{"id":115439,"date":"2021-06-23T00:33:37","date_gmt":"2021-06-23T06:33:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=115439"},"modified":"2021-06-22T17:10:27","modified_gmt":"2021-06-23T00:10:27","slug":"continuous-indian-interference-in-sri-lankas-domestic-affairs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2021\/06\/23\/continuous-indian-interference-in-sri-lankas-domestic-affairs\/","title":{"rendered":"Continuous Indian Interference in Sri Lanka\u2019s domestic affairs"},"content":{"rendered":"

S. AKURUGODA<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

As per the media reports, the Indian High Commission has quoted Indian\nHigh Commissioner Gopal Bagley as having told a bunch of local politicians led\nby R. Sampanthan, who recognized the LTTE as the sole representative of the Tamil\nspeaking people and promoted its terrorism for\nthree decades in Sri Lanka, that India remained committed to devolution within\na united Sri Lanka on the basis of full implementation of the 13A, which would\nbe in line with Tamil aspirations for equality, justice, peace &\nreconciliation in Sri Lanka.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While responding to the Indian High Commissioner\u2019s statement, Sri Lanka\u2019s\nAmbassador\nin Myanmar Prof. Nalin de Silva quite\ncorrectly pointed out the relevant Section of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations 1961 –\nArticle 41.1 which clearly says “Without prejudice to their privileges and\nimmunities, it is the duty of all persons enjoying such privileges and\nimmunities to respect the laws and regulations of the receiving State. They\nalso have a duty not to interfere in the internal affairs of that State.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As\nper the Prof. de Silva\u2019s statement, the deputy HC of the Indian High Commission\ntoo reported to have had similar meetings with former LTTE cadres to discuss\nthe matters related to 13A which is a blunt violation of the Vienna\nConvention.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The above behavior of the Indian HC is\nnothing new to us. We remember the days how India interfered blatantly in the internal affairs of Sri Lanka through its High Commissioner J. N.\nDixit (1985-1989). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

India became the first country, since independence, to interfere\nblatantly with the internal affairs of Sri Lanka. We also remember the reports\ndescribing how India trained Tamil terrorists and launched a terrorist war\nagainst the Sri Lankan people and how the Indian government later went all out\nto coerce Sri Lanka into submission. When the Sri Lankan security forces were\nabout to destroy the same terrorists, Indian cargo planes invaded Sri Lanka\u2019s\nair space undermining her sovereignty, and almost forced Sri Lanka President JR\nJayewardene (JRJ) to \u2018invite\u2019 Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi to sign an\nagreement and to accept the accommodation of Indian military on Sri Lanka soil\nunder the name of IPKF. JRJ had no alternative but to give in to India and to\nsign the document hurriedly prepared and enforced by the Tamil separatist groups\nincluding the LTTE. The JRJ-Rajiv agreement thus signed led to 13th<\/sup>\nAmendment which made both Sinhala and Tamil official languages and to establish\nProvincial Councils (PC) or a Federal system of government. Provincial Councils\nset up under Indo-Lanka agreement are, if fully implemented, State Governments\nwith Governors representing the Central Government in all but name, Chief Ministers,\nMinisters with wide powers (even more than those exercised by State governments\nof India).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although the Indian government\nundertook to disarm the terrorists group in return of implementing the\nconstitutional amendment imposed on the Sri Lanka government, India has failed\nmiserably to fulfill its obligation as per the agreement. On the other hand,\nSri Lankan people had to bear the huge cost of war against terror abetted by India and the cost of implementing the constitution amendment, thus imposed\nunder the failed agreement, in addition to the loss of lives since 1987. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As per media reports the government\u2019s\nexpenditure for maintaining PCs has gone up from of 22,128,000 LKR million in 1996 to 286,031,000 LKR million\nin 2017. (https:\/\/www.ceicdata.com\/en\/sri-lanka\/provincial-councils-revenue-and-expenditure\/provincial-councils-expenditure<\/a>). It would be\ninteresting to find out whether there is any benefit to the general public on\nspending such a large sum of funds, and how many millions of rupees have been\nsaved from the public funds for not activating the PCs during the last two and\nhalf years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since it is the Sri Lankan Security\nforces who ultimately disarm the terrorists, the moral rights of the Indian\ngovernment to ask the government of Sri Lanka to implement 13th amendment is\nhighly questionable. Former Indian diplomat and analyst of\ninternational politics M. K. Bhadrakumar (MKB), in one of his article titled\n\u2018Geopolitics of Sri Lankan Tamil Problem\u2019 appeared in Newsclick.in dated 30th\nSeptember 2020 (https:\/\/www.newsclick.in\/Geopolitics-of-Sri-Lankan-Tamil-Problem<\/a>), quite correctly identified,\nit is likely that India will continue to interfere with the internal affairs of\nSri Lanka, not only due to the internal politics of Tamil Nadu, but to satisfy\nthe geopolitical interests as described in the said article titled \u2018Geopolitics\nof Sri Lankan Tamil Problem\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Full implementation of\nthe 13th or any other Amendments, or the complete overhaul of the entire\nConstitution of Sri Lanka, is a matter for the Citizens of Sri Lanka and its\nelected leaders. Continuous insisting of how we should solve our problem and to\npush Sri Lanka towards Indian solutions is simply a gross violation of our\nrights as a sovereign country and a clear example of how powerful states are\nbullying the weak and small states to achieve their own geopolitical interests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

S. AKURUGODA<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

S. AKURUGODA As per the media reports, the Indian High Commission has quoted Indian High Commissioner Gopal Bagley as having told a bunch of local politicians led by R. Sampanthan, who recognized the LTTE as the sole representative of the Tamil speaking people and promoted its terrorism for three decades in Sri Lanka, that India […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-115439","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-s-akurugoda"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115439","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=115439"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115439\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=115439"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=115439"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=115439"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}