Did Indian Government Order the Murder-Assassination of Prabhakaran during Peace Talks in 1987 (before the IPKF-LTTE War Started)?
Thanjai Nalankilli
[First Published: December 2017]
Important Note
No one shall be considered guilty until and unless they were found guilty by an impartial court of law. In this article we present information from respected news sources and ask certain questions that follow logically from that information. We are not in a position to answer all those questions. We request the Indian Government to conduct an open and impartial inquiry and seek answers to those questions. Until that time no one mentioned in this article shall be considered guilty of any crime.
OUTLINE
Abbreviations
Prologue
1. Background
2. LTTE Leader Prabhakaran in New Delhi
3. Alleged Order to Murder (Assassinate) Prabhakaran Came Before the IPKF-LTTE War
4. "Shoot Prabhakaran", Ordered the Indian High Commissioner
5. Two Unanswered Questions
Abbreviations
COAS Chief of Army Staff
EPRLF - Eelam People's Revolutionary Liberation Front
EROS - Eelam Revolutionary Organization of Students
GOC - General-Officer-Commanding
IPKF - Indian Peace Keeping Force
LTTE - Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam
OFC - Overall Force Commander
PLOT - People's Liberation Organization of Tamil Eelam
TELO - Tamil Eelam Liberation Organization
UN - United Nations
Prologue
We start with an except from Indian Major General (retired) Harkirat Singh's book [Reference 1], "Intervention in Sri Lanka: The I.P.K.F. Experience Retold", Manohar Publishers & Distributors (India), 2007 (188 pages) (available for purchase in hardcover and paperback on the Internet) Major General Harkirat Singh was the commander of the ndian Army in Sri Lanka (IPKF) in 1987: "On the night of 14/15 September 1987, I received a telephone call from Dixit, directing me to arrest or shoot Pirabakaran when he came for the meeting. Telling Dixit that I would get back to him I placed a call to the OFC. Lt. Gen. Depinder Singh directed me to tell Dixit that we, as an orthodox Army, did not shoot people in the back when they were coming for a meeting under the white flag. I then spoke to Dixit in Colombo and conveyed the message, emphasising that I would not obey his directive. I pointed out that the LTTE supremo had been invited by the IPKF in order to find a solution to the problems in the implementation of the Accord. Dixit replied, He [Rajiv Gandhi] has given those instructions to me and the Army should not drag its feet, and you as the GOC, IPKF will be responsible for it. The next morning I received a call from Lt. Gen. B.C. Joshi, the then Director General Military Operations, who supported my stand on Dixits directive. However, the COAS, Gen. Sundarji, expressed his annoyance. In fairness to Rajiv Gandhi, Dixits claim that he spoke on his behalf must be rejected. Dixit was prone to bragging and braggadocio."
1. Background
Those who are familiar with the history of the war in Sri Lanka between Sri Lankan Government and the minority Tamil fighters (up to and leading to the direct military involvement of India in 1987) may skip this section and go to Section 2.
India and its tiny southern neighbor Sri Lanka (formerly known as Ceylon) were part of the British Empire in South Asia. British rule ended in India on August 15, 1947 and in Sri Lanka on February 4, 1948. Sri Lankan parliament was (and is) dominated by the majority Sinhalese race. Sinhala politicians enacted constitutional provisions and laws that were discriminatory towards minorities. The largest minority, the Tamils, protested peacefully. Government put down the peaceful, nonviolent demonstrations most brutally. Sinhala mobs raped, murdered and pillage Tamil areas as government security forces looked on or joined in. (These are documented by impartial sources and even the recent Sri Lankan Governments do not dispute it.)
Since the nonviolent demonstrations did not yield any fruit but brought in violence against the Tamil minority, Tamil youths formed armed guerrilla groups in the 1970s in the predominantly Tamil areas in the north and east (Tamils call this Tamil region in the island as "Tamil Eelam"). Notable among these groups were Eelam Revolutionary Organization of Students (EROS), Eelam People's Revolutionary Liberation Front (EPRLF), Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), People's Liberation Organization of Tamil Eelam (PLOT) and Tamil Eelam Liberation Organization (TELO). The most organized and the most effective among them was the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), usually referred to as the "Tamil Tigers".
