Lankans out to dispel 'unsafe' tag

Top Sri Lankan officials arrived in New Delhi last week to rebut the impression that Colombo had become the 'most dangerous capital in the world'.

President Mahinda Rajapakse's Principal Secretary, Lalitha Weeratunga and the president's advisor, Sunimal Fernando were in Delhi on a quiet visit to argue their case before top policy makers in Delhi that India must intervene militarily and help Sri Lanka.

Earlier last week, former President Ranil Wickremesinghe who was passing through Chennai also made a public appeal for India's intervention in Sri Lanka

Following two strikes by the fledgling Tamileelam Air Force (TAF) last month, including one on a petrol storage facility owned by Indian Oil Corporation,and the Colombo airport, Katunayake now shuts down between 10 pm and 4 am. This is proving disastrous for the tiny island.

Apart from the damage to the trade and tourism-driven economy, travel advisories by most western nations have reduced tourist arrivals to a trickle. Last year, Sri Lanka got over 500,000 tourists. Earnings from tourism-related businesses added up to over $400 mn.

This year, by contrast ,not only are tourist arrivals down, but airlines like Cathay Pacific have withdrawn flights to the island. Development aid has been suspended by western nations beginning with the UK, in disapproval of the perceived militarism of the Rajapakse government.

Weeratunga met bureaucrats like his counterpart in the PMO, TKA Nair and several ministers, including tourism minister Ambika Soni. However, India once again drew the line at offering Sri Lanka any lethal equipment.

An India-Sri Lanka defence agreement is already on the back burner for the foreseeable future, where it was put by then Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee when the UPA government ""with its sizeable component of Dravidian parties""came to power.

The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) which is in power in Tamil Nadu and a constituent of the UPA, is facing competition from rival Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (MDMK) in whipping up nationalist sentiment in Tamil Nadu as the Sinhalese step up the gas on a military solution to the ethnic problem.

There is now a sizeable section in the DMK which is of the view that the assassination of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi by the LTTE was a tragic mistake and should now be put behind both India and Sri Lanka.

These sections are particularly enraged that the proposed merger of the Northern and Eastern province posited as part of the Sri Lanka Accord should have been undone by the Rajapakse government, a few months ago. They are disappointed that India did not react to this. There is some sympathy in the Indian establishment with this view.

But there is also some worry that however rudimentary, an air force in the hands of a guerilla group could change the terms on which the war in Sri Lanka is being fought and its spillover to India.