Sri Lankan President Mahinda RajapaksaThe Gandhi-Jayewardene accord is the best solution
It’s 20 years since the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) carried out its operation against the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka. At a time of renewed fighting between the Sri Lankan army and the rebels, Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa spoke to The
Indian Express Editor-in-Chief Shekhar Gupta on NDTV 24x7’s Walk the Talk. In the first part of the interview, he says sending back the IPKF was a wrong political decision taken by the then President, Premadasa. He also says that the then Indian Prime Minister, Rajiv Gandhi, had a clear vision of what was best for Sri Lanka in the long run.
My guest this week, in Colombo’s presidential palace, is one of the most unassuming men to become a head of state. President Mahinda Rajapakse, welcome to Walk the Talk. A wonderful setting, in the shade of a banyan tree that’s nearly 200 years old.
More than 200 years old. I think one of the governors in the British period planted it. It has become a beautiful tree now.
Q: It has become a whole neighbourhood by itself. And this is your home, and I know you also work from here a lot.
A: I work from here and from my office.
Q: You seem to have a partiality for this place. It’s a wonderful building with beautiful old ceilings.
A: Yes, it was all redone by former presidents.
Q: People tell me you are the one of the most informal presidents, and I know Sri Lankan culture.
A: That is the culture I have been practicing in Sri Lanka for a long time. I’m not from the city. I’m from a village.
Q: Even your name is informal. Nobody remembers your full name. In fact nobody calls you Mahindra.
A: Yes, because from childhood everybody calls me Mahinda. It was easy to pronounce (for people) in my village, so they called me Mahinda Matya. Even today people from my electorate call me Mahinda Matya. Even when I was a minister they used to call me Mahinda Matya. It’s in their minds.
Q: I believe you even sign your name as Mahinda now. It’s your nickname.
A: Yes. It’s popular and easy to remember.
Q: What surprises me is how relaxed you sound with so much fighting going on.
A: Yes, you have to be relaxed. You can’t take all these things into your head. Then you won’t be able to think. Now we have faced this situation (fighting with the Tamil Tigers) for long. You can think and take a decision if you are relaxed. When you are excited, the decisions go wrong.
Q: Give us a sense of what’s going on in the north.
A: If you speak about the north, you have to speak about the east also. When I came to power in November 18, 2005, (that was my birthday), I invited the LTTE for talks. Even before the elections, I was the only politician who said I’m ready to talk to them, talk to their leader. But within two weeks they started killing people, civilians, and unarmed soldiers. I pleaded to them for six-seven months . . . and till they attacked the army commander in Colombo, I was silent and was trying to get them to talk, and we managed to get them to Geneva, but they backed out. Then again in Oslo, they didn’t even meet my people. When they stopped the anicut that goes to the canal, I had to call in the army to open it. We tried to discuss and negotiate with them for one week. But it all failed. Then I ordered the army and we started clearing the area because they were attacking us.
Q: And it became a backward slide in terms of peacemaking.
A: Still, I’ve appealed to them that I’m ready to talk.
Q: But do you put conditions for talking?
A: No, I said without conditions. Let them fight. I’m ready to talk to them. I said they can keep their weapons, keep the fight going, but we will talk.
Q: Now what are you saying?
A: Now, we can’t allow that to happen. Either we continue like this . . .
Q: Fighting?
A: Fighting, and we can start the talks. Let them do whatever they want.
Q: You mean without a ceasefire.
A: Yes. I’m ready to talk to them.
Q. You are not offering a ceasefire.
A: There is a ceasefire on at the moment. It is being implemented. They have violated it.
Q: Let me get this clear. You are now saying you don’t need a ceasefire, you can talk on the sides.
A: I’m ready to do that because I want peace in the country. I don’t want a ceasefire.
Q: So you are not insisting that they first drop their arms before negotiations.
A: No, if he is ready to fight with me and if he thinks this is the best way of negotiating, let him continue with the violence. We are ready to talk to them, but we have to attack them if they attack us. Otherwise I will not.
Q: How do you react to your description as a hawk?
A: This is what some western media and some allied groups . . .
Q: India is to the west, too.
A: Exactly, even India. They misunderstood me and sometimes some of our politicians, who are close to India, I think they are the people who spread it. Even from my own side.
Q: Such as? Give me some names.
