Tamilnadu politics and the LTTE defeat - they are dud as a damp squib!

October 27, 2008 by janamejayan ( http://janamejayan.wordpress.com/ )
Mutual survival resolves the conflict!
NEW DELHI/CHENNAI: For the first time since the conflict in Sri Lanka besieged New Delhi, there were signs on Sunday that the crisis had blownover for the UPA. Pranab Mukherjee’s unscheduled meeting with Tamil Nadu chief minister M Karunanidhi in Chennai in the evening seemed to have ended on a positive note, with the external affairs minister stating that the DMK chief had assured him that he would not precipitate a crisis for the UPA.

Mukherjee was rushed to Chennai hours after Sri Lanka’s special envoy, Basil Rajapaksa, assured him in Delhi that the authorities were going out of their way to ensure the safety of Tamil civilians in the war-torn island nation. Basil Rajapaksa, who is advisor to Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa, was sent to New Delhi on Sunday to apprise the Indian government about the situation in the country.

The Mukherjee-Rajapaksa meeting on Sunday may have provided the safe exit passage for Karunanidhi as he was feeling increasingly alienated over the issue in the past few days.
With AIADMK general secretary Jayalalithaa slamming the DMK for its alleged support to LTTE and Congress keeping away from the human chain organized by the party, Karunanidhi clearly had been cornered.

After his meeting with Mukherjee, Karunanidhi indicated that his party ministers would not resign from the Congress-led UPA government. “The chief minister has assured that he will not precipitate any crisis in the UPA,” Mukherjee said at Karunanidhi’s residence after the hour-long meeting.

Asked about the resignation threat, Karunanidhi said Mukherjee had requested him to postpone any decision in this regard as it would lead to a lot of complications. “I will certainly not create problems for the Centre,” the chief minister said. Specifically asked if he was sending the resignation letters of his party MPs to the Speaker, he said cryptically, “You can infer from Mukherjee’s statement.”

However, the key DMK demand — that India ensure a ceasefire — remains unfulfilled. Mukherjee said: “As we are not a party to the ceasefire, we can’t ask them to (call a ceasefire).” All that he said was there could be no military solution. “During our interaction, both the Prime Minister and I have said there can’t be a military solution. We are asking them to find a political solution,” Mukherjee said.

Karunanidhi said, ” The question as to who will bring about a truce is yet to be answered. Will India lead the talks, or some other countries or some organizations will take the lead has to be decided,” he said, emphasizing that a climate conducive for negotiations would have to be created first. When told that reviving Norway’s facilitation might take time, he said: “It should not take much time.”

Both leaders agreed that the decades-old ethnic conflict could not be solved in a fortnight or five weeks. “We wanted a ceasefire to give effective relief to public,” the DMK chief said, expressing satisfaction at the pace and tone at which the Centre had got Sri Lanka to make a promise that the Tamil civilians would not be hurt anymore in the war against the LTTE.

In New Delhi, Rajapaksa also met NSA M K Narayanan and foreign secretary Shivshankar Menon. As a gesture of goodwill, India has decided to send around 800 tonnes of relief material to Sri Lanka for the affected civilians in the North. Rajapaksa said that the Sri Lankan government would facilitate the delivery.

” Both sides discussed the need to move towards a peacefully negotiated political settlement in the island including in the North. Both sides agreed that terrorism should be countered with resolve. The Indian side called for implementation of the 13th Amendment and greater devolution of powers to the provinces,” the foreign ministry said in an official statement in New Delhi.

Rajapaksa emphasized that the Sri Lankan president and his government were firmly committed to a political process that would lead to a sustainable solution. The two sides also agreed to further nurture the democratic process in the Eastern Province.

During the talks with Rajapaksa, the two sides agreed to put in place practical arrangements to deal with bonafide Indian and Sri Lankan fishermen crossing the International Maritime Boundary Line. As part of these practical arrangements, Indian fishing vessels will not venture into sensitive areas designated by the Lankan government. Further, there will be no firing on Indian fishing vessels.

“It was agreed that Indian fishing vessels would carry valid registration/permit and the fishermen would have on person valid identity cards issued by the Tamil Nadu government,” said the foreign ministry.

