda is neither narrow nor bigoted but a statement of fact regarding India which you obviously can not accept because it exposes India’s narrow and bigoted agenda of aggression and duplicity. As for being sure that the discerning readers will treat what you refer to as unfounded and unwarranted allegations, on the contrary,  please be assured that not only the readers of The Island but most Sri Lankans know what is said in the editorial is factual.   Even though India may deny her strong arm tactics against her militarily weaker neighbour and fails to acknowledge her wrongful actions, what was stated in the editorial were not unfounded and unwarranted allegations but statements of fact which have been confirmed by knowledgeable Indian journalists and commentators. Your comments indicate that you believe Sri Lankans are uninformed and ignorant. I trust that you will check the records and educate yourself before you make this assumption again. India has to acknowledge her hostile actions against Sri Lanka and evolve a policy which recognises the presence of a pluralistic society without striving to please only the Tamil community living in the island if she hopes to win the trust and confidence of the people of Sri Lanka.

Yours truly,

Ira de Silva

Canada