A prominent Sri Lankan Tamil politician ended a visit to India on Thursday calling upon New Delhi to play a pro-active role to end what he said was the growing stranglehold of the Tamil Tigers in his country.
Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF) leader V. Anandasangaree said in an interview that it was time the Indian government stopped being indifferent to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).
"The kind of international mediation that is going on in Sri Lanka is strengthening the LTTE," Anandasangaree told IANS, at the end of a three-day visit. "The international players are only helping LTTE to get a foothold even in government-held areas (in the north and east of Sri Lanka)."
Anandasangaree, an outspoken critic of the Tigers, said New Delhi would realise to its peril one day that it had erred in not waking up to the entrenchment of the LTTE, a group outlawed in India for the 1991 assassination of former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi.
Attempts to equate the LTTE and the Sri Lankan government in matters of even tsunami relief were fraught with grave dangers, he warned.
{{/usCountry}}Attempts to equate the LTTE and the Sri Lankan government in matters of even tsunami relief were fraught with grave dangers, he warned.
{{/usCountry}}"This is the time for India to say 'no' to ISGA and 'no' to any joint mechanism in tsunami relief," he said. "Once such a joint mechanism comes up, then the government of Sri Lanka will be caught in a trap from which it will not be able to withdraw."
Anandasangree, 72 and a former MP, was referring to the Interim Self Governing Authority (ISGA) which the LTTE has been seeking to govern the Tamil-majority north and east of Sri Lanka. The Tigers are also seeking an internationally backed joint mechanism to carry out tsunami relief in the areas of the north and east.
But the TULF leader, who is known to be on the hit list of LTTE, said the Tigers controlled far less areas than Colombo even in the tsunami-battered north and east and to equate the two sides was grossly unfair.
"India has a moral duty to tell the Sri Lankan government that it is opposed to ISGA. After all India can never accept an independent Tamil Eelam state," he said, speaking in his hotel room. "I am worried by the Indian indifference (to goings on in LTTE areas)."
He went on: "We believe this is the best time to seek the support of the Indian government to solve our problems. What we need is an Indian-type devolution. We don't need anything more."
This is Anandasangaree's second trip to New Delhi in about two months. The last time he spent some two weeks here. He described the current visit as a personal one but hinted that he had used it to meet senior members of the Indian government.
Anandasangaree made it clear that he was in favour of any Indian military intervention - like the one in 1987 that turned out to be a messy affair - and that he had said this to Western diplomats as well.
He said Norway in particular and Western countries in general were underestimating the dangers posed by LTTE and were not realising that ordinary Tamil people were sick and tired of living in the region under LTTE control.
He referred to the widely reported 62-day-long detention by LTTE of Rajasingham Jayadevan, a British resident of Sri Lankan Tamil origin, in a prison operated by LTTE in the island's north. The British government's pressure forced the Tigers to free him.
"If this could happen to someone like Jayadevan (who was influential and who was a long-time LTTE supporter), you can imagine what must be happening to ordinary Tamils in LTTE areas," Anandasangree despaired.
"What Tamils need today is not ISGA, not joint mechanism for tsunami relief, what they need is liberation from LTTE. What they need is the right to live without fear of LTTE.
"A peace process cannot go on and on at the cost of ordinary Tamil people. I told this to (Norwegian peace envoy) Erik Solheim also. I asked him: Even you, can you go into the LTTE areas without their permission? Can you breach their Iron Curtain?"