The Ministry of External Affairs on Nov 6 has come out with a strange explanation for facilitating Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s visit to Colombo for the Commonwealth summit with indications of Jaffna being a major destination, as a cushion for the visit to balance India’s “high strategic stakes” in Sri Lanka. Sources have said if the PM’s visit is announced, Singh’s itinerary will include a significant Jaffna component in a bid to signal India’s ‘strong commitment to the rehabilitation and safety of Tamils’ in northern Sri Lanka.
The inclusion of a Jaffna leg in the PM’s visit for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) is said to be aimed at softening all-around opposition in Tamil Nadu to Singh going to Sri Lanka. All major parties, including Congress in Tamil Nadu, have asked Singh not to visit Colombo to register India’s disapproval of human rights violations committed by Sri Lankan armed forces against minority Tamils.
Taking note of strong sentiments in Tamil Nadu and a perceived reluctance of the Mahinda Rajapaksa government to resolve Tamil political demands, India is said to be hoping to prod the Sri Lankan government into quicker action.
With senior Congress Ministers from Tamil Nadu opposing the visit, an invitation to visit Jaffna by Northern Provinces Chief Minister C.V. Wigneswaran can offer a way out for the PM and facilitate his attending the CHOGM. MEA spokesperson Syed Akbaruddin has said the decision-making process relating to the PM’s visit to Colombo was in a fairly advanced stage. “All issues relating to that are available for decision-making. We hope to have an early outcome,” Akbaruddin said while there were reports that a decision might be announced on the next day.
The government risks angering all major Tamil Nadu parties — and rendering Congress without a significant ally ahead of the 2014 Lok Sabha election — but also needs to balance India’s ‘high strategic stakes’ in Sri Lanka. The government could hope to resolve the tough dilemma it faces by incorporating a strong Jaffna and Tamil component in the PM’s visit that will allow the government to claim that it has not been insensitive to the minorities’ issue
While Canada is not attending the meet, British Prime Minister David Cameron has indicated he will take up the Tamil issue with Rajapaksa. India is likely to do the same as Singh walks a tightrope to make sure his domestic political imperatives are fully protected if he does undertake a politically risky — but necessary — journey across the Palk Strait.This is the crucial issue that always reared its head while dealing with the neighbouring nation in critical situations: the issue of priority for political stand or the perceived strategic interests. Whenever the political leadership at the Centre faced dilemma over taking a decision between these two conflicting points, the strongly entrenched bureaucracy in New Delhi seemed to prevail over the leadership to take a stand without harming the latter- I.e., strategic interests of India vis-à-vis Sri Lanka. So far, it had been the security of the nation as against the pulls and pressures on Sri Lanka purportedly from Pakistan and China. Now an additional dimension of ‘dealing with Tamils’ issue’ is being advanced for maintaining soft stand as if this had always been the preponderant issue all along.
To what extent the Government of India is being led by the bureaucracy to take stands without causing any embarrassment to the Lankan regime was seen recently in the affair of visa for Callum Macrae, while even Sri Lanka, the ‘aggrieved’ nation granted visa to him India refused it, akin to “more loyal than the king”.
Sri Lanka has approved on arrival visa to Callum Macrae, the committed Director of Channel 4 documentaries on Sri Lanka’s war to attend the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM). Minister of Mass Media Keheliya Rambukwella has confirmed to ‘Ceylon Today’ that Macrae has been granted on arrival visa to enter the country to cover the mega event despite being denied a visa to enter India by Indian authorities.
Macrae, who is in the cross hairs of Sri Lankan authorities for his series of documentaries on Sri Lanka’s war, has applied for the visa with a group of 30 UK based media personnel who will arrive in Sri Lanka on November 14 with the UK delegation led by Prime Minister David Cameron. However, Macrae, who has applied for a visa to India to screen his No Fire Zone: The Killing Fields of Sri Lanka documentary in New Delhi on November 7 has been denied a visa by the Indian authorities.
