Editorial
Problems of being bully’s buddy – II
Courtesy The Island 02-06-2007
India always behaves like a sadist deriving, as she does,
immense pleasure from the suffering of her neighbours, like those cheap
Indian soap opera characters who are full hatred, envy, jealousy and
hubris. She has a massive ego to nurse, and this she does at the expense
of others. She treats her small neighbours like untouchables.
Indian National Security Advisor M. K. Narayan has said Sri Lanka should
not seek arms from Pakistan or China. "We are a big power in the
region," he has told the Indian media, as we reported yesterday,
"whatever may be their requirements, they should come to us."
This exactly is the way India prevented Sri Lanka from acquiring radar
equipment from China to counter the LTTE air threat.
It is this kind of arrogance, callousness and coercion that characterised
the Nazi regime of Hitler, who always decided what was good for other
countries and sought to impose his will on them. We seem to have a new
brand of Nazism across the Palk Straits!
Narayan, who wants Sri Lanka to turn to India for military supplies,
has the audacity to say in the same breath that India won’t provide
weapons with offensive capabilities! India might as well provide no
weapons to Sri Lanka at all. For, no war could be fought without weapons
with offensive capabilities. Is he of the opinion that terrorism could
be countered with broomsticks and brickbats?
One may remember how India famously offered ships to ferry the Sri
Lankan troops trapped in Jaffna encircled by the LTTE in 2000, when
the Kumaratunga government sent SOS for big guns. But for the MBRLs
rushed from Pakistan in the nick of time, terrorism would have triumphed
in this country a long time ago and given a boost to the latent separatist
tendencies of Tamil Nadu.
The political compulsions of the Centre need to be appreciated. The
Congress-led government is dependent on its Tamil Nadu allies for survival.
But, as a former ambassador rightly says in his article on the opposite
page, Sri Lanka shouldn’t be made to pay for others’ sins.
The Central government, driven by its short term political gains, is
risking the territorial integrity of the ‘regional power.’
The LTTE has become a threat not only to Sri Lanka’s national security
but also to that of India, as manifest in the frantic efforts the Indian
defence establishment is making to protect the nuclear facilities in
the southern parts of India against possible LTTE air strikes. Interestingly,
India has approached Israel for advanced radar equipment for that purpose,
though it prevented Sri Lanka from acquiring sophisticated radar and
insisted that the radar of the Indian make was sufficient to protect
Katunayake from enemy air raids! How vehemently India defended her radar
equipment installed here, when defence analysts pointed out that it
was not effective enough to meet the LTTE threat!
India certainly doesn’t want the LTTE to succeed in its separatist
war for her own sake. At the same time, she doesn’t want it to
be crushed either. She wants to keep the threat at a manageable level
so that Sri Lanka will continue to suffer till kingdom come and there
will be a mendicant nation in dire straits across the Palk Straits,
ever mindful of the fact that ‘India is a regional power.’
The real danger of this strategy is that the LTTE has already become
a source of inspiration to many separatist outfits in India and it is
well known that they have exchange programmes.
The US made the mistake of trying to keep the Al Quaeda terrorism at
manageable levels so as to use it as part of her foreign policy. Now,
the US has had to expend billions of dollars and deploy tens of thousands
of troops to eliminate the threat. India, too, had a bitter experience
in its war with the LTTE in the late 1980s, but she doesn’t seem
to learn from her mistakes. Terrorism like laboratory created germs
get out of hand and comes home to roost sooner or later.
Now, it is a case of Hobson’s choice for Sri Lanka. It cannot
afford to approach Pakistan and China and antagonise India in the process
for fear of India softening her stand on the LTTE further, the signs
of which are already visible. The Indian Prime Minister is meeting LTTE
proxies and the LTTE is using the Indian soil to smuggle in arms and
explosives. India is only paying lip service to the need to thwart such
operations. Should Sri Lanka bypass her in arms purchases, India is
likely to turn a blind eye to the LTTE arms smuggling operations completely.
India is quite capable of such dirty tactics as could be seen from how
it created the monster to make the Jayewardene government fall in line.
India holds the balance of power in the conflict here and enjoys making
a show of that.
India is said to be Sri Lanka’s friend. With such friends, Sri
Lanka needs no enemies. "God save me from my friends," it
is said, "I can protect myself from enemies!"
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