India responsible for Lanka’s 30-year war - Defence Secretary
Had the then Indian government acted with responsibility, Sri Lanka
wouldn’t have experienced a 30-year war, Defence Secretary Gotabhaya
Rajapaksa said on Tuesday. People of all communities would have been
still suffering the horrors of war, if not for the eradication of
terrorism in May 2009, following a three-year combined security forces
campaign, the Defence Secretary said, noting that India could never
absolve itself of the responsibility for creating terrorism here, though
some of those directly involved in subverting Sri Lanka were blaming the
Rajapaksa administration for the plight of Tamil speaking people here.
He was responding to former Indian Permanent Representative to the
United Nations Hardeep Singh Puri.
Puri had been directly involved in the Indian operation against the
then JRJ government in the run-up to the July 1987 Indo-Lanka Accord,
Rajapaksa said, alleging that he was one of those aware of the Indian
operations here.
The Defence Secretary said that both Hardeep S. Puri and his wife,
Lakshmi had been attached to India’s mission in Colombo during the
tenure of J. N. Dixit as India’s High Commissioner here.
Puri had now called for an investigation into what he called specific
allegations of war crimes during the last 100 days of military
operations.
“Those demanding accountability on Sri Lanka’s part for alleged
atrocities committed during the last 100 days of the conflict were
silent on the origin of terrorism here, “the Defence Secretary said.
Rajapaksa said that Puri should realize that the Indian intervention
here had caused a major regional crisis, when Indian trained Sri Lankan
terrorists raided the Maldives in early November 1988. The international
community should consider a comprehensive investigation into the issue
beginning with the Indian intervention, he added.
India’s former Permanent Representative could help the investigation
by revealing what was going on at that time.
The defence Secretary pointed out that Dixit, in his memoirs
published during his tenure as the Foreign Secretary, had acknowledged
that arming Sri Lankan Tamil youth was one of the two major policy
blunders of the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.
Commenting on Puri’s allegation that he (Rajapaksa) wanted to do away
with the provincial council system and criticism on recent attacks on
Muslims in Colombo, the Defence Secretary said that the Indian official
couldn’t be unaware of what the Norwegian mass killer Anders Breivik had
said before he slaughtered 70 men, women and children. Breivik declared
that he wanted the drive out Muslims out of Europe the way northern Sri
Lanka was cleansed of Muslims during 1990. The Norwegian was referring
to massacres carried out by the LTTE during President Premadasa’s
administration.
The Defence Secretary said that those critical of the Sri Lankan
government should peruse former Indian Foreign Secretary Kanwal Sibal’s
recent piece to India Today.
The LTTE had used children as cannon fodder and Prabhakaran had
forced the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) to recognize the LTTE as the
sole representative of Tamil speaking people. The TNA couldnt even
finalize its candidates list for parliamentary polls without
Prabhakaran’s approval, the Defence Secretary said, alleging some
interested parties were reluctant to acknowledge the fact that Sri Lanka
was a much better place today without the LTTE.
He was responding to former Indian Permanent Representative to the
United Nations Hardeep Singh Puri.The Island a local English national
paper reported today quoting the Sri Lankan Defence Secretary who is
also the younger brother of the President Mahinda Rajapaksa
Puri had been directly involved in the Indian operation against the
then JRJ government in the run-up to the July 1987 Indo-Lanka Accord,
Rajapaksa said, alleging that he was one of those aware of he Indian
operations here.
Courtesy : Government Information Department
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