A: I don’t want to.
Q: Mahinda Rajapakse, shy of naming names!
A: No, I can name them. They are from the opposition and some are from my party but are still working against me. But most of them are with me at the moment.
Q: You can describe yourself as a hawk or a dove, but the fact is that this kind of a sustained military campaign has not been seen in the past. In fact it’s also a success because now LTTE has isolated itself to a corner.
A: I have learnt from history, experience, because whenever I say there is a ceasefire, whenever they have had some breathing period, they have increased their fire power, trained their people, and started fighting after that. They were not genuine.
Q: So they have exploited the period of ceasefire.
A: Yes.
Q: And you are not going to let it happen now.
A: I won’t. I don’t think I will, because knowing what happened earlier, why should I do the same thing? If they hand over their arms to an independent party . . .
Q: Or a mediator. Like the Norwegians?
A: Why not India?
Q: Are you serious?
A: Yes.
Q: Would you rather that India mediate, or a really neutral country like Norway?
A: I trust neighbours. Let them handle it if they want, if they are ready. But I don’t mind if there is a group of SAARC countries. I’ll prefer (that).
Q: Why are you shy of the Scandinavians? They are everybody’s neutral these days.
A: This is what everybody is talking about. This is the picture you see. I don’t mind whether it is Norwegians, Japanese, or some other Scandinavian country. It’s whether the people of our country will believe them or trust them.
Q: You think a bigger power will command a greater assurance?
A: I think so, because sometimes the pressure that India can put on the LTTE . . . I think they know their mentality. They’ve been working with them for a long time.
Q: One way and the other. But can India do all this despite the Tamil politics?
A: This is my problem, about which I’m always thinking. I don’t want to pressurise India or make any demands on it, because I know the difficulty, especially in a coalition government.
Q: Have you made progress
in your talks with the Indian side?
A: I think we have a very good relationship. They understand me and I think now they understand me better than earlier.
Q: Earlier, even they saw you as a hawk.
A: I don’t know. I won’t say anything about it. But I think now they know who Mahinda Rajapakse is and what I think.
Q: Did you see initially that there were areas where the Indian side needed to understand you better?
A: I think some of our leaders who were close to India and who went there must have given a wrong picture about me. But when they understood me, it was very easy to negotiate and talk to them and they were very sympathetic.
Q: Have you asked (India) that whenever you are ready, I would like you to mediate?
A: They never asked me.
Q: Have you asked them?
A: We will prefer them.
Q: You will prefer India to mediate?
A: This I said before I became a MP.
Q: But politicians say one thing when they are out of power and another when they are in power.
A: When I was a minister and when I went to Dehradun, somebody asked me this question, and I said, ‘Yes, why not!’ But western countries, and even India, prefer (that) a country like Norway (negotiate).
Q: It’s interesting that you say so. But tell me one thing: would the public opinion in Sri Lanka accept an Indian role?
A: I think so.
Q: After the IPKF experience? Is there no gratitude for what the IPKF did here?
A: That’s past. We have to build a new relationship. There is a new trend in Sri Lanka. Most businessmen are investing in Sri Lanka. In the past, I will admit, we have not shown gratitude. But as soon as I came I ordered a monument to be built for them (IPKF) and I will see the work is completed before our Independence Day, February 4. It’s under construction.
Q: Where is it being built?
A: Near Parliament.
Q: You don’t think this is an unpopular decision? Will Sri Lanka appreciate that?
A: I don’t think this will be an unpopular move. But the LTTE may not like it.
Q: So you are saying that the people of Sri Lanka should have some gratitude for what the IPKF did here?
A: Certainly. They came here and sacrificed their lives.
Q: And many limbs. And what did they achieve for Sri Lanka that people at that point of time did not appreciate?
A: That was a political campaign by Premadasa. If Premadasa had allowed IPKF to continue for another few months, they would have done something substantial.
Q: Finish the LTTE? Do you think they were that close.
A: In a way, yes. They would have at least given the Sri Lankan army a better position.
Q: And Premadasa sabotaged it? He was a Sri Lankan patriot.
A: The problem was that he wanted to become the president of this country and wanted the support of some of the extremists, some of the Left parties.
Q: Like the JVP then. And just for the cynical pursuit of presidency he did this?
A: Yes.
