It's time for the India Watch

SO Pottu Amman has one more notch on his belt. It's the life of Major Nizam Muthalif, the highest ranking member of the Sri Lankan Intelligence Services to have been killed so far.

The Defence Ministry spokesman said it was a well planned operation by the Tamil Tigers. As usual in such instances the LTTE remains silent.

This is one more victim of the greatly flawed MoU between the last government and the LTTE signed in February 2002, and a continuation of the treachery carried out by key figures in that government by exposing the Long Range Reconnaissance or Deep Penetration Unit of the Sri Lanka Army.

The much hailed CFA which brought an end to open confrontation between the armed services and the LTTE, is tilted heavily in favour of the LTTE, giving it all opportunity to carry out these killings with impunity outside the areas of its own control.

Despite its clear inability and unwillingness to act with regard to LTTE violations of the CFA, the SLMM also took much longer than others to state that the LTTE has carried out a major violation of the CFA, in establishing an air capability, threatening the safety of Sri Lanka and India too.

In a carefully worded statement strange to come from any CFA monitors, it sought to pre-empt the Sri Lankan security forces from precautionary measures to safeguard national and Indian air space and security, the SLMM says that if bombs fall on the LTTE's airstrip the monitors will go away.

Reality of partition

Whatever views one may have about the need for a Tsunami Relief Organization, the euphemism for a joint mechanism, the details of which are not fully in the public or even political domain, the freedom given to the LTTE to operate in government held areas, including Colombo, is pushing Sri Lanka to the brink of a bloody separation, similar in effect with all the bloodshed and tragedy of the British imposed partition of India.

This is a possibility I have always rejected as being unrealistic in the Sri Lankan situation, but it is one that to me is now far more than a mere possibility but much closer to the probable and terribly real, as one observes the trend of developments today.

What less can one perceive when ceasefire monitors who are here to help prevent any escalation of violence into open conflict, without issuing any warning to the LTTE to prevent further conflict, and explaining to the whole world the advance of the LTTE's machine of terror, only warns the Sri Lankan government that if bombs fall on the LTTE's airstrip, they will pack up and go home.

As it appears, the sooner they go home the better, leaving someone else to do a better job of monitoring the CFA, with all its loopholes that favour the LTTE.

Yet, the LTTE will not agree to such a necessary change, realizing its hunky-dory situation today with the dysfunction of the SLMM, regarding the LTTE's terror, linked to its goal of a separate State.

Indian comfort

It is in such a situation that one has to take comfort in the observations by the Indian Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh that India is not "indifferent" to what the LTTE has been up to lately. He had told Foreign Correspondents in India that the Sea Tigers and the LTTE's airport at Iranamadu were matters of serious concern to India.

No doubt these are matters that will be discussed by President Kumaratunga and the Indian leaders during her visit to India this week, in addition to explaining the Sri Lanka Government's current stand on the Joint Mechanism, a matter which in the current context could raise more than a few eyebrows in South Block and among Indian defence experts.

The Indian Prime Minister seemed to respond to the concerns of many in Sri Lanka that New Delhi has so far made no strong statement on the new "air assets" of the LTTE, and the Joint Mechanism too, in saying that India has vital sakes in the unity and integrity of Sri Lanka, and just because furious statements are not made by New Delhi on a regular basis on what the LTTE is up to, "it does not mean we are indifferent".

He also re-emphasized the guiding principles of Indian defence since Independence as stated by then Defence Minister Patel, generally referred to as the Patel Doctrine that "India's destiny is definitely linked with what happens in our neighbourhood".

No doubts the words are comforting at this stage but what bothers one is what India will do to turn its concerns into tangible reality, as the LTTE keeps growing stronger and the violence in Sri Lanka increases, without an open war.

No doubt India's concerns about Sri Lanka goes beyond the limitations of the old geographical interests, but now involves investments, and the safety of places of strategic importance such as the Oil Tank Farm at China Bay, and the Trincomalee Naval facilities.

But as the Tiger's claw strikes both near and afar from its lair in the Vanni, what could India's options be, with the Sri Lankan armed forces virtually hemmed in by sell-out of the Ranil-Prabhakaran MoU?

These are concerns that will bother those concerned with Sri Lanka's unity, secularism, and political pluralism, apart from flawed electoral democracy, as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, and not the SLMM, tells the world of the increasing violence here for which the LTTE is mainly responsible.

The Bush-Blair coalition that launched its War on Terror, with a new missionary zeal to spread democracy in the world, must surely blush with shame at ignoring what is now the best organized terrorist outfit in the world, namely the LTTE.

There is much more to be done by this coalition, apart from uncertain pledges of tsunami aid, to bring pressure on the LTTE to change its ways, and soon.

India will certainly observe how these champions of democracy vs. terror will act in the face of an enemy that today has much more tangible weapons of destruction than the illusory WMD over which regime change and chaos was brought about in Iraq.

It's time to watch and pray.