Not just the LTTE but the whole Tamil insurgency was the brain child of Indira Gandhi, She was the PM of India and the RAW was the state intelligence apparatus of India that armed and trained the LTTE, EPRLF, PLOTE and other terror groups to destabilize Sri Lanka.. WTF are you on about it was India that sponsored terrorism when the world have not even heard of the term that later came in to lime light.. Those training camps were not just in Tamil Nadu but across India from Punjab to Himachal Pradesh.. So yeah Sri Lankans pretty much knows A to Z of the conflict that wrecked their land and who was responsible to it
Oh please.. The Lankan govt had thier hands tied behind thier backs with repeated interference from India to save the skin of Prabhakaran when the SL forces were near to end the LTTE, Including the infamous operation Poomalai.. It's outsiders like you who really need to get more informed of India's role in terrorism.. The 13th amendment was basically forced in to the Sri Lankan constitution, With disastrous affects to this date.. India did'nt send the IPKF for the love of Lankans and when it back fired they went AWOL.. Premadasa regime fighting another Marxist insurgency in the south saw an opportunity and took it, Indians were loathed both by the Sinhalese and Tamils by then
Again if India did'nt create terrorists in the first place no one would have died including the IPKF, So thats your bloody burden, And Rajiv Gandhi was blown to pieces by the same snakes his mother breast fed.. Talk about karma
Second the LTTE was cornered not just once but three times during the 80's with Prabakharan just meters away from being killed just for the Indian agents to save his skin and give him refuge in India to rearm and restart his killings.. So pls enough of this holier than thou attitude.. If not for Indian interference LTTE would have long been gone and thousands of lives would have been saved on both sides
You need two hands to clap.. Do you think the Tamils were poor angels, While i dont condone violence from either side.. Separatism was espoused long before even independence by the Tamil polity in the island, It was just an extension of the grander scene of Dravida Nadu in Tamil Nadu India.. You need to learn your own history before casting comments on others, People like G G Ponnambalam were the first to encourage violence against the majority communities living in the north and east.. And pls dont drag in the discrimination record cos i myself is from a minority community may be even more affected than Tamils were by some of the majoritarian policies 50 years ago.. It wont stick on me
Yeah this is a international forum, Not your corner chai shop, Post in English
You're right you cant, And you forgot the 1983 July riots.. And it's a shame that outside forces took advantage of those wrong policies to wreck havoc that in the end the worse affected where the Tamils themselves.. But it was not that simple, Cold war and Tamil supremacist politics emanating from Tamil Nadu added fuel to the fire, Almost all post colonial nations had to go through growing pains, Infact some Countries still do, Just look at India, How many groups are looking for separation there still but does it warrant terrorism ? I think not, Nobody should condone it.. What ever may be the grievances
My point of contention here is some Indians trying to be too smart arsed over certain things they know little about.. Saying that Lankans need to learn about it's own conflict, height of delusion, Lets teach them about the Kashmir issue shall we or the Maoists, or the Naxals or the Khalistanis or about the half a dozen separatist movements in the North East even the fringe Tamil separatism that still lingers in corners of Madras ?
Indo Lanka relations have changed for the better since those dark days of the cold war and it's welcomed.. India was instrumental in the destruction of the LTTE in the end, Maybe as a sign of repent.. Who knows but geo politically things are very different now, As someone else mentioned time to look forward not back
I really have to applaud you for your revisionism. However it won't cut no ice.
1. Blame everything on RAW - Right! Discrimination and massacres of Tamils started from 50s but yeah why not. Training camps for LTTE in Himachal, Punjab? Any source?
2. An army is sent to help you fight the LTTE but then give your enemies weapons to kill the supporting army. Justify it randomly because who cares for facts. The havoc wreaked on SL post IPKF is the best lesson but then some never learn.
