Menon, NSA partial towards Lanka govt: Vaiko

NEW DELHI: Sri Lankan president Mahinda Rajapakse’s ongoing five-day visit to India seems to be generating some controversy. MDMK chief Vaiko, whose party is opposing Mr Rajapakse’s visit, has alleged that senior government functionaries such as foreign secretary Shiv Shankar Menon and national security advisor M K Narayanan are partial towards the Sri Lankan establishment and hence, in effect, opposed to the cause of the Tamils there.

Mr Vaiko has attacked Mr Menon for certain remarks attributed to him, reportedly made to Mr Rajapakse during the foreign secretary’s recent Sri Lankan visit. The Tamil leader was responding to newspaper reports that quoted Mr Rajapakse as saying that Mr Menon knew the situation in Sri Lanka very well, since he had been the high commissioner there in the 1990s.

Then came the objectionable part — according to Mr Vaiko — Mr Rajapakse continued: “All his Tamil friends there have been killed by the LTTE and he (Mr Menon) was telling me that only the widows of his friends are left.” Taking offense to that statement, Mr Vaiko described it as very unfortunate and painful. “How can the foreign secretary make such a comment?

How many children and women are getting killed in Sri Lanka. If the foreign secretary has made this comment, it is condemnable. If not, let the Indian foreign ministry clarify or refute these claims,” he said. He further went on to add: “I accuse the foreign secretary that when he was the high commissioner in Colombo, he never respected the sentiments of Tamils. He even refused to meet democratically-elected Tamil MPs.”

Mr Vaiko’s take on Mr Narayanan was slightly different and his accusations seemed to hinge on a misplaced handshake between prime minister Manmohan Singh and Sri Lankan minister Douglas Devananda. Mr Vaiko alleged that the Sri Lankan social services minister was accused of committing murder in Chennai in 1985, and yet, the NSA not only met him in India but also got the prime minister to shake hands with him at the NAM summit in Havana.

“It was the Mr Narayanan’s duty to be aware of this, since he knows Mr Devendran’s identity pretty well. Or he might have arranged it himself.” The Dravidian leader, who met foreign minister Pranab Mukherjee on Sunday, also alleged that the government of India had been misled about the facts of highway A-9 being opened. “The correct message and facts (about the opening of A-9) have not been conveyed by the responsible officials,” he said. The blocking of Highway A-9 — which connects the Jaffna peninsula to the rest of Sri Lanka — is seen as being responsible for a humanitarian crisis of major proportions in LTTE-controlled provinces of Sri Lanka.

Mr Vaiko also opposed the joint patrolling of the sea boundary between the two countries by the Indian and Sri Lankan forces. “The Sri Lankan president is cunningly trying to make a trap to get India’s naval assistance for their military offensive (against the LTTE). India should totally reject such a proposal if it is placed by Sri Lanka,” Mr Vaiko said. He reasoned that with a war looming large in Sri Lanka between the army and the LTTE, India would be used to crush the Sea Tigers, the naval wing of the LTTE.

Mr Vaiko, along with his party MPs and workers, will sit on a fast on Monday in the Capital to protest Mr Rajapakse’s visit.