By IANS
Colombo : A radical Sri Lankan nationalist party leader has accused India of trying to stop the Sri Lankan Army from defeating the Tamil Tiger rebels militarily.
India was forcing Sri Lanka to accept a political power-sharing arrangement with the minority Tamils now only to thwart the Sri Lankan Army’s successful campaign to crush the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), charged K.D. Lalkantha, member of the Sri Lankan parliament representing the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP).
“India is once again trying to stop the victories of the Sri Lankan armed forces as it did when president J.R. Jayawardene was in power in 1987. At that time, it made him sign the India-Sri Lanka Accord and accept the provincial councils system,” Lalkantha told a public meeting here Wednesday.
India was also “envious” of the Sri Lankan Army’s achievements, the media here quoted him as saying.
“India cannot get over the fact that our army is defeating the Tiger organization, which India, with the world’s sixth largest army, could not defeat (when it was fighting the rebels in 1988-90),” he said.
“India does not want to see the Sri Lankan Army getting credit for defeating the terrorists,” he charged.
Lalkantha claimed that India had acted “illegally” when it forced Jayawardene to accept the accord and the provincial councils.
However, despite stiff opposition from allies like the JVP and the Patriotic National Movement (PNM), a conglomeration of Sinhalese nationalist organizations, President Mahinda Rajapaksa seems keen on “fully implementing” the power-sharing arrangement which the India-Sri Lanka Accord had stipulated, and which became law through the enactment of the 13th amendment and the Provincial Councils Act in 1987.
On Thursday, Rajapaksa formed a cabinet sub-committee to go into the nitty-gritty of the implementation of the amendment and the working of the Provincial Councils Act.