India tried to fish in the troubled waters by arming and training these groups. This was not out of the goodness of its heart to help the long-suffering Tamil minority but to exert pressure on Sri Lanka to tow its line in foreign affairs and economic matters, especially the former. India carefully rationed its help to the Tamil groups, just enough to bleed the Sri Lankan military but not sufficient to defeat it. Both Tamil militant groups and the Sri Lankan army bled even as India watched on the sidelines. After several years of waging a "no-win war" against the Tamil militant groups, Sri Lankan Government decided to accede to Indian demands and agreed to sign the India-Sri Lanka Peace Accord in 1987.
An analysis of the India-Sri Lanka Peace Accord of 1987 may be found in Chapter 5 (see Sections 4 and 5). We would merely mention here that the accord requires the disarming of Tamil militants without any specific promise of powers to be devolved to the Tamil Province. Essentially Tamils get nothing but a promise of unspecified devolution, Sri Lanka has the Tamil fighters disarmed, and India gets everything it wants from Sri Lanka, clearly spelled out in the two secret letters (later unearthed by Indian newspapers) signed by the Prime Minister of India and the President of Sri Lanka on the same day they signed the India-Sri Lanka Peace Accord (July 29, 1987). You can read the relevant excerpts of these letters in Chapter 5.
2. LTTE Leader Prabhakaran in New Delhi
All the Tamil militant groups except the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) agreed to the accord. (The accord was prepared by India and Sri Lanka without the participation or consent of the militant groups; They were given an overview of the accord just days before the accord. The accord itself was not shown.) India invited LTTE leader Velupillai Prabhakaran to its capital New Delhi to discuss his concerns with officials and Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. He went to New Delhi on July 24, 1987. There he was shown a copy of the agreement for the first time. When he refused to agree to the terms of the agreement, he was put under house arrest ("hotel arrest") at Ashoka Hotel in New Delhi. This is outrageous. Indian Government invited Prabhakaran to New Delhi to discuss the accord. He was an invited guest. But he was arrested for not agreeing to the accord he was shown for the first time. Suppose Chinese government invites Indian Prime Minister (PM) to Chinese capital Peking to discuss the India-China border dispute and arrests him in Peking because Indian PM would not signed a border agreement he was shown for the first time, how would Indians feel? How would governments around the world react? Yet, that is what happened to LTTE leader Prabhakaran in 1987. A despicable, disgraceful, cowardly stab in the back by Rajiv Gandhi government.
While Prabhakaran was still under hotel arrest, Rajive Gandhi went to Sri Lankan capital Colombo and signed the agreement. (Prabakaran saw it on television that the accord had been signed on July 29, 1987.) Upon signing the agreement, 54-th Division of the Indian army was sent to the Tamil region of the island under the command of Major General Harkirat Singh. Preparations for this movement was going on for a month. According to an Indian Army colonel, Indian military lifted more tonnage (of military equipment and personnel) by land and sea into Sri Lanka than in any theatre of operation during the Second World War. India called its military forces in Sri Lankan Tamil region as IPKF (Indian Peace Keeping Force). In number of soldiers and fire power IPKF exceeded LTTE by a huge margin. When the Indian commander approached the LTTE to talk, they refused to talk until their leader Prabaharan was released. Tamil people also protested the "holding" of Prabakharan in New Delhi. Seeing that they could not find a willing second-level LTTE leader to endorse the accord and thus sideline LTTE leader Prabhakran, Indian Government released Prabhakaran on August 2, 1987 and flew him back to Jaffna (well after the accord was signed and Indian troops were in place in the Tamil regions of Sri Lanka).
