A memorial for IPKF in Colombo next month!

From S. Venkat Narayan Our Special Correspondent
NEW DELHI, March 15: Sri Lanka will finally erect a memorial to soldiers of the Indian Peace-Keeping Forces (IPKF) who died while trying to keep the island-nation’s sovereignty intact more than 14 years ago.

A foundation stone for the memorial will be laid in Colombo next month, Sri Lankan High Commissioner to India Mangala Moonesinghe told "The Island" here today. The memorial will be located next to the column erected to honour those who died during World Wars I and II in the Vihara Mahadewi Park in Colombo 7.

Moonesinghe said several dignitaries of the Indian Armed Forces as well as IPKF veterans will be invited to attend the stone-laying ceremony. He described Sri Lanka’s decision to erect the IPKF memorial as a gesture to honour those Indian soldiers who lost their lives in action in the troubled island’s northern and eastern provinces during 1987-90.

The IPKF was sent to the island after then Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and Sri Lankan President Junius Richard Jayawardene signed the India-Sri Lanka Agreement (ISLA) in July 1987. IPKF’s objecive was noble: Gandhi sent the IPKF to disarm the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and other separatist Tamil rebel groups in the North-East. But ISLA soon became controversial, and the IPKF’s presence in the island became a huge political issue.

The IPKF stayed in the island for 32 turbulent months, from July 30, 1987 to March 24, 1990. While it managed to disarm all other Tamil rebel groups, the LTTE refused to lay down their arms, and turned against the Indian peace-keepers. The IPKF had strict orders not to shoot at civilians, and the LTTE exploited this to its full advantage to attack the Indian soldiers.

As a result, in the bloody operations against the LTTE, a total of 1,165 Indian soldiers lost their lives, while another 3,011 were injured, mostly maimed for life. Jayawardene’s successor Ranasinghe Premadasa had demanded that India withdraw the IPKF, and even supplied arms to the LTTE to fight the Indian peace-keepers.

One IPKF veteran recalled: "Not only were we forced to fight the LTTE with one hand tied behind our backs, but we were also prevented from finishing our task." And Rajiv Gandhi had to pay with his life for trying to help Sri Lanka. He was assassinated by LTTE’s woman suicide-bomber Dhanu at an election rally at Sriperumbudur near Chennai in May 1991.

Every Indian soldier who died in "Operation Pawan" (codename for IPKF operations in Sri Lanka) will have his name inscribed on the memorial. Said General (Retd) Ashok Mehta, a much-decorated soldier who was the IPKF’s GOC-in-C, South, during Operation Pawan: "The memorial is a long overdue recognition of the honourable role the Indian soldier has played in fighting another nation’s terrorism."

Sri Lankan Chief of Defence Staff and Army Chief Lionel Balagalle is believed to be the motivating force behind the memorial. He sent a team from Colombo late last month to finalise the idea.

The Sri Lankan team took back to Colombo three designs conceptualized by the Indian Army’s engineers for the memorial.

The belated memorial to the IPKF is being seen here as an unique example of how the island’s perennially warring political parties, President Chandrika Kumaratunga’s Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe’s United National Party (UNP), have agreed to "cohabit" to provide both land and funds to honour the Indian soldiers who died fighting terrorism in the island.

Sri Lanka’s refusal to acknowledge and appreciate the IPKF’s sacrifices has often rankled the Indian people, government as well as the defence establishment here. Colombo’s belated decision to erect a memorial for the IPKF should now help soothe these ruffled feelings.

The "rethinking" on the IPKF’s role in Sri Lanka is at least three years old. The idea for the memorial apparently came up for the first time three years ago, when Rohan Dalawatte was the Sri Lankan Chief of Defence Staff.