India faulted for Sri Lanka mess by ex-spy chief

New Delhi, Oct 1 (IANS) India's failure to play a more active role in bringing peace to Sri Lanka may prove to be "a monumental foreign policy blunder", warns J.K. Sinha, a former chief of the country's external intelligence agency.Sinha, who headed the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) until last year, says India was content to remain on the margins of the peace process, in part due to its misgivings vis-à-vis the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), which New Delhi banned in 1992 over former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi's assassination."Mouthing platitudes and self-righteous expression of good intentions has become a substitute for a credible and effective policy," Sinha writes in the latest issue of "Indian Defence Review", in an article titled "India Loses its Way in South Asia Neighbourhood"."India allowed the gradual erosion of the peace process and remained a virtual bystander," charges Sinha, who headed RAW during the years when a Norway-backed 2002 ceasefire between Colombo and the LTTE began to crack up, eventually resulting in hostilities that have now assumed menacing proportions."It will have a heavy price to pay as Sri Lanka once again descends into a civil war," he said. "India's inability to fully comprehend the ground realities in Sri Lanka and, hamstrung by the past, its reluctance to do business with LTTE to help evolve an equitable settlement may prove to be a monumental foreign policy blunder."In an attack clearly targeted at the external affairs ministry, Sinha finds fault with New Delhi for failing to build on the 2002 Oslo agreement between the Sri Lankan government and the LTTE under which the latter agreed for the first time to explore a federal settlement to the ethnic conflict."Instead of building on the positive developments at Oslo, India allowed its misgivings and suspicions with regard to the LTTE to stifle any follow-up policy initiative. India was content to remain in the margins."The former RAW chief has come down heavily on former Sri Lankan president Chandrika Kumaratunga for destabilizing the government of Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe in late 2003 soon after the LTTE submitted a proposal to set up an interim administration in Sri Lanka's northeast."India and the international community should have done all that was possible to prevent (Chandrika) from resorting to the politically dishonest and unconstitutional measure which really scuttled the peace process," Sinha said."India's ambivalence about the LTTE and its inability to pull its weight in Sri Lanka in favour of the peace process shall cost India dear. India is now caught between the devil and the deep sea."It cannot help the Sri Lankan government militarily to defeat the LTTE because of the sentiments in Tamil Nadu and the compelling political constraints that it entails. Its ambivalence interspersed with gratuitous hostile statements towards the LTTE has closed its option to proactively bring about a settlement of the ethnic crisis in Sri Lanka through a process of negotiations."The resumption of civil war in Sri Lanka portends the worst for that country and for India's security concerns in the region."Sinha has not spared Colombo either."It is indeed ironical that Colombo, which conspired with LTTE to force the return of the Indian Army (in 1990), now looks up to New Delhi to rein in LTTE and play a decisive role as the regional superpower to bring about a durable peace."But the bulk of the criticism is directed at New Delhi."In fact, both the major political parties of Sri Lanka believe that India is the reluctant hegemon, unwilling to act, being overwhelmed by self-doubt about its role but yet extremely sensitive to the international community asserting their presence and playing a decisive role in tackling the ethnic crisis in Sri Lanka..."The gradual erosion of the peace process and the resumption of the conflict is a major setback for India and to its security concerns vis-à-vis Sri Lanka.
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