The Indian Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon, has said in Washington that “civilians caught in the war should be safely moved to government-controlled areas”, PTI reported Thursday. Wrapping up his four days US visit and briefing that both India and the US have similar approaches to address the issue in Sri Lanka, he envisaged rehabilitation, reconstruction and building up normal economic life of people “once these areas are cleared or under the government control.” He also said on the need “to bring in the kind of the political steps including devolution”, according to the PTI report. Whatever Menon said in Washington doesn’t significantly differ from the verbal stance adopted by Mahinda Rajapaksa government, aiming for victory and subjugation of Tamils, said political observers in Colombo.
Already around 36,000 Tamil civilians are languishing in Vavuniyaa under subhuman conditions in the internment camps of the government.
India, which showed no concern of it, or took no attempt to redress their plight, advocating the handing over of the remaining civilians to Colombo government, and entering into the venture of a medical establishment in a remote and far away place at Pulmoaddai, is a matter for perusal, the observers said.
Menon’s casual reference to ‘political steps’ after the Tamil areas are ‘cleared or under government control’, use of the shallow and blanket term ‘devolution’ and that too not in an obligatory way, are revelations of the spiteful attitude of the Indian Establishment towards Tamil aspirations, according to the observers.
"Even though Menon claims India and US share a common line of thinking, to what extent the US would align or engage in partnership on this issue, with an outgoing Establishment that has thoroughly discredited itself and antagonized Tamils all over the world, is anybody’s guess."
"High profile discussions and decisions coming from India, centering personalities like Shiv Shankar Menon and M.K. Narayanan, orchestrated from behind, and the line of thinking going in the opposite direction to the overwhelming demands of the people of Tamil Nadu, have already undermined the credibility of the greatest democracy in the world, reducing the status of the present government of India into an ‘Establishment’ run by extra parliamentary elements," remarked an academic in Colombo.
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