3. You where so close to finishing off LTTE and killing Prabhakaran but but who else but RAW saved him. Is this the plot of your new movie? Prabhakaran himself must have told you personally about the angels from RAW saved him but then if the stories you are telling is true then it should be clear even to dumbest person on earth that RAW is an enemy agency so who leaked the ops plan of taking out Prabhakaran to RAW?
4. Poomalai Operation - What was it? Air dropping supplies like food and medicine to starving civilian population. Is a humanitarian mission by India in support of civilians of Jafna really such a crime?
There are so many holes in the narrative you are trying to build that an elephant can pass through.
This is what actually happened -
By 1948, when Sri Lanka got its independence, 60% of all government jobs were held by the Lankan Tamils who constituted less than 15% of the population. This brought plenty of resentment among the Sinhalese who felt disenfranchised and in that year two controversial acts were passed:
- Ceylon Citizenship Act - Stripped the Tamils of Indian origin (who were there for generations) of their citizenship rights.
- Policy of standardization - Instituted policy minimums that significantly reduced the Tamil involvement in education and civil service.
Since 1950s, Sri Lankan government pushed an active form of ethnic cleansing through the
Sri Lankan state sponsored colonisation schemes which effectively meant Sinhalese have to distributed in those areas that were Tamil strongholds.
India had been aware that there was a problem between the Sinhalese & Tamils in Sri Lanka. We knew that the Sri Lankan Tamils had less rights & autonomy than the Indian Tamils had in India and thought that it would be a good idea if the SL. All of a sudden, it seemed that the papers were full of reports of slaughter of Tamils by the SL armed forces. The Indian Government petitioned Junius Jayewardene (President of Sri Lanka) to no avail.
The main Sri Lankan leader at that time was not Prabhakaran but a moderate named Amirthalingam. Supporting people like him to get their basic rights in a democratic Sri Lanka seemed like a Good Thing. The intent of Indian diplomacy was to
(i) Retain the unity of Sri Lanka. A separate Tamil country didn’t seem like a sensible proposition.
(ii) Help the Tamils hold off the Sri Lankan army so as to not get slaughtered.
(iii) Pressurise Jayewardene to concede the basic rights to the Tamils and stop the slaughter
It was sort of assumed that once (iii) happened, the Tamil organisations would lay down their arms and settle down to a normal life in a democratic setup. This didn’t take into account the megalomania of Prabhakaran.
Anyway, the diplomats did a reasonably good job with the right combination of persuasion and coercion. The dropping of food packets in the Tamil areas was a master-stroke – the message was “You couldn’t stop this just as you won’t be able to stop us from dropping bombs on Sinhala areas”. Jayewardene asked around and found that no other country was willing to actively help Sri Lanka defend itself against India, so he came to the negotiation table and was quite reasonable.
India did not have any big plan to counter the Sinhala extremists like the Janata Vimukti Perumana (JVP) and depended on Jayewardene to keep them under control. He seemed quite sincere in doing this – the Sri Lankan army later killed a fair number of Sinhala extremists and ensured that they didn't gain control.
The negotiations were conducted with all the Tamil parties and the Sri Lankan government. The toughest challenge at that time seemed to be to convince Jayewardene to concede the demands of the Tamils and to withdraw the SL army.
The arrival of the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) to take over control of most areas in the North of the country enabled the Sri Lanka government to shift its forces to the south
(in Indian aircraft) to quell the protests. This led to an uprising by the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna in the south, which was put down bloodily over the next two years.
Sri Lankan nationalist sentiment led many Sinhalese to oppose the continued Indian presence in Sri Lanka. These led to the Sri Lankan government's call for India to quit the island, and they allegedly entered into a secret deal with the LTTE that culminated in a ceasefire. The LTTE and IPKF continued to have frequent hostilities, and according to some reports, the Sri Lankan government even armed the rebels in order to see the back of the Indian forces. This led to casualties among the IPKF.
Ultimately Rajiv lost the elections and VP singh called back the IPKF because Sri Lanka themselves didn't want them there.
