(1) Sinhalese society, despite being the majority community in its country, has a deeply felt minority complex in relation to the link between Sri Lankan Tamils and the Tamils of Tamil Nadu in India. A conscious effort to remove this complex is a prerequisite for any, solution of the Sri Lankan ethnic problem.
(2) The Governments of both India and Sri Lanka have to undertake specific measures to create mutual trust, to educate public opinion and to evolve policies which will guarantee the existence of Sri Lanka as a plural society.
(3)The Indian endeavour should be to continuously and tangibly assure Sri Lanka about India's commitment to Sri Lanka's independence, unity and territorial integrity.
(4) The Sri Lankan Government should move out its suspicion
and xenophobic mindset and be genuinely responsive to Tamil political aspirations. Any expectation that Tamil concerns can be neutralised by a process of political and military confrontation is not realistic.
(5) The Indo Sri Lanka accord failed because the Sri Lankan
Government and the LTTE agreed to it only for tactical purposes
and with contradictory motives, while India pushed through the
agreement due to lack of patience after nearly four years of
mediatory efforts. The Sri Lankan Government entered the
agreement in the hope that India's direct involvement will help
the Sri Lankan Government to military suppress the LTTE. The
LTTE initially accepted the agreement under the misunderstanding
that the agreement would be the umbrella under which India will directly intervene in Sri Lanka and help in the creation of Eelam. India entered the agreement
in the expectation that by directly participating in the agreement, it would
overcome the
competing obstinacies of the Sinhalese and the Tamils,
thereby
stabilising the situation in Sri Lanka. The
predications
on which the agreement was signed and the expectations on
which it was based proved to be inaccurate.
(6) Neither the Sinhalese nor Indian public opinion
gave sustained support to the Indo Sri Lanka agreement despite
Tamil its valid motives and correct objectives. Sri Lankan Tamil public
opinion, while generally supportive of the agreement and the Indian
involvement, did not have sufficient resources or will to resist the fear
and violence generated by the LTTE, thereby weakening the agreement.
Their deeply felt suspicions about the Sinhala majority also contributed to
their stilted cooperation in implementing the agreement,
(7) Rajiv Gandhi was given inaccurate advice about the political, military
and intelligence factors affecting the implementability of the agreement by
his military, intelligence and foreign service advisers. He decided to go
ahead with the agreement on wrong predications which led to the
hurdles which the agreement ultimately faced.
(8) The Jayawardene and Premadasa governments did not completely
fulfil the Sri Lankan Government's obligations under the agreement.
Neither did the LTTE fulfil its obligations.
(9) The large scale induction of the IPKF into Sri Lanka was in some
respects an unexpected contingency. The result was the IPKF undertaking a
task without clear briefings
and clear definition of objectives. The situation on the
ground itself changed the objectives and tasks of the IPKF
compared to what was envisaged originally. The IPKF did not
have the full backing of Indian public opinion and faced
hostility from Sinhalese public opinion, while it was viewed
with an amount of reservation and suspicion by the Sri Lankan
Tamil population. They performed their task in
excruciatingly
adverse circumstances.
(10) Inter departmental rivalries in the Government of
India resulted in lack of cohesion and coordination between
different agencies of the Government of India engaged in the
implementation of the Indo Sri Lanka agreement.
(11) The situation was compounded
further by senior
figures of the Sri Lankan Government actively sabotaging
the
agreement for their own political purposes.
(12) There were vested interests abroad
desiring a
continuation of the civil war situation in Sri Lanka in
terms
of sale of arms, drugs, safeguarding refugee status and
political
asylum status and also for maintaining intelligence and
security
linkages with foreign entities on the basis of the
continuation
of the ethnic crisis.
(13) The
religious and ethnic reluctance of the
Sinhalese
majority to meet Tamil aspirations remains a major hurdle.
Only
a change of heart and mind can eradicate this
fundamental defect.
(14) India being interested in
developments in Sri Lanka
is unavoidable. But, India should not get directly
involved in the
internal affairs of Sri Lanka except when Sri Lankan
developments
pose a direct and immediate threat to the security and
territorial
integrity of India. The Indian involvement in Sri Lanka
between 1983 and 1987 was perhaps precipitated, now that we have the benefit of
hindsight.
Having said all this, it is to be emphasized that the
motivations of Indian involvement in Sri Lanka between 1983 and 1990 was
based on concrete apprehensions about India's national security and
India's sincere desire to safeguard the unity and territorial integrity of
Sri Lanka.
The more important lesson which Sri Lanka should take note of is
that if she has to survive as a unified country, the Sinhalese
majority will have to make genuine efforts to respect the multi
ethnic, multi religious and multi linguistic plurality of the
Sri Lankan polity. This acknowledgement
can be achieved only through political processes and not
by military means.
