Editorial The Island January 12, 2016

India is reported to have shot down a multi-million-dollar fighter jet deal between Sri Lanka and Pakistan/China. New Delhi has made known its opposition to the proposed transaction in no uncertain terms, through a non-paper diplomatic missive conveyed to the highest echelons of the Sri Lankan government, according to a news item we published yesterday, quoting an Indian newspaper. New Delhi has reportedly given, in its diplomatic message, a negative technical assessment of the jets (JF-17 Thunder) and unsolicited advice that Sri Lanka does not need fighter jets.

India needs to be thanked if its negative technical assessment of fighter jets at issue is unbiased and accurate. But, obviously, New Delhi is not trying to prevent Colombo from buying a pig in a poke or help cut down on Sri Lanka’s defence expenditure. It is all out to prevent the further strengthening of defence ties between its rivals and Sri Lanka. It knows, as our report says, that the jet deal will enable Pakistan and China to set up a facility here for aircraft maintenance etc, and help widen contacts between Pakistan and Chinese security forces and their Sri Lankan counterparts.

India cannot be faulted for insisting that Sri Lanka does not need fighter jets though the SLAF fleet is ageing. The Sirisena-Wickremesinghe government and its backers keep telling us that there is no possibility of terrorism raising its head ever again. Those who warn of the possibility of the LTTE making a comeback and stress the need for taking precautions are branded ‘racists’. After all, one of the main campaign slogans of the opponents of the Rajapaksas in the run-up to the last presidential election was that the war was over and the time had come for reconciliation and economic development.

The new government has undertaken to demilitarise the North and the East. Many checkpoints have been dismantled; lands previously held by the military are being given back to their rightful owners. Hardcore LTTE cadres are released. It was only the other day that President Maithripala Sirisena made a big show of pardoning an LTTE cadre who had tried to assassinate him while he was a minister of the Rajapaksa regime! All this, however, does not mean the government is not fighting a war though terrorism is a thing of the past. It is at war with the Rajapaksa faction of the SLFP! But, it does not need fighter jets for that purpose; it can manage with the FCID, CIABOC, the CID, the kept media etc. Therefore, New Delhi may have thought there was absolutely no need for Sri Lanka to go for fighter jets. (Never mind those supersonic flying machines! One wonders whether Sri Lanka has any need for transport aircraft either. For, it can always depend on India to airdrop essentials including food items like parippu in an emergency!)

Now that India has technically assessed the Chinese jets assembled in Pakistan, China and/or Pakistan can return the favour by carrying out a similar assessment of the Indian vehicles, especially the boneshakers that pass for buses, which this country is being flooded with?

Our news report mentions that the Rajapaksa government was planning to have a Chinese maintenance and servicing facility for the SLAF aircraft in Trincomalee in spite of India’s concerns. Was that one of the reasons why, as former President Mahinda Rajapaksa says, he got a RAW deal from India at the last presidential election which he lost to an erstwhile chum turned bête noire wearing a Modi jacket. The Chinese project in Trincomalee has been shelved after the change of government last January, our report says. The Colombo Port City Project was also suspended immediately after the Jan. 08 presidential election.

A small country located in a strategic part of the world is in the same predicament as a lonely damsel, in a rough neighbourhood, who has to answer the door whenever randy thugs bang on it menacingly.