Editor's note-- Fear and exile in Sri Lanka

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EDITOR'S NOTE

April 8, 2013

From the Editor-in-chief

India Today editor-in-chief Aroon Purie on DMK pull-out from UPA

Aroon Purie  March 29, 2013 | UPDATED 19:27 IST

The UPA Government has been left hanging by a thread after its largest ally, DMK, withdrew support on March 19. The provocation was an impending US-sponsored resolution at the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva which was set to condemn Sri Lanka's human rights record in the last stages of the war against the LTTE in 2009. India had voted in favour of such a resolution earlier, and it was expected to vote in favour again. But this time, the DMK wanted the Government to move an amendment to make the resolution stronger by including the term genocide and by demanding an independent international enquiry. The Congress turned down those demands, prompting DMK to withdraw from the coalition. For the Government, there was a real risk that taking a harder diplomatic line would only push an embittered Sri Lanka further into China's expanding sphere of influence.

Sandeep Unnithan (left) and Reuben Singh in Mullaitivu, North-East Sri Lanka.

For the two Tamil Nadu parties AIADMK and DMK, the emotive issue of the welfare of Sri Lankan Tamils in the face of Sinhala discrimination has always made for easy populist pickings. But it is important not to forget that the LTTE was not synonymous with the genuine grievances of Sri Lankan Tamils. It was a monstrous terrorist organisation responsible not just for the assassination of former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi but also several prominent Sri Lankan leaders. As a movement for freedom, it was a disgrace, not hesitating to recruit children to fight dirty wars and young women to become suicide bombers. Its final defeat by the Sri Lankan army in 2009, after 26 years of bloody civil war, is good for Sri Lanka, India and the world.

Since the war ended, there have been a series of exposes, several of which showed atrocities carried out by the Sri Lankan army as it made its final push to defeat the LTTE. The army, in its defence, has claimed that it was LTTE which used innocent civilians as shields. But what turned the argument decisively against the army and the Mahinda Rajapaksa government was an exposé in February 2013 in which a set of photographs showed quite explicitly how the army had killed LTTE chief Velupillai Prabhakaran's 12-year-old son in cold blood.

There is also a story beyond the atrocities. After the end of the war, President Rajapaksa had promised to devolve more power to Tamils in the North and East of the island country and to end explicit and implicit discrimination in favour of the majority Sinhalas. Those promises remain unfulfilled almost four years on.

For our cover story, Deputy Editor Sandeep Unnithan and Deputy Photo Editor Reuben Singh travelled to the erstwhile LTTE strongholds of Jaffna, Kilinochchi and Mullaitivu to report the ground reality. They found that while the government's claim of rebuilding infrastructure is not untrue, there is still much to be done to reassure Tamils of their safety and of equal rights in the country. The Tamil-dominated areas are highly militarised. Says Unnithan, "The Tamils are very wary of speaking to journalists. All of them expressed fear of reprisals."

That is a damning indictment of the Rajapaksa government's attitude after the defeat of the LTTE. It is for the Sri Lankan government to persuade the global community, with ample evidence, that it is serious about reconciliation and inclusion of Tamils in the mainstream. It is in Sri Lanka's self-interest. A community under siege is the perfect breeding ground for another militant movement. Bizarrely, the issue has got intertwined with the survival of the UPA Government.

Read more at: http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/india-today-editor-in-chief-aroon-purie-on-dmk-pull-out-from-upa-sri-lankan-tamils/1/259866.html