India must play larger role in Sri Lanka, check LTTE arms: Rajapakse

COLOMBO: President Mahinda Rajapakse wants India to play 'much bigger role' to end Sri Lanka's ethnic conflict and also to check arms smuggling by the Tamil Tigers by sea.

At the same time, he is urging Indian Tamil leaders to guide 'misguided' Tamils in his country to unite 'behind a peaceful solution' to a conflict that has claimed thousands of lives and shows no signs of ending.

Speaking at his residence, Rajapakse also said that while Colombo might keep buying weapons from Pakistan and China, "I will never allow Sri Lanka to be used as a base for operations by any power that may threaten India's security".

Asked why he looked for help from 'outside powers' including India against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) while advocating a Sri Lankan solution, he said his country was getting international help 'to an extent as never before'.

"But our most special relationship is with India," he said. "I understand India perhaps more than any other political leader in our country today."

Asserting that the stability and prosperity of Sri Lanka and India cannot be de-linked, Rajapakse said: "That is why I have been repeatedly requesting the Indian government to play a much bigger role in helping Sri Lanka solve our crisis.
"It is not only I who look to India for this. In fact the whole world is looking to India to provide the initiative that would move the peace process forward... We too look to India to help us protect our democracy from the threat of terrorism...

"We need India's help in the seas around Jaffna and Trincomalee to prevent terrorist arms being smuggled into our country.

"We make a special appeal to India's Tamil leaders to take the initiative in helping even the misguided though small section of our Tamil population unite behind a peaceful solution to their problems."

The president, who took power in November 2005, said Sri Lanka's arms purchases from Pakistan and China - something that has troubled Indian policymakers - were nothing new. They constitute the continuance of a long practice. They are among the countries from which we have been traditionally purchasing arms for a long time.

"In my first meeting with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, I assured him that so long as I am at the helm of my country's affairs, I will never allow Sri Lanka to be used as a base for operations by any power that may threaten India's security."

He added that his personal emissaries had been visiting India "and keeping your people informed, fully informed, of every development.

"India is fully aware of our deals with China's Poly Technologies for supplies of ammunition and ordnance for our army and navy in addition to varied small arms. We have also informed the Indian government of our plans to acquire MiG 29 fighters to boost our air power."

Pointing out that India was the first country to ban the LTTE, he said, "Given her own domestic compulsions, which we fully appreciate, India has been a bulwark of emotional, economic and moral support. They have given us training, radars and defensive equipment."

While keeping a close watch on Sri Lanka, India is not a member of the international 'co-chairs' group that oversees the country's limping peace process. It deployed troops in Sri Lanka's northeast in 1987 to end Tamil separatism. The troops returned home in 1990 after suffering nearly 1,200 dead.

Rajapakse said that in 1999, years before the US recognised India as a nuclear power, he had "expressed a similar sentiment ... and received more brickbats than bouquets from the media at that time.

"When I was asked what I thought of India's nuclear underground test, I said it was something all Asians should be proud about because India had emerged as South Asia's first superpower, and show that we Asians will not succumb to big power pressures any more.

"I also said that a strong India can play a much larger role in ensuring peace in our region in the long run. People now tell me that I was then 'ahead of my times'."