Delhi (South Block) uneasy over Fonseka’s disclosures
The candid comments in the Opinion page of the Daily Mirror of 16 December examines the risks involved in the South Block’s antics during the very final phases of the Eelam war. These have unpalatable Sri Lanka war crimes implications for India.
The authority that the Fonseka’s revelations lend to the war crimes allegations is sure to cause the South Block’s ‘unease’ that the Daily Mirror comments refer to. Two pieces in Sulekha.com titled ‘Sri Lanka war crimes – the West not Delhi will deliver justice to the genocide victims’ (9 October) and ‘Delhi’s patronage encourages Sri Lankan war crimes to go international’ (30 October) examines the South Block trio’s intimate involvement throughout that ugly phase of the war.
South Block Delhi’s backing for Colombo in the May meeting of the UNHRC meeting was driven by the war crimes implications for the South Block following fears flowing from the close collaboration between the South Block Delhi trio and the Colombo trio. The Colombo trio wasn’t that cohesive that Sarath Fonseka was kept out of critical orders that had serious war crimes implications. Gothabhaya’s order to kill the surrendering resistance leadership carrying white flags by passed Sarath fearing that Sarath as an upright military professional would refuse to obey that order.
Brigadier Shavender Silva, Commander of the Army’s 58 Division wasn’t of the military moral stature of Sarath that Silva carried out the Rajapakse order without any reservations (military ethics or any other). Sarath’s revelations though poorly timed so close to an election still elevates his military professionalism to the level of General Harikirat’s who refused Rajiv’s 1987 order to Harikirat to kill Prabhaharan an invitee to a meeting with IPKF. The bloodying of the South Block’s hand in this episode then was avoided purely by accident, by an honourable Harikirat.
The South Block seems to back the Rajapakse clan in the Presidential elections. Sadly this is a repeat of South Block engineering the vote to kill off the war crimes initiatives of the West at the UNHRC in May. Every new revelation point to the ugly hand of the South Block in engineering the Sarath fall from grace. Delhi’s political leadership needs to be circumspect and give due weightage to national interests over that of the narrow sectarian interests of the South Block that continues to plague policy making in Delhi despite numerous the South Block’s numerous strategic blunders.
vssubramaniam
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