India and Sri Lanka also agreed to continue with their discussions, initiated in 2005, on the proposed Memorandum of Understanding on development and cooperation in the field of fisheries.

The following was posted by Dravidadwija in Kanchiforum:

Rajapaksa’s assurance on displaced in Wanni COLOMBO: Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa has said his government has made arrangements for the safety of the displaced civilians in Wanni once they enter the “cleared areas” from the LTTE controlled territory amid reports of heavy fighting on Sunday. Mr. Rajapaksa gave the assurance when Tamil United Liberation Front (TULF) leader V. Anandasangaree called on him at the Presidential Palace on Friday and discussed the situation in Wanni and the political developments in South India. Mr. Rajapaksa briefed the TULF chief in detail the measures to ensure the safety of the civilians displaced in Killinochchi and Mullathivu. He told him the LTTE had blocked those innocent civilians from entering the cleared areas but is creating a wrong picture that the government was to blame. The TULF leader told the President that he had written a letter to Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu M. Karunanidhi on the Wanni situation and urged him to prevail upon the LTTE to let people trapped in the war zone go wherever they wished. In his letter titled “What should be done”, released here on Sunday, the TULF said the Tamil People of Sri Lanka were glad that Tamil Nadu had started showing interest in the Sri Lankan ethnic problem but were disappointed that the concerns of the trapped Tamil people had been ignored. “LTTE is using them as human shield to protect them. The people are also upset and worried that the enthusiasm displayed in Tamil Nadu is showing tendencies of confrontation with the majority community the Sinhalese, with whom the Tamils had been living from time immemorial and will have to live in the future as well. Early solution : “Long before his assassination, Mahatma Gandhi had warned that India and Ceylon can’t afford to quarrel [with] each other, but more than that being immediate neighbours and having several things in common, Tamil Nadu and Sri Lanka should maintain cordial relationship between the two.” Mr. Anandasangaree said the decision of the All Party Conference to seek the help of the central government to find an early solution was perfectly alright but it was not the immediate need of our people trapped and kept under compulsion in Killinochchi by the LTTE. The TULF said in the interests of the Tamils, the leaders of Tamil Nadu should forget their political differences and find a solution to the ethnic problem.

Now let’s see what has happened so far.

1. We all know that Pirabakaran has been cornered and has nowhere to go. His ‘fort’ being overrun is only a matter of time.

2. Pirabhakaran’s friends such as MuKa and the sundry Dravidian outfilts have tried their best to pressurize the Govt.of India into relieving Pirabakaran from his check-mate position. They employed such threats as their MPs quitting the parliament and some lower rung vishamis even threatening secession. Poor Vaiko did a oneupmanship on that and landed in jail.

3. The Congress thought it could get away with some initial moral support for it had reconed that the DMK is doing some ‘udaance’ to sooth its ‘Tamil chauvinists’ but did a big ‘jahaa’ when it realized that MuKa might be taking it for a ride.

4. The bravado talks of the DMK and its ilks to carry arms into Srilanka or its talk of pulling the plug on the UPA govt were big but stupid bluffs that were easily called.

5. The talk of secession of Tamils have found no takers.

6. DMK again got isolated with Congress and AIADMK arrayed against it. It still held the trump card of pulling the plug on the UPA which would also be committing harakiri for the Congress in turn would pull out and kill the DMK govt.

7. So Pranab Mukharjee jumps in to cojole Karunanidhi not to be stupid. So this straw of ‘truce’ and ‘negotiated settlement’ are being flown as their new kites. That was enought for MuKa to retreat!

But then what is this ‘truce’ and ‘negotiated settlement’ that is fancied about?

The grapewine talk is that the king of Tigers wants to escape to a safe haven (he seems to have stashed away huge wealth all over the world) and MuKa is prodding GOI to facilitate it!!
So either the ‘fort’ is run over or that the ‘brave’ beast escapes unhurt!! In the meantime his only choice is to hold those very people he swears to represent as hostage. But then we also see that the hostages are making noise in Jaffna. It is only going to get louder!

It is getting curiouser and curiouser isn’t it!

Yes of course, we are curoius too to see how this is resolved.