Monday, October 4, 2004
Increasing US influence over Sri Lanka worries LTTE
COLOMBO DIARY | PK Balachanddran
Colombo, October 4
The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), fighting for a separate "Tamil Eelam" in North East Sri Lanka, are "concerned" about the growing political, financial and military influence of the United States in Sri Lanka, according to a knowledgeable Tamil source close to the LTTE.
Though the LTTE itself has kept a discrete silence about the worry, it has been conveying it to the Tamils and the rest of the world, through the writings of its large, but unofficial army of Tamil and English language journalists and sections of the intelligentsia friendly to it.
In Sri Lanka, not a week passes without a Tamil newspaper lambasting the US for supporting the Sri Lankan government's (or as they like to put it, the 'Sinhala hegemonists') case at the expense of the minority Tamils.
Tamil journalists, whether writing in English or Tamil, routinely note with alarm the way the US flexes its muscles though well-publicised visits of its military officials to the island.
The press also carries long articles on the way the US has used internal conflicts to gain a foothold in various countries of the Third World. The Tamils are asked to be wary about the impact of an increasing US presence in Sri Lanka on their liberation struggle.
In an article reproduced by the pro-LTTE website www.tamilcanadian.com on October 2, an LTTE acolyte, Vasantha Rajah, says:
"In the late 1960s, Indonesia witnessed a ruthless murder campaign culminating in the emergence of the Suharto dictatorship. Nearly one million civilians were killed in the bloodbath, mainly members of Indonesia's communist party. The US played an odious role during this barbaric episode, which reportedly involved discrete US funding of the death squads that were responsible for the killings."
Vasantha Rajah went to say: "Such characteristics of US politics help shed important light on the US role in Sri Lanka, in particular help explain Washington's apparently contradictory policy of militarily backing the Sri Lanka government's war effort against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), while calling for peace and shedding tears over the sufferings of the people."
According to the writer, the Bush Administration is creating a "climate of terror" throughout the world in order to generate conflicts everywhere, sell arms and extend US hegemony.
The Tamil intellectual view goes so far as believing that the threat from Al-Qaeda is being used by the US to extend its tentacles to every corner of the globe.
When the Sinhala-majoritarian forces in Sri Lanka talk of the importance of maintaining Sri Lanka's "integrity", they actually mean the continuation of the present "unitary" constitution, Vasantha Rajah says. He charges the US of doing the same.
And since the LTTE will never agree to the continuation of the unitary state, war is inevitable, he predicts. "It is naïve to suppose that the US is ignorant of these realities," he adds.
According to him, the continuation of the conflict and the onset of war will be welcomed by the US. It can sell arms to Sri Lanka.
Writing in Daily Mirror on September 29, the well known Tamil journalist, Taraki, argues that it will be wrong to think that the US is not interested in Sri Lanka because the island has no strategic resources like oil.
Taraki quotes an article by Lt Col Roy C Howle in the US War College journal "Parameters" in 2001, to say that the US wants to advantageously position its military power in all strategically important parts of the world so that the balance of power in each region invariably and overwhelmingly will be on its side.
"This would preclude the rise of any global hegemon like the USSR in the future, and help the US 'over determine' the course of world affairs by being in a position to effectively project its power in every nook and cranny of this planet. The US government's strategic interests in Sri Lanka are intertwined with its military objectives in South Asia and Asia," Taraki says.
He quotes a RAND corporation study entitled: "US and Asia: Towards a New Posture" which advocates an "access strategy" to provide increased opportunities for the deployment of US forces.
The study says that the present US base in Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, is too far from key South Asian centres like New Delhi and Islamabad, and has advocated the seeking of more bases.
Taraki says that the war in Sri Lanka provides the US good opportunities to get access facilities in the island. The US government has been pressing Colombo to enter into a "cross-servicing agreement" (ACSA) with it, to provide facilities on a supposedly mutual basis. But New Delhi's opposition has prevented Colombo from falling in line so far.
