January
13, 2008 India-Sri
Lanka Accord Can Solve
Ethnic Issue: Rajapaksa By
P.K. Balachandran
Colombo
Sri Lankan president Mahinda Rajapaksa has said the India-Sri Lanka
accord of 1987 offers the best solution for the ethnic problem in
his country.
The devolution of power envisaged in the accord, offered the best
solution to the conflict in Sri Lanka, Rajapaksa said in "Walk the
Talk" programme on NDTV Saturday.
Following the signing of the accord by Sri Lankan president J.R.
Jayewardene and the then Indian prime minister Rajiv Gandhi, the Sri
Lankan parliament passed the 13th amendment to the constitution,
which created provincial councils with a modicum of power devolved
from the central government.
But the provincial council system did not function where it was
primarily meant to, namely, the Tamil-speaking northeastern
province. The northeast provincial council, dissolved in 1990 due to
the war, still remains dissolved 17 years later.
Now, President Rajapaksa reportedly wants to fully implement the
13th amendment saying it is the most practical answer to the Tamil
minority's demand for provincial autonomy.
The Sri Lankan president said Gandhi, who initiated the India-Sri
Lanka accord, "had a vision".
"He was a great leader, who knew what was going on here (in Sri
Lanka)," Rajapaksa said.
The Sri Lankan president sought Indian mediation in the ethnic
conflict in his country, saying that Sri Lankans preferred India to
Norway or US or any other Western country.
"India knows the mentality of the LTTE and can put pressure on it,"
he explained.
Rajapaksa clarified the idea was mooted by him and that the Indians
had not offered to mediate.
Asked if the Indians saw him as a hawk and if they distrusted him,
Rajapaksa said earlier they did, because of the propaganda of some
Sri Lankan politicians opposed to him.
"Now they understand me better than earlier. They know who Mahinda
Rajapaksa is," he said.
If Sri Lankans opposed the India-Sri Lanka accord in the 1980s, it
was because people in the island felt that India "came by force",
the president explained.
Alluding to the air dropping of dhal and other essential food items
by India over beleaguered Jaffna just before the accord was signed,
Rajapaksa said that it was "not a good gesture."
"They (India) should have done it in a more sophisticated way," he
suggested.
To this day, Sri Lankans see the "parippu drop" (dhal drop) by IAF's
C-130 transport aircraft escorted by Mirage jets, as a flagrant
violation of Sri Lankan airspace.
It hurts the Sri Lankan psyche more than the induction of the
100,000 strong Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) in the northeast to
implement the accord, in place of the Sri Lankan armed forces which
were asked to go back to their barracks.
Asked if the people of Sri Lanka had any sense of gratitude for the
IPKF, which fought the Tamil Tigers for nearly three years,
Rajapaksa recalled that the IPKF lost 1,200 men in the fight against
the LTTE.
"The people have gratitude," he affirmed.
He then went on to announce the Sri Lankan government was building a
monument for the IPKF near parliament (in the outskirts of Colombo)
and that it would be completed by Sri Lanka's Independence Day, Feb
4.
On whether the people would oppose such a move, Rajapaksa said they
would not, though the LTTE might not like it.
The Sri Lankan president said that if president R. Premadasa had not
sent the IPKF away, (in March 1990) the LTTE could have been
defeated. Another three or four months of fighting would have seen
the end of the Tigers, he said.
Rajapaksa said that initially, the IPKF had indeed underestimated
the Tigers. Later, they did acquire the capability to tackle the
Tigers. But it was then that president Premadasa asked them to quit
the island. The job was left unfinished.
Premadasa had sent the IPKF away for domestic political reasons, to
please the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) and some other extremist
parties, Rajapaksa said.
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