India is responsible for 30 years war: Gotabaya Rajapaksa

If India had acted responsibly, Sri Lanka would not have survived a 30-year war, Defense Minister Gotabaya Rajapaksa has said.

According to the local Daily News, Mr. Rajapaksa, who is the brother of President Mahinda Rajapaksa, said India could never absolve itself of responsibility for creating terrorism here, although some of those directly involved in subversion in Sri Lanka blamed the Rajapaksa administration for the plight of the local Tamil-speaking population.

These remarks came in response to a recent article, “Why India is Right on Sri Lanka,” by Hardeep S. Puri, former Permanent Representative of India to the United Nations in New York, published in The Hindu.

The news report quoted him as saying: “People of all communities would still be suffering the horrors of war if not for the eradication of terrorism in May 2009 after a three-year unified campaign by security forces.”

The Defense Minister said that Mr. Puri participated in the Indian operation against the Jayewardene government on the eve of the signing of the India-Sri Lanka agreement in July 1987.

“He was one of those who knew about Indian operations here,” he said, adding that both Mr Puri and his wife Lakshmi were attached to the Indian mission here during JN Dikshit’s tenure as High Commissioner.

Responding to Mr Puri’s call for an investigation into “specific allegations of war crimes during the last 100 days of military operations”, Mr Rajapaksa said: “Those who hold Sri Lanka accountable for alleged atrocities committed during the last 100 days of conflict say nothing about the origins of terrorism here.” Indian intervention led to a major regional crisis when Indian-trained Sri Lankan terrorists raided the Maldives in early November 1988. “The international community should consider a comprehensive investigation into this issue, starting with the Indian intervention,” he said.

Mr Puri could help the investigation by telling what happened at the time. Mr. Dixit said in his memoirs that arming Sri Lanka’s Tamil youth was one of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s two major policy mistakes, Mr. Rajapaksa said.

Meanwhile, the Sinhala nationalist party Jathika Khela Urumaya (JHU) said that before New Delhi points fingers at Sri Lanka, it should address human rights violations in India, especially in Kashmir.

Expressing skepticism about the visit of the Indian parliamentary delegation, JHU General Secretary and Science and Technology Minister Patali Champika Ranawaka said that if the delegation had come with noble intentions, its visit would have been welcome, but it was clear that India’s visit was part of a protest campaign aimed at further distorting the country’s image, according to a report in Daily mirror Here.