From: mvishnu@bcr3.uwaterloo.ca (Meenan Vishnu)
Subject: Re: Accord of 1987 :- Repost [re: memoirs of Jayawardane]
Organization: University of Waterloo
Date: Wed, 7 Oct 1992 16:04:32 GMT

In article <1992Oct7.132801.9372@news.acns.nwu.edu> rags@casbah.acns.nwu.edu (Raghavan Jayaraman) writes:
>
>There is nothing new in the quoted portions of the book as those are well
>known. Here I am going to repost a part of my articles on this subject
>which  I had posted in SCI a year and half back. If any one is interested I
>can post/mail the rest too.
>
>Now to quote Jayawardane:-
>
>" What is wrong in sipping some whisky if monks themselves had taken liquor
>to attain Nirvana"
>
>Hmmm! Doesn't he know that he can attain that simply by dropping his
>clothes:-)
>
>--------------------
>
>I will come to the predicament I talked about in my earlier post by the end
>of this article. India's involvement in Srilanka may be crudely put to be
>due to  strategic reasons and its own tamil ethnic population. At the
>outset  let me deal with the former.
>
>Everyone may remember the  conditions leading to the deployment of seventh
>fleet by US in 1971 and their subsequent development of Diego Garcia. They
>eyed on the natural harbour at Trincomalee but India had put pressure on
>Srilanka under the disguise of Non-alignment against this. Since then India
>always had a fear about this strategic point. In 1956 S.W.R.D Bandaranaike
>committed to non-alignment and later his wife  Srimavo Bandaranaike in 1964 
>barred all foreign navies from Trincomalee, pleasing India.
>
>In 1977, when Jayawardene defeated Sirimavo, lifted the ban on trincomalee
>and started distancing away from India. In 1981,  a bid to develop a oil
>tank farm in Tricomalee was won by a singapore based consortium inspite of
>competitive offer by India.  Also in 1983, an agreement over the location
>of VOA transmitter in Srilanka was renewed. These made India suspicious of
>US interests in that strategic point. This was compounded by the outside
>help Srilanka got after the flare up in 1983. Mossad was beleived to have
>been advising the Srilanka Govt. with covert US assistance. Pakistan was
>pointed to have trained the Special Task Force against guerillas and
>weapons arrived from China. UK was beleived to have channelled their help
>indirectly thro' a security firm of the Island. Due to the
>apprehension that its geostrategic interets were being threatened by
>involvement of foreign hands in this ethnic conflict, India prepared a blue
>print to contain the Srilankan situation. This was disclosed due to the
>Coomar Narain spy scandal. So by 1983, Indra Gandhi's Govt. protested the
>Srilanka's decision to dispose of unidentified bodies without inquiry and
>communicated its concern at the prospect of million refugees entering
>India. She sent PVNR  to Colombo and invited TULF leader Amirthalingam for
>talks. Now Jayawardene accepted India's help in solving the crisis. G.
>Parthasarathi came up with a proposal 'Annexure C' which collapsed because
>Jayawardene reneged it due to sinhala opposition. Then Indra was
>assasinated.
>
>After Rajiv was elected to power, due to the mounting military pressure at
>home, Jayawardene came to Delhi and consulted Rajiv. Rajiv inturn started
>putting pressure on militants for a negotiated settlement by curbing
>militant activities in TN, arranged for a cease fire and made the militants
>meet Srilankan officials at Thimphu [1985]. This time it was the turn of
>militants to reject the offer. 
>
>Again in April 1986, the mediation was initiated by India by sending the
>Srilankan Govt. new draft to TULF. It was bogged down by militants on the
>point of merger of north and eastern provinces, inspite of involvement of
>MGR. By Dec.'86, after meeting with Jayawardene in Bangalore, 'December 19'
>proposal was offered to militants, to be reneged again by Jayawardene.
>Frustrated by the failure of 3 years of mediation, MGR at the behest of
>centre told Prabhakaran, to either accept a negotiated agreement or leave
>for Jaffna. He chose the latter.
>
>By April 1987, there was a massacre of sinhala civilians on a good friday
>and bomb explosion in colombo. Srilanka announced the oil and food embargo
>on Jaffna and were all out for taking on Jaffna. India at this time sensed
                                                  ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>the danger of decimation of tigers and its aftermath it had to bore at TN.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>So it acted by sending the Eagle mission-4. 


This shows the serious under-estimation of LTTE's strength by India, which
was one reason why it could not defeat it later.  It is said that the RAW
agent stationed in Jaffna, could never leave his house without LTTE's 
permission!

If Sri-Lanka could have won LTTE then, why can't it do it now? Remember 
that  the LTTE is considerably weaker than it used to be when IPKF arrived.

I think the truth is that Indian political leaders did not have a consistent
rational policy towards Sri-Lanka.  They just used their patriotic emotions
(which seems to be abandon even in those those holding the US Greencards)
and JRJ took Rajiv for a ride.  

>
>Rest in next
>
>raghavan
>------------------end of repost----------
> 


Meenan Vishnu
Newsgroups: soc.culture.tamil