Q: Because when I used to come here as a travelling reporter, people used to say that the Sri Lankan government used to supply weaponry to the LTTE and at the same time used to leak the movement of the Indian units to the LTTE.
A: I don’t want to comment on the (allegations of ) the Sri Lankan army supplying weapons or giving information about the (IPKF) troops. But that was an allegation by the opposition.
Q: No, not your opposition, but your own party people: Chandrika Kumaratunga once told me, he supplied weapons and later Lalith (Atulathmudali) went a step further and said these weapons were supplied to the LTTE by Premadasa in Tata trucks supplied (by India) to the Sri Lankan army.
A: Quite right. But I don’t want to comment on what he did because he’s dead and gone.
Q: It’s almost exactly 20 years since the IPKF came here or Pawan was launched. I was also here in Jaffna in exactly the same week, covering the tail-end of Pawan and also reconstructing what went wrong in the first five days of military operations. If you were to sum up the Indian military campaign at that time, how close did they come to breaking the back of the LTTE?
A: First, I think, they miscalculated the power of LTTE.
Q: And the intention.
A: Yes. But then they were catching on. They were studying the ground situation and trying to consolidate themselves. And that was the time they were sent out.
Q: Premadasa got them out.
A: Yes. Only for a political issue.
Q: Has the political class in Colombo done some introspection about it? That they lost a chance, lost a good friend in India?
A: Quite. We lost a friend by doing that.
Q: What’s your view on the Rajiv Gandhi-Jayewardene accord?
A: In some aspects, I don’t agree with that accord. But in some aspects, we were ready to accept it.
Q: Was it a good deal?
A: I won’t say it’s a good deal or a bad deal. That has become a law now. We have accepted it.
Q: But not fully implemented it.
A: Yes. Now I feel it’s the best solution for devolution of power.
Q: Rajiv Gandhi, in 1987, 20 years back, had the wisdom to figure out what would be best for Sri Lanka in the long run.
A: In the future.
Q: So he had that vision.
A: I think so.
Q: You didn’t know him.
A: No, I have not met him.
Q: Sad that we have lost him, too.
A: Yes. Certainly he was a great leader. He knew what was going on. The villagers in our area, deep south, felt that India came in by force. That was the mistake.
Q. I remember posters saying: IPKF — Innocent People Killing Force.
A: That is because of the way they carried out things, air-dropping food. That was not a good gesture.
Q: You think management of the operation was poor.
A: It could have been done much more sophisticatedly.
editor@expressindia.com
My guest this week, in Colombo’s presidential palace, is one of the most unassuming men to become a head of state. President Mahinda Rajapakse, welcome to Walk the Talk. A wonderful setting, in the shade of a banyan tree that’s nearly 200 years old.
More than 200 years old. I think one of the governors in the British period planted it. It has become a beautiful tree now.
Q: It has become a whole neighbourhood by itself. And this is your home, and I know you also work from here a lot.
A: I work from here and from my office.
Q: You seem to have a partiality for this place. It’s a wonderful building with beautiful old ceilings.
A: Yes, it was all redone by former presidents.
Q: People tell me you are the one of the most informal presidents, and I know Sri Lankan culture.
A: That is the culture I have been practicing in Sri Lanka for a long time. I’m not from the city. I’m from a village.
Q: Even your name is informal. Nobody remembers your full name. In fact nobody calls you Mahindra.
A: Yes, because from childhood everybody calls me Mahinda. It was easy to pronounce (for people) in my village, so they called me Mahinda Matya. Even today people from my electorate call me Mahinda Matya. Even when I was a minister they used to call me Mahinda Matya. It’s in their minds.
Q: I believe you even sign your name as Mahinda now. It’s your nickname.
A: Yes. It’s popular and easy to remember.
Q: What surprises me is how relaxed you sound with so much fighting going on.
A: Yes, you have to be relaxed. You can’t take all these things into your head. Then you won’t be able to think. Now we have faced this situation (fighting with the Tamil Tigers) for long. You can think and take a decision if you are relaxed. When you are excited, the decisions go wrong.
Q: Give us a sense of what’s going on in the north.
