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Indian Express, Thursday, November 13 1997
LTTE's India links were far more
dubious than are made out to be
Manvendra Singh
NEW DELHI, November 12: Soldiers are the only innocents in
politics. So it seems from the tale of a distraught father
looking for his Army-officer son, evacuated with a head wound.
The father walked into a hospital room only to be told by the
nurse that, ``These four injured are cadres of the Liberation
Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), and your son is in the next room''.
This was in November 1987, the injured Army officer served in the
Indian Peace Keeping Force, and the mistaken hospital room was in
Chennai, India! In the truest sense of non-alignment, the
Government of India and its state government in Tamil Nadu were
simultaneously treating the LTTE cadres injured by the IPKF; and
the IPKF personnel injured by the LTTE.
A cross-section of officials who dealt with India's crisis in Sri
Lanka are clear about New Delhi's duplicity in dealing with the
LTTE. The furore, therefore, over portions of the Jain Commission
report pointing fingers at one of the Dravidian political parties
is misplaced on account of one basic fact, every political
organisation in Tamil Nadu, national or regional, was involved in
promoting and sustaining activities of the LTTE and they were
aided by the intelligence agencies of the Centre as well as the
State Government.
``So much of this mish-mash, cross wiring of political and
military decisions left us wondering as to who was actually in
charge of policy'', says Major General (Retd) Ashok Mehta, a
division commander during IPKF operations.
From the beginning of India's involvement with militant Sri
Lankan Tamil groups in 1981, until late 1993, its intelligence
agencies were actively involved with, and in the promotion of,
the LTTE; and for most of this period, the Congress was the
ruling party.
The recently published book Assignment Colombo by J N Dixit, the
former Foreign Secretary and the then High Commissioner in Sri
Lanka, is replete with instances of active contact maintained by
agencies of the governments of India and Tamil Nadu with the
LTTE, even after the commencement of `Operation Pawan' by the
IPKF. Dixit is explicit in stating that, but for the armed
forces, no other Indian agency conducted itself with honour and
integrity during the entire involvement with the Sri Lankan Tamil
problem.
``As a result, what we had in Sri Lanka was a mess and Delhi was
neck-deep in what it had created'' said a serving officer. ``So
we don't even know whether, first, information about the IPKF was
being passed on to the LTTE, and secondly, how much help is given
to them after all that has happened'', he added.
Even while Indian soldiers were dying in the jungles of north and
eastern Sri Lanka, New Delhi was still engaging the LTTE in
talks, and Chennai was allowing the militants to rest, recoup and
refit in Tamil Nadu. And some intelligence agents were ambushed
in the company of LTTE by the IPKF, unaware that New Delhi's
operatives were even there and, above all, moving with the
militants.
Similarly, the intelligence agencies even organised an ambush in
Amparai by the Indian-raised Tamil National Army on a Sri Lankan
Army brigade commander without the knowledge of the IPKF
leadership. There is even the case of detailed maps made
available to the intelligence agencies, but locked away in dusty
cupboards, while the IPKF casualties mounted because of
insufficient information.
While a senior intelligence official was arrested for passing
information to a western country, officials closely involved with
the crisis declared unequivocally that each agency was pursuing
its own agenda in Sri Lanka and each kept the government
informed, but only from its parochial perspective.
``So while its soldiers were fighting in the jungles, its
diplomats managing the crisis, New Delhi continued to hobnob with
the LTTE through its intelligence operatives'', said a serving
official, once closely involved with the crisis. Such contacts,
therefore, resulted in Rajiv Gandhi meeting Kasi Anandan, a
senior LTTE functionary, at his 10 Janpath residence months
before he was assassinated.