In another article in Daily Mirror dated September 14, Taraki says that the Long Range Reconnaissance Patrols (LRRP) of the Sri Lanka army, which successfully took on many high ranking LTTE personnel deep inside the Tiger territory during the war, was trained by US Special Forces.
Between May 1997 and April 2002, US Special Forces, Navy Seals and other elite units of the US armed forces had helped the Sri Lankan Army improve its fighting and planning capabilities.
There have been well-publicised visits to Sri Lanka by top US commanders of Pacific forces even during the peace process. In June came Lt Gen James S Campbell, Commander of the Pacific region. In July-August came Lt Gen Wallace C Gregson, Commander of the US Marine Forces in the Pacific.
Following Gen Campbells's visit, the LTTE Peace Secretatriat issued a press release saying that there was "panic" among the people of the Tamil district of Jaffna, because they feared that the US was actively helping the Sri Lankan armed forces to beef up their capability to attack the Tamils again.
Following Campbell came the US State Department's Coordinator on Terrorism, Ambassador Cofer Black in September. Giving a new and dangerous dimension to the LTTE, Back told Sri Lankan editors that the LTTE had been a "purveyor of training, knowledge and equipment to a spectrum of terrorist groups."
Black also said that these terrorist groups were "mutually supporting." See The Island of September 9.
According to Taraki, the US has been politically supporting the Sri Lankan government and the Sinhala majoritarian forces by keeping the LTTE on the list of banned foreign terrorist organizations, and by announcing that Sri Lanka will be eligible for the Millennium Account Facility.
He charges that the US' allies, Japan and the Asian Development Bank, have also stopped linking aid flows to Sri Lanka with progress in the peace process. They have removed the "coercive" clause.
"Sinhala nationalists can now rest assured that they can totally trash the ISGA (an Interim Self Governing Authority proposed by then LTTE for the North East) and indefinitely postpone talks with the Tigers without having to fear any effective exertion of coercion (by the Western donors)," writes Taraki.
Informed Tamil sources told Hindustan Times that the LTTE was "keenly watching" the stepped-up activities of USAID in Sri Lanka's North East, the geographical area of its putative independent state of "Tamil Eelam".
The USAID office of Transition Initiatives (USAID-OTI) has several small scale, development and peace process-oriented political projects in the North East, from Amparai in the South, to Jaffna in the North.
The projects relate to the needs of the farmers, fishermen, and the disabled. There are projects in the health and education sectors too. USAID OTI organises workshops on good governance, inter-ethnic harmony and the peace process in the conflict areas.
"The LTTE sees these US-aided development projects as a way of extending US influence in the North East. But it can do little to stop them because of the peoples' involvement," a Tamil source told Hindustan Times.
"But the LTTE has, and will, stop big money from coming in, because it knows about the insidious influence of cheque book diplomacy," the source said.
"Remember, when the LTTE refused to attend the Tokyo Aid Lanka meeting, the reason it gave was the increasing internationalisation of the peace process in Sri Lanka. Essentially, what the LTTE meant by internationalisation was the entry of the Americans as the key player in the peace process."
"One of the key reasons for walking out of the peace talks process in 2003, after six rounds of discussions, was suspected US domination," the source said.
The LTTE has summarily rejected the "cheque book diplomacy" of the US and the Japanese. It had refused to bow to the US-led international community's threat that development aid amounting to US$ 4.5 billion will not flow if the LTTE does not accept its blueprint for a solution of the Tamil problem.
"Prabhakaran (the LTTE chief) will not bow to anybody, the Americans included. But the LTTE is not planning for a head-on confrontation with the US. It is resisting US efforts to bring it into line, and is, in its own way, preparing to face the worst," the Tamil source said.
"It is to prevent any invading force from getting local assistance that the LTTE is now systematically eliminating the members of the pro-government Tamil para-military organisations," the source explained.
(PK Balachanddran is Special Correspondent of Hindustan Times in Sri Lanka)
© HT Media Ltd. 2004.