COLOMBO: Twenty years after the controversial Indo-Lanka peace accord, Sri Lanka’s neighbour India continues to be a powerful influence in the country’s attempts to offer a political solution to the Tamil minorities but Sri Lanka’s Marxist Party, the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), has vowed to put a stop to it.

Opposing the Sri Lankan government’s decision early this year to devolve power to the north and east by implementing the 13th amendment introduced through the Indo-Lanka agreement in 1987, JVP members have warned of instigating mass scale protests if the government goes ahead with its objective. “The people will rise against this decision which will help India to carry out its hidden agenda in Sri Lanka,” a senior JVP member said, accusing India of trying to force a political solution on Sri Lanka to prevent Lankan troops from defeating the Tamil Tiger rebels.

The JVP’s antagonism against India which dates back to 1987 has distinctly heightened in recent weeks after details emerged of Delhi’s surreptitious involvement in the Sri Lankan peace process.

Despite cultivating the image that it was keeping an arm’s length from Sri Lanka’s saga of war and peace, India nevertheless was responsible for authoring the process that led to the Norway-brokered peace deal between the Lankan government and the LTTE, veteran Indian journalist Narayan Swami said in an article on the Indo Asia NewsService last month.

The revelation came weeks after the Mahinda Rajapakse-led government formally abrogated the ceasefire signed on Feb 22, 2002. “Now that Sri Lanka has jettisoned the ceasefire agreement with the Tamil Tigers, one of India’s best kept secrets can be revealed: it was New Delhi that quietly authored the process that led to the Norway-brokered pact,” Narayan Swamy who has extensively covered Sri Lankan issues and authored two books on Vellpillai Prabhakaran said in an article published by the IANS news agency.

In the wake of this report, the Marxist JVP has been repeatedly claiming that there is a ‘far reaching’ Indian conspiracy in Sri Lanka and has now alleged that India’s Intelligence Service Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) has infiltrated the north and east of Sri Lanka. “India is conspiring to install a proxy government in the north-east. India’s plan is to plant RAW agents in the north-east provincial administration and control the central government using them,” JVP MP and politburo member Anura Kumara Dissanayake was quoted in the Colombo-based Daily Mirror as saying last week.

The latest statement by India follows a warning by JVP Leader, Somawansa Amarasinghe to boycott Indian goods. Government officials, however, dismiss the claims by the Marxists stating that there is an ‘excellent relationship’ between Sri Lanka and India, further improved following last week’s official visit to India by Sri Lanka Army Commander Lt-Gen Sanath Fonseka.

Reports from Delhi suggested that the army chief had obliquely urged India to supply arms to enable Colombo to annihilate the LTTE rebels in the north-east.

“The relations between both countries are good at the political level but need to be increased at the military level. I am here to further strengthen military ties,” Fonseka was quoted as telling Indian journalists at a news briefing.

Although India has provided three indigenously produced radars to Sri Lanka to ward off attacks by the LTTE’s air power there has been no indication that India would change its policy of not supplying arms to Sri Lanka.