In a disclosure which could have repercussions across the political spectrum in the country, senior BJP leader and Rajya Sabha member Subramanian Swamy stated on Friday that Sonia Gandhi, the then Congress president, P Chidambaram, the then Union Home Minister and Velupillai Prabhakaran, the chief of the dreaded Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) were hand in glove with each other.
In a message posted on his micro-blogging platform, Swamy said Chidambaram had sent a message to Prabhakaran during the 2009 battle (which saw the annihilation of the LTTE) to await Indian Navy to come to rescue him. “Navy did come but it was Sri Lankan Navy. Prabhakaran walked out of the jungle into the beach thinking it was the Indian Navy and hence was killed,” said Swamy in his posting.
He also said that PC (Chidambaram) had sent the message to Prabhakaran at the behest of TDK (the abbreviation usually used by Swamy to describe Sonia Gandhi) during the final days of the May 2009 war.
He said the Indian Navy ship which was expected to reach the theatre of war did not leave Indian shores because of stiff Opposition from highest authorities. “Prabhakaran could not be informed by the Congress leadership about the change of plan,” said Swamy.
Swamy’s disclosure comes immediately after the visit of Mahinda Rajapaksa, former president of Sri Lanka to New Delhi at the invitation of Swamy. Rajapaksa, who was the President of Sri Lanka during the civil war of May 2009, had told Prashant Tiwari of The Pioneer in an exclusive interview that the Governments of India and Sri Lanka had worked in tandem in the 2009 civil war in the island nation which resulted in the annihilation of the dreaded Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, a terrorist organisation.
“We had a mechanism during the war (against the LTTE in 2009) called the Troika, where three officials from both sides (India and Sri Lanka ) were able to discuss any issue, even in the middle of the night,” said Rajapaksa. Experts are of the view that the Troika had played a major role in scuttling the move to save Prabhakaran.
According to Rajapaksa, three high officials from Sri Lanka and India were deputed for regular exchange of information to facilitate proper coordination during the operation against the LTTE terrorists during the month of May 2009. “This was known as Troika System and these officials met even in the middle of the night. What we need is a system like this in our economic cooperation also,” Rajapaksa had said.
This is in stark contrast to the claims by the DMK, then an important ally of the UPA Governnment led by Manmohan Singh. Karunanidhi, the then Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu had said that the Centre had told him that the operation by the Sri Lankan Government was only to nab LTTE chief Prabhakaran and India had no role in the military operations.
The AIADMK on Friday declared that it would launch a massive agitation all over Tamil Nadu on September 25 to highlight how the DMK had betrayed Tamils all over the world because of its “complicity” in the civil war.
Karunanidhi in the company of his two wives had staged a “two-hour long fast” at Marina Beach questioning the then Union Government’s complicity in the civil war in Sri Lanka and had called it off following assurances from the Centre that it had no role in the military operations. The LTTE had used innocent Tamils as human shields to save the LTTE chief Prabhakaran and his henchmen from the Sri Lankan army.
K P Munusamy , the AIADMK strongman told reporters at Chennai on Friday that the disclosure by Rajapaksa proved that the DMK too was engaged in the killing of Tamils in northern Sri Lanka during May 2009. “The Indian Government was offering military assistance to the Sri Lankan Government in the attack against the LTTE. The DMK is responsible for thousands of Tamils who got killed in the war,” said Munusamy.