Seeing the massive Indian Army deployment and not wanting to take on the fourth largest army in the world, Prabaharan reluctantly agreed to the accord. He made no secret of his reservations about the terms of the accord at his public speech before a large crowd in Jaffna on August 4, 1987.
If the Indian Government thought that LTTE would quietly accept the Indian dictate like the other militant groups, that was not to be. LTTE questioned the specific details of the accord that were left vague. They complained about Sri Lankan Government not fully complying with certain terms of the accord. A former LTTE commander, Thileepan, went on an indefinite fast because the accord did not meet the aspirations of the Tamil minority and that even the limited provisions of the accord were not being implemented. Even after repeated pleas by Tamils, Indian High Commissioner to Sri Lanka J.N. Dixit refused to meet with Thileepan and discuss the grievances. Thileepan fasted to death on September 26, 1987.
3. Alleged Order to Murder (Assassinate) Prabhakaran Came Before the IPKF-LTTE War
The alleged attempt on LTTE leader Prabhakaran's life by Indian Government official(s) took placed under this general background of September 1987. In short, although LTTE stopped all military actions (per the accord), it continued to champion the Tamil minority's concerns. It is important to remember that the alleged attempted murder of Prabhakaran took place when there was no armed conflict between the LTTE and the Indian Army (IPKF) or the Sri Lankan Army; everything was quiet militarily. LTTE commanders were regularly visiting IPKF Head Quarters to talk with IPKF commanders and Indian civilian officials about the implementation of the accord that India thrust on the Tamil minority. War between LTTE and IPKF started on October 6, 1987, well after the alleged murder attempt in September 14, 1987. The murder attempt took place during the above mentioned talks about the implementation of the accord.
4. "Shoot Prabhakaran", Ordered the Indian High Commissioner
Immediately after the signing of the India-Sri Lanka Peace Accord on July 29, 1987, India landed its troops and military equipment into the predominantly Tamil north-eastern region of Sri Lanka (or "Tamil Eelam" as Tamil people call it). As we stated in Section 1, Indian military lifted more tonnage (of military equipment and personnel) by land and sea into Sri Lanka than in any theatre of operation during the Second World War. LTTE reluctantly agreed to the accord because it did not want to go to war with the fourth largest army in the world. There were no physical hostilities between LTTE and the Indian military (not even minor clashes of any sort) between July 29 and October 6 of 1987. LTTE leaders used to visit Indian Army Head Quarters in Northern Sri Lanka to discuss aspects of the accord with Indian Army commanders and civilian officials. There were differences of opinion between the Indian Government and the LTTE about the implementation of the accord. While all other militant groups accepted the accord meekly, LTTE was trying to protect Tamil interests as best as it could under the circumstances (with the heavy presence of Indian troops in Sri Lanka and vast reserves just across the Palk Straights in India). LTTE was raising questions about Sri Lankan Government's implementation of the accord (or lack there of) and organizing peaceful, Gandhian public protests against it. Though LTTE was now acting like a political organization (and not a militant group), India considered the LTTE leader Velupillai Prabhakaran as a thorn on its side because LTTE would not quietly accept the Indian Government positions like the other groups.
Indian High Commissioner to Sri Lanka at that time was Mr. Jyotindre Nath Dixit (High Commissioner is comparable to ambassador). Commander of the Indian military in Sri Lanka was Major General Harkirat Singh. His headquarters at that time was in Northern Sri Lanka. As mentioned earlier, Prabhakaran and other LTTE leaders used to visit the Major General at the latter's headquarters in Northern Sri Lanka. Their relationship was professional and cordial. They respected each other. The Major General would later say, "The LTTE is not a simple soul to crack. A hard nut. Lead by Prabhakaran, a highly-motivated man. He has only one aim, Eelam."
