Tigers give wake up call at sea

VESSEL: Piracy it was. It was not a case of a vessel in difficulty being escorted to safety. Nor was it an instance of the crew of a vessel in distress being taken to safety. The ugly saga of the Jordanian registered Merchant Vessel Farah III so far, is one where the LTTE has most blatantly carried out an act of piracy.

Unfortunately the many organizations, to which this would have been clear from the outset, be they cease fire monitors, peace activists, Co-chairs or concerned neighbours, did not say so from the time the news of the Farah III broke out. It's another appalling example of fighting shy of calling a spade a spade, when the spade happens to have the LTTE or Tiger clearly engraved on it.

That the LTTE had breached every known law, convention and agreement relating to this issue has been very clear from the outset. What is worse, the LTTE has tried to behave as a conventional Navy operating in Sri Lankan waters, when it has no recognition whatever of having a Navy.

The Sea Tigers it boasts of are nothing more than a group of well-armed brigands of the sea, and should be accepted as such. The efforts the LTTE made to have the Sea Tigers recognized as third Naval force in these waters met with failure, despite a former leader of the SLMM making a case for it to have a right of passage in the waters off the East coast of Sri Lanka, some months after the CFA was signed.

When the proposal that the Sea Tigers should have the right to their own sea lane within accepted Sri Lankan waters off the East coast was made, the idea was rejected out of hand even by Ranil Wickremesinghe, who was a signatory to the CFA with Velupillai Prabhakaran. India also made it clear there is no room for a third Navy in these waters.

It is, therefore, more than surprising there was so much hesitation by so many in denouncing the LTTE's capture, not escorting mind you, and armed boarding of the Farah III, as an act of piracy that deserved condemnation by all those opposed to terrorism and concerned with the safety of international sea lanes.

In one move the LTTE has demonstrated so effectively that piracy and brigandage on the high seas come as easily to it as suicide killing and the recruitment of children to carry arms.

Manmohan - TNA pow-wow

It is more than significant that this act of piracy by the LTTE took place almost on the heels of that meeting in New Delhi between the Indian Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh and a delegation of the Tiger-proxy the Tamil National Alliance (TNA).

If the bureaucrats at South Block in New Delhi or the TNA apologists for the LTTE were to be elated by that meeting, with the feeling they had slighted the Government of Sri Lanka, such pleasure was to be short lived.

The LTTE, by its piracy against a Jordanian registered ship carrying cargo from India had proved once again that it is not interested in respecting the niceties of international relations or ensuring it had the goodwill of India, even though the TNA thought it necessary in the current context.

If the pressures of small parties in Tamil Nadu, especially the competing pressures from one's coalition partner Karunanadhi's DMK and from the opposition Vaiko group, coupled with the current Delhi feeling about the de-merged North and East of Sri Lanka, compelled Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to meet with the TNA delegates, the Tigers ensured that whatever good may have resulted from that meeting would be lost with its cavalier action in the waters of Sri Lanka.

Whatever the TNA may have said of the problems of the Tamils in Sri Lanka that may have suited a narrow view of developments here, in the larger context the LTTE's action over the Farah III blew all that to the wind, and exposed the LTTE for what it really is - an untrustworthy group seeking separation as its goal, and prepared to breach all norms of civilized behavior allegedly to achieve that goal.

Some India watchers over here, were going gaga over what they believed was a great snub to Colombo by the Indian establishment in meeting TNA's Sampanthan & Co. They easily ignored that the Indian External Affairs Minister, Pranab Mukherjee, had rejected separation and Eelam at Chennai and reiterated India's commitment to safeguard the unity, sovereignty and territorial integrity of Sri Lanka, coincident with his Prime Minister meeting with the TNA.

While some pundits said the Manmohan Singh - TNA meeting was the fitting response to all those appeals made for India to be more actively involved in the Sri Lanka peace process, they had forgotten that President Rajapaksa had more recently been saying that Sri Lanka would be happy for India to play a bigger role in the economic and development spheres of Sri Lanka.

President vindicated

What the LTTE had done with its act of piracy vis-...-vis the Farah III is to vindicate the position so emphatically made by President Mahinda Rajapaksa that the Sea Tigers of the LTTE posed a major threat not only to Sri Lanka, but also to India and the world at large, because of its threat to international shipping.

This message was given very clearly by President Rajapaksa when he addressed the Indian media both at Dehradun and New Delhi during his recent visit to India. This was also conveyed to Dr. Manmohan Singh when the Sri Lankan President met the Indian Prime Minister in New Delhi.

This was the basis on which Sri Lanka has asked India to share in the responsibilities of patrolling the waters of the Indian Ocean, particularly the areas North of Sri Lanka.

President Rajapaksa has been very clear in his cautioning India of the dangers posed by the LTTE and any expanded Sea Tiger activity in this region, not only to Sri Lanka, which is a reality we have to face; but also to India especially with Sethusamudram now under construction and increased shipping in that area; and, also the danger to the sea lanes East of Sri Lanka that are used for international shipping.

The LTTE could not have done it better to give the whole world a warning as to what it really is; an identifiable threat to peaceful shipping and ocean borne trade in this part of the world, than in its act of piracy in capturing the Farah III and its crew, with its cargo of rice and other exports from India to ports in the Middle East.

The threat to Indian cargo is obvious; similarly the threat to a foreign registered ship is very clear, and the threat to trade between South Asia and the Middle East is manifest. It is the best test to which the warning given by President Rajapaksa both to India and the world has been put, and the warning has proved correct, ominous and prophetic.

Whatever be the whirligig of coalition politics in India, this action of the LTTE must surely make intelligent analysts of South Asian politics in India, ask both Karunanadhi and Vaiko what they make of this act of piracy by their so-called saviour of the Tamil people; and also how this brigandage at sea can help in the cause of the Tamil people.

The politics of coalition is always fraught with many a problem in maintaining a majority in parliament. Is piracy in the high seas to be condoned due to the uncertain vagaries of the political tide, even in more mature democracies?