Minsiter Rambukwella has explained that the film director was to arrive in Sri Lanka with the UK PM’s media group which will visit India prior to coming to Sri Lanka and since India has denied visa to Macrae he will have to apply for Sri Lankan visa separately. “Macrae will have to apply again for the visa to come to Sri Lanka to be present for CHOGM, in case he is unable to make it to India with Cameron’s 30-member media group. If he fails to make it to India, he will have to apply separately and we would await his visa application,” Rambukwella has said. Macrae meanwhile, has told ‘Ceylon Today’ that he received official confirmation from Sri Lanka that he will be granted a visa on arrival.
India has denied a visa to Callum Macrae, the director of a documentary that exposed war crimes in Sri Lanka. Macrae, whose team was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize last year, made news again last Thursday when UK’s Channel 4 telecast footage acquired from him showing TV anchor-actor Isaipriya’s capture during the last phase of the Lankan war. Priya was found dead on May 18, 2009, with visible marks of torture. The video was telecast worldwide and caused an uproar that cast a shadow on the Colombo Commonwealth summit mid-November.
“I am due to fly out on November 6 for a screening of my documentary in Delhi the next day. I find it extraordinary that I still do not have my visa, despite the fact that I first applied more than eight months ago,” Macrae told Times of India over the phone from London. “I know that the war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in the last few months of the civil war in Sri Lanka are a matter of considerable concern to the government in India. And I am at a loss to understand why they are giving the impression they want to prevent me coming over to talk about my film and the evidence that we have been gathering for more than three years.”
Minister of state for external affairs E Ahamed told Times of India he didn’t interfere in granting visas. “There are set protocols, and the visa officer has to take a call,” he said. Macrae said he applied for the visa in February to attend a pre-launch press conference on the documentary, around the same time he had released photographs of slain LTTE leader V Prabhakaran’s son Balachandran apparently in the custody of Sri Lankan forces, shortly before the 12-year-old was allegedly shot dead towards the end of the Lankan war.
“My passport was then returned with the remark ‘visa applied for.’” he said. “I approached the Indian high commission in London many times, the latest on Nov 4, but there has been no response from the officers. I sincerely hope this has been caused by a bureaucratic mix-up and is nothing that could be perceived as some kind of attempt to prevent discussion of this issue,” said Macrae, who had had an exchange of mails with the Indian high commission in London, and had sent two letters to the Union home ministry.
Macrae said Sri Lanka has been trying to systematically prevent screening of his documentary, ‘No Fire Zone: The Killing Fields of Sri Lanka’. “They protested over screenings in the UN and the European Union. In Malaysia, they are accused of putting pressure on the government to stop a screening organised by the Human Rights NGO Pusat Komas in Kuala Lumpur. Indeed when the screening went ahead it was raided by between 30 and 40 members of the Censorship Board and the police. They did not manage to stop the screening, but they arrested the organizers and one of them, a brave young woman called Lena Hendry, is now awaiting trial and could face a maximum of three years in jail,” the film-maker said.
“I sincerely hope that this pattern of pressure from the Sri Lankan government does not have anything to do with India’s decision not to give me a visa. If so it would be doubly ironic given that Sri Lanka itself - under pressure from the Commonwealth - has publicly agreed to give me a visa for CHOGM,” Macrae added.
India has done itself no favours by denying Callum Macrae a visa to visit this country. It only makes India look like it is willing to bend over backwards to please even a small country like Sri Lanka, hardly the kind of image a nation wanting to project itself as a “superpower” in the making would want to acquire.
Earlier, even as pressure mounted from within the Union Council of Ministers seeking that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh skip the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Colombo later this month, the External Affairs Ministry recommended that he should go. In view of India’s “paramount security and strategic interests” in and around Sri Lanka, a senior MEA official has told The Hindu , India’s national interests dictate that the Prime Minister should represent the country at CHOGM, a view that seconds the Prime Minister’s Office.
The Prime Minister is understood to have dwelt on the issue during his inaugural address to the country’s top diplomats at the Heads of Mission (HoM) conference in New Delhi on Nov 4. “The MEA recommendation is there. It was made at the ministerial level and now it is up to the powers-that-be to take a decision,” confirmed another MEA official.
For the government, the issue has become tricky with MoS in the PMO V. Narayanasamy and MoS (with independent charge) for Environment Jayanthi Natarajan joining Union Shipping Minister G.K. Vasan, who had already made known his opposition to the Prime Minister travelling to Colombo. Interestingly, the Congress Core Group — the party’s highest, if informal, decision-making body — is also divided on the issue.
However, the Prime Minister can draw solace from the fact that the Bharatiya Janata Party has adopted a positive line on his travelling to Colombo even though, given the political sensitivities of its potential political allies in Tamil Nadu, the party remained shy of articulating its position in public at this juncture. “We have no issue with anyone, including the Prime Minister, representing India at the highest level,” a senior BJP leader told The Hindu , adding, “Our concern is solely about justice and equal political rights for Tamils.” He added that there was no case for India to either boycott the meeting or let the delegation not to be represented at the highest level, especially after the Tamils in the North-East province exercised their franchise recently and elected a Tamil Chief Minister. BJP leaders, including Subramanian Swamy and Venkaiah Naidu, were insisting on India’s participation because they wanted to put pressure on the Congress in the State.
“We understand the sentiments of the people in Tamil Nadu, but … Indian foreign policy has to be guided by larger interests of the country and our geo-political interests,” the leader said, stressing that it wasn’t in India’s interest to antagonise a neighbouring country — its objectives are better served by a policy of engagement and dialogue.”
Meanwhile, within the Congress Core Group, two Ministers have also expressed their reservations about the Prime Minister making the trip. They are Union Finance Minister P. Chidambaram and Defence Minister A.K. Antony, party sources say. Antony, it is understood, has said that even if a small section of Tamils is opposing the visit, it could create a security problem. He has also made the point that the delegation need not be headed by the Prime Minister. The last meeting of the Group on October 30 was attended by External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid and National Security Adviser Shiv Shankar Menon; Khurshid made a presentation on the issue at the meeting, favouring the PM’s participation.
Earlier, Narayanasamy told reporters, “I have conveyed my opinion to the Prime Minister that he should not visit Sri Lanka. Some [other] Ministers have [also] met the Prime Minister, insisting he should not attend the meeting… the majority opinion is he should not visit Sri Lanka.” Echoing the same sentiments, Jayanthi Natarajan said in Chennai that she would write a letter to the Prime Minister urging him not to attend CHOGM, keeping in mind the atrocities perpetrated against Tamils in Sri Lanka as well as the sentiments of people in Tamil Nadu. “I hope the Prime Minister,” she said, “will take a good decision.”
However, even within the Congress’ Tamil Nadu unit, there are differences; Tamil Nadu Congress Committee president B.S. Gnanadesikan and MoS for Commerce E.M. Sudarsana Natchiappan are backing the visit, with the latter saying India should be there at CHOGM to highlight the grievances of Tamils in Sri Lanka and to ensure their welfare. Gnanadesikan, for his part, pointed out that if the communication link between India and Sri Lanka was cut off, it might adversely affect the interests of Tamils in Sri Lanka and Indian fishermen. There was an elected government in Colombo, he added, saying, “If we don’t talk to the government in Sri Lanka, then with whom should we speak?”
For the Congress, another point of concern is the opposition of the DMK. DMK Parliamentary party leader T.R. Baalu has told The Hindu that India’s participation in the Colombo meeting would be “nothing but adding insult to injury.”
With both major national parties the Congress and the BJP, alternatively vying for power at the Centre, toeing the same line dictated by the bureaucracy and reluctant, rather afraid of, to take a bold political decision vis-à-vis Sri Lanka, there is increasing need for political parties and individuals who want to protect the lives and rights of Eelam Tamils to mount pressure with unanimous voice so as to make the powers-that-be in New Delhi realise that Sri Lanka needs India more than India needs Sri Lanka, and take a tough stand with the regime in that country, which has a proven history of reneging from all its commitments to India in the past. It is a folly to speak of strategic interests and stakes with such a recalcitrant nation.
The inclusion of a Jaffna leg in the PM’s visit for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) is said to be aimed at softening all-around opposition in Tamil Nadu to Singh going to Sri Lanka. All major parties, including Congress in Tamil Nadu, have asked Singh not to visit Colombo to register India’s disapproval of human rights violations committed by Sri Lankan armed forces against minority Tamils.
Taking note of strong sentiments in Tamil Nadu and a perceived reluctance of the Mahinda Rajapaksa government to resolve Tamil political demands, India is said to be hoping to prod the Sri Lankan government into quicker action.
With senior Congress Ministers from Tamil Nadu opposing the visit, an invitation to visit Jaffna by Northern Provinces Chief Minister C.V. Wigneswaran can offer a way out for the PM and facilitate his attending the CHOGM. MEA spokesperson Syed Akbaruddin has said the decision-making process relating to the PM’s visit to Colombo was in a fairly advanced stage. “All issues relating to that are available for decision-making. We hope to have an early outcome,” Akbaruddin said while there were reports that a decision might be announced on the next day.
The government risks angering all major Tamil Nadu parties — and rendering Congress without a significant ally ahead of the 2014 Lok Sabha election — but also needs to balance India’s ‘high strategic stakes’ in Sri Lanka. The government could hope to resolve the tough dilemma it faces by incorporating a strong Jaffna and Tamil component in the PM’s visit that will allow the government to claim that it has not been insensitive to the minorities’ issue
While Canada is not attending the meet, British Prime Minister David Cameron has indicated he will take up the Tamil issue with Rajapaksa. India is likely to do the same as Singh walks a tightrope to make sure his domestic political imperatives are fully protected if he does undertake a politically risky — but necessary — journey across the Palk Strait.This is the crucial issue that always reared its head while dealing with the neighbouring nation in critical situations: the issue of priority for political stand or the perceived strategic interests. Whenever the political leadership at the Centre faced dilemma over taking a decision between these two conflicting points, the strongly entrenched bureaucracy in New Delhi seemed to prevail over the leadership to take a stand without harming the latter- I.e., strategic interests of India vis-à-vis Sri Lanka. So far, it had been the security of the nation as against the pulls and pressures on Sri Lanka purportedly from Pakistan and China. Now an additional dimension of ‘dealing with Tamils’ issue’ is being advanced for maintaining soft stand as if this had always been the preponderant issue all along.
To what extent the Government of India is being led by the bureaucracy to take stands without causing any embarrassment to the Lankan regime was seen recently in the affair of visa for Callum Macrae, while even Sri Lanka, the ‘aggrieved’ nation granted visa to him India refused it, akin to “more loyal than the king”.
Sri Lanka has approved on arrival visa to Callum Macrae, the committed Director of Channel 4 documentaries on Sri Lanka’s war to attend the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM). Minister of Mass Media Keheliya Rambukwella has confirmed to ‘Ceylon Today’ that Macrae has been granted on arrival visa to enter the country to cover the mega event despite being denied a visa to enter India by Indian authorities.
Macrae, who is in the cross hairs of Sri Lankan authorities for his series of documentaries on Sri Lanka’s war, has applied for the visa with a group of 30 UK based media personnel who will arrive in Sri Lanka on November 14 with the UK delegation led by Prime Minister David Cameron. However, Macrae, who has applied for a visa to India to screen his No Fire Zone: The Killing Fields of Sri Lanka documentary in New Delhi on November 7 has been denied a visa by the Indian authorities.
Minsiter Rambukwella has explained that the film director was to arrive in Sri Lanka with the UK PM’s media group which will visit India prior to coming to Sri Lanka and since India has denied visa to Macrae he will have to apply for Sri Lankan visa separately. “Macrae will have to apply again for the visa to come to Sri Lanka to be present for CHOGM, in case he is unable to make it to India with Cameron’s 30-member media group. If he fails to make it to India, he will have to apply separately and we would await his visa application,” Rambukwella has said. Macrae meanwhile, has told ‘Ceylon Today’ that he received official confirmation from Sri Lanka that he will be granted a visa on arrival.
India has denied a visa to Callum Macrae, the director of a documentary that exposed war crimes in Sri Lanka. Macrae, whose team was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize last year, made news again last Thursday when UK’s Channel 4 telecast footage acquired from him showing TV anchor-actor Isaipriya’s capture during the last phase of the Lankan war. Priya was found dead on May 18, 2009, with visible marks of torture. The video was telecast worldwide and caused an uproar that cast a shadow on the Colombo Commonwealth summit mid-November.
“I am due to fly out on November 6 for a screening of my documentary in Delhi the next day. I find it extraordinary that I still do not have my visa, despite the fact that I first applied more than eight months ago,” Macrae told Times of India over the phone from London. “I know that the war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in the last few months of the civil war in Sri Lanka are a matter of considerable concern to the government in India. And I am at a loss to understand why they are giving the impression they want to prevent me coming over to talk about my film and the evidence that we have been gathering for more than three years.”
Minister of state for external affairs E Ahamed told Times of India he didn’t interfere in granting visas. “There are set protocols, and the visa officer has to take a call,” he said. Macrae said he applied for the visa in February to attend a pre-launch press conference on the documentary, around the same time he had released photographs of slain LTTE leader V Prabhakaran’s son Balachandran apparently in the custody of Sri Lankan forces, shortly before the 12-year-old was allegedly shot dead towards the end of the Lankan war.
“My passport was then returned with the remark ‘visa applied for.’” he said. “I approached the Indian high commission in London many times, the latest on Nov 4, but there has been no response from the officers. I sincerely hope this has been caused by a bureaucratic mix-up and is nothing that could be perceived as some kind of attempt to prevent discussion of this issue,” said Macrae, who had had an exchange of mails with the Indian high commission in London, and had sent two letters to the Union home ministry.
Macrae said Sri Lanka has been trying to systematically prevent screening of his documentary, ‘No Fire Zone: The Killing Fields of Sri Lanka’. “They protested over screenings in the UN and the European Union. In Malaysia, they are accused of putting pressure on the government to stop a screening organised by the Human Rights NGO Pusat Komas in Kuala Lumpur. Indeed when the screening went ahead it was raided by between 30 and 40 members of the Censorship Board and the police. They did not manage to stop the screening, but they arrested the organizers and one of them, a brave young woman called Lena Hendry, is now awaiting trial and could face a maximum of three years in jail,” the film-maker said.
“I sincerely hope that this pattern of pressure from the Sri Lankan government does not have anything to do with India’s decision not to give me a visa. If so it would be doubly ironic given that Sri Lanka itself - under pressure from the Commonwealth - has publicly agreed to give me a visa for CHOGM,” Macrae added.
India has done itself no favours by denying Callum Macrae a visa to visit this country. It only makes India look like it is willing to bend over backwards to please even a small country like Sri Lanka, hardly the kind of image a nation wanting to project itself as a “superpower” in the making would want to acquire.
Earlier, even as pressure mounted from within the Union Council of Ministers seeking that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh skip the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Colombo later this month, the External Affairs Ministry recommended that he should go. In view of India’s “paramount security and strategic interests” in and around Sri Lanka, a senior MEA official has told The Hindu , India’s national interests dictate that the Prime Minister should represent the country at CHOGM, a view that seconds the Prime Minister’s Office.
The Prime Minister is understood to have dwelt on the issue during his inaugural address to the country’s top diplomats at the Heads of Mission (HoM) conference in New Delhi on Nov 4. “The MEA recommendation is there. It was made at the ministerial level and now it is up to the powers-that-be to take a decision,” confirmed another MEA official.