As we noted before, the Indian Government considered Prabbhakaran a thorn at its side; but for him everything would go smoothly as India planned. So Indian government decided to murder him, kill him, assassinate him when he came to IPKF Headquarters in Northern Sri Lanka for discussions with Indian Major General Harkirat Singh. There was no war between LTTE and IPKF yet. All is peaceful. This was what happened, in Indian Major General Harkirat Singh's own words (we are repeating the same excerpt we started this article):
"On the night of 14/15 September 1987, I received a telephone call from Dixit, directing me to arrest or shoot Pirabakaran when he came for the meeting. Telling Dixit that I would get back to him I placed a call to the OFC. Lt. Gen. Depinder Singh directed me to tell Dixit that we, as an orthodox Army, did not shoot people in the back when they were coming for a meeting under the white flag. I then spoke to Dixit in Colombo and conveyed the message, emphasising that I would not obey his directive. I pointed out that the LTTE supremo had been invited by the IPKF in order to find a solution to the problems in the implementation of the Accord. Dixit replied, He [Rajiv Gandhi] has given those instructions to me and the Army should not drag its feet, and you as the GOC, IPKF will be responsible for it. The next morning I received a call from Lt. Gen. B.C. Joshi, the then Director General Military Operations, who supported my stand on Dixits directive. However, the COAS, Gen. Sundarji, expressed his annoyance. In fairness to Rajiv Gandhi, Dixits claim that he spoke on his behalf must be rejected. Dixit was prone to bragging and braggadocio." [Excerpt from: Reference 1] Here are the abbreviations used in the excerpt [COAS - Chief of Army Staff, GOC - General-Officer-Commanding, OFC - Overall Force Commander]
We want to emphasize that this attempted murder-killing-assassination of LTTE leader Prabakaran took place before LTTE and IPKF started fighting each other. It was peacetime. Prabakaran was going to IPKF Headquarters for talks.
High Commissioner J. N. Dixit denied he ever asked Major General Harkirat Singh to murder/assassinate Prabhakaran.
5. Two Unanswered Questions
A Major General of the Indian Army is saying that an Indian high-commissioner/ambassador asked him to shoot a foreign rebel leader when he came to his office for peace talks. The high-commissioner denies it. So the first question: Who is lying? Major General Harkirat Singh or High-Commissioner J. N. Dixit?
If J. N. Dixit is lying, did he ask the Major General to shoot Prabhakaran on his own or was he relaying an order from the Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi? That is the second question.
We do not know the answers, only a few people do. Indian government could have easily obtained a definitive answer for all to know, especially foreign governments.
In the opinion of this writer, Indian government could have easily got the truth out. Major General Harkirat Singh told about the murder attempt in an interview to Rediff on the Net in Year 2000 [Reference 2]. India could have appointed a retired High Court judge to investigate the matter; the two key individuals, Harkirat Singh and J. N. Dixit were alive at that time. The judge would have taken testimonies of both Major General Harkirat Singh and High-Commissioner J. N. Dixit under oath with penalties for lying under oath. According to Major General Harkirat Singh, he talked about the assassination attempt to two other Indian Army officers, namely, Lieutenant General Depinder Singh and Lieutenant General B.C. Joshi. Judge would have taken testimony under oath from these two Indian Army Generals also. The truth about what happened in Northern Sri Lanka on the night of of 14/15 September 1987 could have been conclusively established for all to know, especially foreign governments.
India plays a good citizen amongst the international community. It has contributed to army officers and soldiers to United Nations (UN) Peace Keeping Forces in many countries. Is it not important for the United Nations and those countries to know if liars are commanding these forces? India wants a permanent seat in the UN Security Council. Is it not important for member countries of the United Nations to know if Indian ambassadors are secretly ordering assassination of foreign leaders during peace negotiations?
References
1. Major General (retired) Harkirat Singh, "Intervention in Sri Lanka: The I.P.K.F. Experience Retold", Manohar Publishers & Distributors (India), 2007 (188 pages); available for purchase in hardcover and paperback on the Internet.
2. https://www.rediff.com/news/2000/mar/31lanka.htm
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