International Tamils Must Be Alert of India Diluting the US Resolution Again

“We will decide once the text of the resolution is made available. India has no position on it now,” - Indian Foreign Secretary Sujatha Singh

(MELBOURNE) - After diluting two earlier UNHRC resolutions in 2012 and 2013, and making them inoperative, the Indian Government said it was awaiting the final text of the resolution to be tabled on Sri Lanka at the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in order to decide its stand, if a vote is taken. It won't be possible for India to dilute this resolution blatantly and nakedly, as they did in the earlier two resolutions. When Sri Lanka was annoyed with India for voting for the resolution in March 2012, Manmohan Singh publicly stated that the Indian diplomats made the resolution more accepted to Sri Lanka before voting for it.

Right from March 2012 Navi Pillay insisted on international investigation into war crimes into Sri Lankan Human Rights violations and investigators should move into any part of Sri Lanka without the consent of the Sri Lankan government. India diluted Navi Pillay's statement by insisting on internal investigation and the investigators could move into Sri Lanka only with the consent of the SL government. Thus, the Tamil sufferings in Sri Lanka was prolonged by another year and more.

Again in 2013 UNHRC, India diluted the second US resolution. The uprising and vast demonstration of Tamil students in Tamil Nadu, shocked the Delhi Pundits and they wanted to reinsert some of the clauses they had removed earlier, and the Americans had enough of this game and they refused to budge. By this time the Pundits had concluded that their game was up; they cannot take the Tamil Nadu Tamils for granted. Now with the general election in the horizon and their stakes in Tamil Nadu is almost zero, the north Indians have decided to put on a better face.

Why is India so scared about SL. The usual reason given is China; Sri Lanka was playing the China card, threatening India every now and then. Gotabhaya had proclaimed aloud immediately after the Mullivaaykkal genocide that SL fought India's war. Moreover, SL may have some incriminating evidence of India's involvement in the massacre. M.K. Narayanan and Shiv Shankar Menon were in the group of 3 men Indian team guiding the war with 3 others from Sri Lanka. Now a big country like India, the largest democracy in the world, has to appease SL to make sure it doesn't go into the Chinese camp, a claim many Tamils may find difficult to swallow. In spite of that the Chinese have infiltrated right up to the north of SL and soon they will pose a threat to India. How unintelligent can these Pundits be? To teach the Eelam Tamils a lesson they had compromised Indian security. To spite their face they cut their nose.

Indian Foreign Secretary Sujatha Singh told a group of visiting Sri Lankan journalists in New Delhi on 13 February 2014 that the Indian Government has not taken a decision on the resolution as the final text of the document has not been made available to them yet. “In Geneva we are in touch with all parties looking at various aspects of the issue. It is something on our radar. We will see how it goes,” she said.

The Foreign Secretary also asserted that India has it’s own views on Sri Lanka and communicates those views to Sri Lanka, including on the Tamil issue. “We will decide once the text of the resolution is made available. India has no position on it now,” she said.

However, she had not given up the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission (LLRC), which the Tamils had rejected outright. She wanted SL to make progress on implementing the recommendations of the LLRC. The Indian Foreign Secretary also called for meaningful power devolution and stressed on the need for the resumption of talks between the Government and the Tamil National Alliance (TNA). She wouldn't include the Panel of Experts report. She can't be so ignorant of the fact that months of negotiations by TNA with the government came to naught.

Speaking on the 13th Amendment to the constitution, Singh said that it is important for Sri Lanka to implement the 13th Amendment and go beyond it. In five years SL had no intention to implement the 13th Amendment, leave alone the "go beyond it". It is not likely to be achieved even in sixty years, the past length of the struggle. “Our objective continues to remain the achievement of a future for the Tamil community in Sri Lanka that is marked by equality, dignity, justice and self respect. So, it is important in this context that the Government of Sri Lanka resumes a substantive dialogue with the TNA for a political settlement and reconciliation. India has consistently urged the Sri Lankan Government to take forward the process of broader dialogue so that we can see some concrete movements towards a meaningful devolution of powers including implementation of the 13th Amendment and beyond,” she said.

What a laudable wish on the part of India after SL and India had jointly killed over 100,000 Tamils in the country in the most cruel manner. Is it fair and realistic to expect the Tamils to live in "equality, dignity, justice and self respect" in a unitary state of Sri Lanka? This is all an attempt to save their own skins in an international investigation. The Italian and the Indian Mafias have a lot to answer, both to the International Community and to the Indian public, especially the Tamil Nadu Tamils. These faithful servants of the mistress just carry out he biddings, even it may sound illogical. This shows the Tamils internationally have to keep a watch on Indian moves.

Responding to a question on China’s heavy presence and role in Sri Lanka, the Indian Foreign Secretary said India did not see China’s presence in Sri Lanka as a threat. She noted that China even has a fairly strong presence in India as well as in several other countries in the region. However, at the same time she said that as Sri Lanka’s biggest neighbour, India would like to remain Sri Lanka’s biggest trade partner.

What a brilliant Indian diplomat? US is worried about the presence of the Chinese in Sri Lanka and that is one of the reasons why it is interested in a international investigations into the mass killings. Its aim is not so much to help the Tamils, but to bring SL to books. They would like to see the Chinese presence in Sri Lanka contained or out, as they perceive the Chinese presence in SL as a threat to the vital sea lanes in the Indian Ocean. However, India doesn't see the Chinese presence as a threat to its industrial installations in South India, leave alone the sea route. On the other hand she is interested in the trade in Sri Lanka, even at the expense of its security.

This is a typical Indian disease. When the Chinese were infiltrating into Indian territory in the North West India, the journalist had to alert them. Until then they didn't know. Before the Bombay bomb blast, the US warned them that an attack was imminent. They didn't wake up until the blast took place a couple of days later, causing death and destruction. Now we have an intellectual diplomat, Sujatha Singh, who claims the Chinese don't pose a threat to India. Does she worry that Maoist rebels in India may create an arms supply link with the Chinese? Does containing the Tamils in a unitary Sri Lanka is more important than preventing the Chinese presence in Sri Lanka? Living in a state of denial is part of Indian character. Jaswant Sinha, the BJP shadow foreign minister, has already predicted the Tamil Eelam is a reality. Come what may the Tamils will sooner or later go free from the clutches of the Sinhalese terrorism.

Meanwhile the British High Commissioner to Sri Lanka, John Rankin, said that in the absence of a domestic process, the United Kingdom will call for an international investigation in Geneva. Rankin made this statement at an exclusive interview with News1st’s Shameer Rasooldeen, a SL journalist. An extract of this interview is in the tube below.