A: If you speak about the north, you have to speak about the east also. When I came to power in November 18, 2005, (that was my birthday), I invited the LTTE for talks. Even before the elections, I was the only politician who said I’m ready to talk to them, talk to their leader. But within two weeks they started killing people, civilians, and unarmed soldiers. I pleaded to them for six-seven months . . . and till they attacked the army commander in Colombo, I was silent and was trying to get them to talk, and we managed to get them to Geneva, but they backed out. Then again in Oslo, they didn’t even meet my people. When they stopped the anicut that goes to the canal, I had to call in the army to open it. We tried to discuss and negotiate with them for one week. But it all failed. Then I ordered the army and we started clearing the area because they were attacking us.
Q: And it became a backward slide in terms of peacemaking.
A: Still, I’ve appealed to them that I’m ready to talk.
Q: But do you put conditions for talking?
A: No, I said without conditions. Let them fight. I’m ready to talk to them. I said they can keep their weapons, keep the fight going, but we will talk.
Q: Now what are you saying?
A: Now, we can’t allow that to happen. Either we continue like this . . .
Q: Fighting?
A: Fighting, and we can start the talks. Let them do whatever they want.
Q: You mean without a ceasefire.
A: Yes. I’m ready to talk to them.
Q. You are not offering a ceasefire.
A: There is a ceasefire on at the moment. It is being implemented. They have violated it.
Q: Let me get this clear. You are now saying you don’t need a ceasefire, you can talk on the sides.
A: I’m ready to do that because I want peace in the country. I don’t want a ceasefire.
Q: So you are not insisting that they first drop their arms before negotiations.
A: No, if he is ready to fight with me and if he thinks this is the best way of negotiating, let him continue with the violence. We are ready to talk to them, but we have to attack them if they attack us. Otherwise I will not.
Q: How do you react to your description as a hawk?
A: This is what some western media and some allied groups . . .
Q: India is to the west, too.
A: Exactly, even India. They misunderstood me and sometimes some of our politicians, who are close to India, I think they are the people who spread it. Even from my own side.
Q: Such as? Give me some names.
A: I don’t want to.
Q: Mahinda Rajapakse, shy of naming names!
A: No, I can name them. They are from the opposition and some are from my party but are still working against me. But most of them are with me at the moment.
Q: You can describe yourself as a hawk or a dove, but the fact is that this kind of a sustained military campaign has not been seen in the past. In fact it’s also a success because now LTTE has isolated itself to a corner.
A: I have learnt from history, experience, because whenever I say there is a ceasefire, whenever they have had some breathing period, they have increased their fire power, trained their people, and started fighting after that. They were not genuine.
Q: So they have exploited the period of ceasefire.
A: Yes.
Q: And you are not going to let it happen now.
A: I won’t. I don’t think I will, because knowing what happened earlier, why should I do the same thing? If they hand over their arms to an independent party . . .
Q: Or a mediator. Like the Norwegians?
A: Why not India?
Q: Are you serious?
A: Yes.
Q: Would you rather that India mediate, or a really neutral country like Norway?
A: I trust neighbours. Let them handle it if they want, if they are ready. But I don’t mind if there is a group of SAARC countries. I’ll prefer (that).
Q: Why are you shy of the Scandinavians? They are everybody’s neutral these days.
A: This is what everybody is talking about. This is the picture you see. I don’t mind whether it is Norwegians, Japanese, or some other Scandinavian country. It’s whether the people of our country will believe them or trust them.
Q: You think a bigger power will command a greater assurance?
A: I think so, because sometimes the pressure that India can put on the LTTE . . . I think they know their mentality. They’ve been working with them for a long time.
Q: One way and the other. But can India do all this despite the Tamil politics?
A: This is my problem, about which I’m always thinking. I don’t want to pressurise India or make any demands on it, because I know the difficulty, especially in a coalition government.
Q: Have you made progress
in your talks with the Indian side?
A: I think we have a very good relationship. They understand me and I think now they understand me better than earlier.
Q: Earlier, even they saw you as a hawk.
A: I don’t know. I won’t say anything about it. But I think now they know who Mahinda Rajapakse is and what I think.
Q: Did you see initially that there were areas where the Indian side needed to understand you better?
A: I think some of our leaders who were close to India and who went there must have given a wrong picture about me. But when they understood me, it was very easy to negotiate and talk to them and they were very sympathetic.
Q: Have you asked (India) that whenever you are ready, I would like you to mediate?
A: They never asked me.
Q: Have you asked them?
A: We will prefer them.
