India walks diplomatic tightrope over Sri Lanka

Few diplomatic events would have had India donning different caps simultaneously in different venues as the voting on a United States-sponsored resolution against Sri Lanka at the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in Geneva today. The resolution was finally carried with 25 votes for, 13 against and eight abstentions. India hunted with the hound and ran with the hare. India was the destroyer; India was also the protector. The Indian elephant exhibited two separate sets of teeth – one for eating the other only for showing. This, in a nutshell, is the crux of the cloak-and-dagger kind of operation that India has been conducting vis a vis Sri Lanka at different venues – in India inside and outside Parliament as well as Chennai; in Colombo; in Geneva where the UNHRC is headquartered; apart from working the phones to reach out to politicians and diplomats in important countries, including the US. India’s task was at once complicated, gargantuan and a diplomatic tightrope walk both domestically as well as in the immediate neighbourhood. New Delhi has tried its best to take care of the interests of all parties to the extent possible. It would be naive to believe that India has not scored any self goals in this exercise. It has; both domestically and in its bilateral ties with an important neighbour like Sri Lanka. But it is not possible to please everybody all the time. India attempted to do this knowing full well that there was no way it could please all. So India vigorously pursued Plan B, Plan C and so on simultaneously with Plan A to make sure that it makes a reasonable success of its Mission Geneva. [caption id=“attachment_670785” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Protests in Tamil Nadu against Sri Lanka. Reuters[/caption] Consider the pitfalls and challenges that India was up against in this mission. It could not ignore the sentiments of Tamil Nadu political parties which yelled for a much stronger resolution against Sri Lanka. Doing Tamil Nadu political parties’ bidding was a recipe for strategic and foreign policy disaster as it would catalyze India’s alienation from Lanka at a time when Pakistan and China are desperate to fill in the Sri Lankan diplomatic and strategic space after India vacates it. At the same time, India could not send a wrong signal by going against the world’s sole superpower and that too when the issues at hand were not just war crimes or crimes against humanity but allegations of genocide of Tamils against the Sri Lankan government. Thus India was left with no choice but to play out a multi-layered diplomacy, each layer virtually contradictory to another one. India placated the sentiments of the Tamil Nadu political parties by voting for the US resolution which meant voting against Sri Lanka. Simultaneously, India worked behind the scenes on the diplomatic stage in Geneva, in Colombo, in Washington and in other important countries to ensure that the resolution is toned down. Sri Lanka should be grateful to India for this, though the UPA government has forcefully denied that it had anything to do with diluting the resolution. Obviously, this was a diplomatic success that India could not take credit for. The resolution that was eventually passed today at Geneva speaks for itself. Sri Lanka has not been accused of Tamil genocide. In fact, the word “genocide” does not figure even once in the 1020-word resolution. This is victory for Sri Lanka and a defeat for Indian Tamil parties like the DMK and the AIADMK which wanted the Mahinda Rajapakse government of Sri Lanka to be hauled over the coals. The second big relief for Sri Lanka is that the eventually passed resolution lets Colombo off the hook by NOT mandating an international probe into the genocide of Sri Lankan Tamils in April-May 2009 that coincided with the general elections in India. Instead of asking for an international inquiry into human rights abuse in Sri Lanka the UNHRC resolution meekly and vaguely “calls upon the (Sri Lankan) government to conduct an independent and credible investigation into allegations of violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law.” Actually, this is a cushion provided by India to Sri Lanka with a solemn assurance to the US that if the Rajapaksa government does not reverse its past track record of unjust policies towards the Sri Lankan Tamils, India would support a resolution recommending an international probe, not just a “credible” probe. In this context, some points raised by Dilip Sinha, India’s Permanent Representative to the UN in Geneva are important as these make clear the road map India wants Sri Lanka to follow in the near future. In his intervention in UNHRC during voting today, this is what Sinha flagged: “India believes that the report of the LLRC (Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission) and its findings and recommendation provides a window of opportunity to forge a consensual way forward towards a lasting political settlement through genuine national reconciliation and the full enjoyment of human rights by all its citizens. We note with concern the inadequate progress by Sri Lanka in fulfilling its commitment to this Council in 2009. Further, we call on Sri Lanka to move forward on its public commitments, including on the devolution of political authority through full implementation of the 13th Amendment and building upon it. “India has always been of the view that the end of the conflict in Sri Lanka provided a unique opportunity to pursue a lasting political settlement, acceptable to all communities in Sri Lanka, including the Tamils. We call for effective and timely implementation of all the constructive recommendations contained in the LLRC report, including those pertaining to missing persons, detainees, disappearances and abductions, reduction of ‘high security zones’, return of private lands by the military and withdrawal of the security forces from the civilian domain in the Northern Province. We reiterate our call for an independent and credible investigation into allegations of human rights violations and loss of civilian lives. We urge Sri Lanka to take forward measures to ensure accountability. We expect these measures to be to the satisfaction of the international community.” The UPA government has survived the immediate political scare as the Tamil parties’ vociferous demand for a parliamentary resolution castigating Sri Lanka has been thrown out of the window at the all-party meeting. The non-Tamil parties have shown political and diplomatic sagacity of not condemning a friendly neighbour in Indian parliament and exposing itself to criticism that India does not practice what it preaches. After all, just recently Indian parliament had adopted a unanimous resolution castigating Pakistan for meddling in India’s internal affairs. The political heat and dust may settle soon. It is the strategic picture that is worrisome. China and Pakistan have made significant forays into the Sri Lankan diplomatic space in past several years. Both voted against the resolution and supported Sri Lanka. Pakistan even had the gall to give India a taste of its own medicine and strongly advocated the need for supporting rather than chastising Sri Lanka which has been a victim of “externally sponsored terror”. The pot has started calling the kettle black! The single biggest diplomatic challenge for the Indians in Sri Lanka is to ensure that the island nation does not fall to Sino-Pak designs and at the same time President Rajapakse is made to address Tamil concerns in a time-bound manner. This will save India the embarrassment of going through a similar exercise as the next UNHRC resolution on Sri Lanka, whenever it is taken up, will be hard-hitting. The writer is a Firstpost columnist who can be reached at bhootnath004@yahoo.com. Full text of the UNHRC resolution: