NEW DELHI, Nov. 19 (UPI) -- Sri Lankan President Chandrika Kumaratunga's apparently "sudden" decision to use her wide-ranging constitutional powers to suspend Parliament earlier this month was the perhaps inevitable result of her fear that Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, who belongs to a rival party, was mistaking appeasement for the peace process.
Kumaratunga suspended parliament for two weeks and it reconvened Wednesday, issuing a declaration claiming her action in suspending it was "undemocratic." The president's dramatic action also led Norway to suspend its mediation in the long ethnic war with the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.
Kumaratunga's action has been criticized as a tactical ploy that shook the foundations of the nation's political system. But she had good reasons for making it. And some of them were given in an important Oct. 8 speech in the Sri Lankan Parliament by her foreign affairs adviser, Lakshman Kadirgamar.
In his address, Kadirgamar warned against any complacency on the security front merely to keep the peace negotiations with the LTTE going. He said the LTTE had taken full advantage of the cease-fire agreement to consolidate itself militarily, therefore it was essential the Sri Lankan Government "be equally diligent in seeing to it that the security of a sovereign state is maintained while these negotiations are going on."
Quoting from a 2002 U.S. Pacific Command assessment, Kadirgamar noted the vulnerability to LTTE artillery bombardment of the southern rim of Trincomalee harbor. He said the LTTE had brought into the area 81 mm mortars that could hit the harbor from nearby Sampur, which remains under its control. The LTTE had also deployed 105 mm multi-barrel rocket mortars, he said.
Trincomalee harbor could therefore be "leveled" by LTTE artillery bombardment, Kadirgamar said. Then the three divisions of the Sri Lankan army holding the Jaffna peninsula would be left without any source of resupply. For the Sri Lankan Navy "does not have the lift resources to complete (the) resupply effort" nor "sufficient control of the sea space to ensure military lift" nor "contract resupply ships (which) would safely reach the peninsula", the USPAC report said.
Also, the Sri Lankan Navy is virtually impotent in the shipping lanes northeast of Sri Lanka, which is through where the LTTE brings in its supplies.
Kadirgamar warned that by failing to respond to the security threat over the year since the government had received the USPAC assessment, it had displayed dangerous complacency, reflecting its mindset that nothing should be done to upset the LTTE in case this upsets the apple cart of the "peace process."
Kumaratunga did not link her dramatic Nov. 4 declaration of emergency to Kadirgamar's speech, but the connection between them is obvious.
Only three days before the president's action, the LTTE on Nov. 1 made new diplomatic proposals to the government that urged the establishment of a self-governing interim authority under its own control, which could secede from Sri Lanka at any time.
Kumaratunga's emergency therefore was a warning to her prime minister against playing Neville Chamberlain to the LTTE. She wants a continuation of the peace process she initiated in 1995 as prime minister but believes accepting the LTTE terms would be a dangerous sellout.
Also, it was no accident that Kumaratunga declared the state of emergency while Wickremesinghe was in Washington.
U.S. spokesmen have expressed dismay at her action, but it was in accord with her long-standing suspicion of U.S. motives in the region. Kadirgamar in his Oct. 8 speech cited a 1987 letter from then Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi to then Sri Lankan President J. Jayawardene, pledging "the work of restoring and operating the Trincomalee Oil Tank Farm will be undertaken as a joint venture between India and Sri Lanka."
And when a member of the Tamil United Liberation Front remarked in the parliamentary debate that his party wished to "keep the Americans out," Kadirgamar responded, "Excellent!"
The Sri Lankan president's emergency declaration can therefore be seen also as a bid to get India involved again in Sri Lanka as a counterweight to the feared growing influence of the United States.
Mani Shankar Aiyar is a member of the Indian parliament representing the Congress Party. His column is published weekly.