Q: You will prefer India to mediate?
A: This I said before I became a MP.
Q: But politicians say one thing when they are out of power and another when they are in power.
A: When I was a minister and when I went to Dehradun, somebody asked me this question, and I said, ‘Yes, why not!’ But western countries, and even India, prefer (that) a country like Norway (negotiate).
Q: It’s interesting that you say so. But tell me one thing: would the public opinion in Sri Lanka accept an Indian role?
A: I think so.
Q: After the IPKF experience? Is there no gratitude for what the IPKF did here?
A: That’s past. We have to build a new relationship. There is a new trend in Sri Lanka. Most businessmen are investing in Sri Lanka. In the past, I will admit, we have not shown gratitude. But as soon as I came I ordered a monument to be built for them (IPKF) and I will see the work is completed before our Independence Day, February 4. It’s under construction.
Q: Where is it being built?
A: Near Parliament.
Q: You don’t think this is an unpopular decision? Will Sri Lanka appreciate that?
A: I don’t think this will be an unpopular move. But the LTTE may not like it.
Q: So you are saying that the people of Sri Lanka should have some gratitude for what the IPKF did here?
A: Certainly. They came here and sacrificed their lives.
Q: And many limbs. And what did they achieve for Sri Lanka that people at that point of time did not appreciate?
A: That was a political campaign by Premadasa. If Premadasa had allowed IPKF to continue for another few months, they would have done something substantial.
Q: Finish the LTTE? Do you think they were that close.
A: In a way, yes. They would have at least given the Sri Lankan army a better position.
Q: And Premadasa sabotaged it? He was a Sri Lankan patriot.
A: The problem was that he wanted to become the president of this country and wanted the support of some of the extremists, some of the Left parties.
Q: Like the JVP then. And just for the cynical pursuit of presidency he did this?
A: Yes.
Q: Because when I used to come here as a travelling reporter, people used to say that the Sri Lankan government used to supply weaponry to the LTTE and at the same time used to leak the movement of the Indian units to the LTTE.
A: I don’t want to comment on the (allegations of ) the Sri Lankan army supplying weapons or giving information about the (IPKF) troops. But that was an allegation by the opposition.
Q: No, not your opposition, but your own party people: Chandrika Kumaratunga once told me, he supplied weapons and later Lalith (Atulathmudali) went a step further and said these weapons were supplied to the LTTE by Premadasa in Tata trucks supplied (by India) to the Sri Lankan army.
A: Quite right. But I don’t want to comment on what he did because he’s dead and gone.
Q: It’s almost exactly 20 years since the IPKF came here or Pawan was launched. I was also here in Jaffna in exactly the same week, covering the tail-end of Pawan and also reconstructing what went wrong in the first five days of military operations. If you were to sum up the Indian military campaign at that time, how close did they come to breaking the back of the LTTE?
A: First, I think, they miscalculated the power of LTTE.
Q: And the intention.
A: Yes. But then they were catching on. They were studying the ground situation and trying to consolidate themselves. And that was the time they were sent out.
Q: Premadasa got them out.
A: Yes. Only for a political issue.
Q: Has the political class in Colombo done some introspection about it? That they lost a chance, lost a good friend in India?
A: Quite. We lost a friend by doing that.
Q: What’s your view on the Rajiv Gandhi-Jayewardene accord?
A: In some aspects, I don’t agree with that accord. But in some aspects, we were ready to accept it.
Q: Was it a good deal?
A: I won’t say it’s a good deal or a bad deal. That has become a law now. We have accepted it.
Q: But not fully implemented it.
A: Yes. Now I feel it’s the best solution for devolution of power.
Q: Rajiv Gandhi, in 1987, 20 years back, had the wisdom to figure out what would be best for Sri Lanka in the long run.
A: In the future.
Q: So he had that vision.
A: I think so.
Q: You didn’t know him.
A: No, I have not met him.
Q: Sad that we have lost him, too.
A: Yes. Certainly he was a great leader. He knew what was going on. The villagers in our area, deep south, felt that India came in by force. That was the mistake.
Q. I remember posters saying: IPKF — Innocent People Killing Force.
A: That is because of the way they carried out things, air-dropping food. That was not a good gesture.
Q: You think management of the operation was poor.
A: It could have been done much more sophisticatedly.
editor@expressindia.com
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