For the government, the issue has become tricky with MoS in the PMO V. Narayanasamy and MoS (with independent charge) for Environment Jayanthi Natarajan joining Union Shipping Minister G.K. Vasan, who had already made known his opposition to the Prime Minister travelling to Colombo. Interestingly, the Congress Core Group — the party’s highest, if informal, decision-making body — is also divided on the issue.
However, the Prime Minister can draw solace from the fact that the Bharatiya Janata Party has adopted a positive line on his travelling to Colombo even though, given the political sensitivities of its potential political allies in Tamil Nadu, the party remained shy of articulating its position in public at this juncture. “We have no issue with anyone, including the Prime Minister, representing India at the highest level,” a senior BJP leader told The Hindu , adding, “Our concern is solely about justice and equal political rights for Tamils.” He added that there was no case for India to either boycott the meeting or let the delegation not to be represented at the highest level, especially after the Tamils in the North-East province exercised their franchise recently and elected a Tamil Chief Minister. BJP leaders, including Subramanian Swamy and Venkaiah Naidu, were insisting on India’s participation because they wanted to put pressure on the Congress in the State.
“We understand the sentiments of the people in Tamil Nadu, but … Indian foreign policy has to be guided by larger interests of the country and our geo-political interests,” the leader said, stressing that it wasn’t in India’s interest to antagonise a neighbouring country — its objectives are better served by a policy of engagement and dialogue.”
Meanwhile, within the Congress Core Group, two Ministers have also expressed their reservations about the Prime Minister making the trip. They are Union Finance Minister P. Chidambaram and Defence Minister A.K. Antony, party sources say. Antony, it is understood, has said that even if a small section of Tamils is opposing the visit, it could create a security problem. He has also made the point that the delegation need not be headed by the Prime Minister. The last meeting of the Group on October 30 was attended by External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid and National Security Adviser Shiv Shankar Menon; Khurshid made a presentation on the issue at the meeting, favouring the PM’s participation.
Earlier, Narayanasamy told reporters, “I have conveyed my opinion to the Prime Minister that he should not visit Sri Lanka. Some [other] Ministers have [also] met the Prime Minister, insisting he should not attend the meeting… the majority opinion is he should not visit Sri Lanka.” Echoing the same sentiments, Jayanthi Natarajan said in Chennai that she would write a letter to the Prime Minister urging him not to attend CHOGM, keeping in mind the atrocities perpetrated against Tamils in Sri Lanka as well as the sentiments of people in Tamil Nadu. “I hope the Prime Minister,” she said, “will take a good decision.”
However, even within the Congress’ Tamil Nadu unit, there are differences; Tamil Nadu Congress Committee president B.S. Gnanadesikan and MoS for Commerce E.M. Sudarsana Natchiappan are backing the visit, with the latter saying India should be there at CHOGM to highlight the grievances of Tamils in Sri Lanka and to ensure their welfare. Gnanadesikan, for his part, pointed out that if the communication link between India and Sri Lanka was cut off, it might adversely affect the interests of Tamils in Sri Lanka and Indian fishermen. There was an elected government in Colombo, he added, saying, “If we don’t talk to the government in Sri Lanka, then with whom should we speak?”
For the Congress, another point of concern is the opposition of the DMK. DMK Parliamentary party leader T.R. Baalu has told The Hindu that India’s participation in the Colombo meeting would be “nothing but adding insult to injury.”
With both major national parties the Congress and the BJP, alternatively vying for power at the Centre, toeing the same line dictated by the bureaucracy and reluctant, rather afraid of, to take a bold political decision vis-à-vis Sri Lanka, there is increasing need for political parties and individuals who want to protect the lives and rights of Eelam Tamils to mount pressure with unanimous voice so as to make the powers-that-be in New Delhi realise that Sri Lanka needs India more than India needs Sri Lanka, and take a tough stand with the regime in that country, which has a proven history of reneging from all its commitments to India in the past. It is a folly to speak of strategic interests and stakes with such a recalcitrant nation.
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