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Sri Lanka The Indo-Sri Lankan Accord and Foreign Relations
In an exchange of executive letters coinciding with the July
29, 1987, accord, President Jayewardene gave assurances to Gandhi
that the port of Trincomalee would not be used by foreign powers,
including the United States, and that agreements with the United
States to upgrade the Voice of America facility and with Israel
and Pakistan to provide military security would be reconsidered.
Indications in early 1988 were that although New Delhi wanted
to avoid accusations that it was turning a formerly independent
country into a client state, India was determined to prevent Sri
Lanka from developing closer ties with unfriendly or potentially
unfriendly foreign powers, such as Pakistan, Israel, and the
United States. The India Today correspondent quoted a
senior Indian military officer as asserting that "Pakistan's
military involvement in Sri Lanka ended on July 29, 1987." But
other observers wondered whether India, by cutting the Gordian
knot of the Sri Lankan ethnic crisis and hoping at the same time
to thwart Pakistan's ambitions, was finally exercising its full
potential as one of the world's major nations or was being drawn
into a military nightmare that would bring costs in men and money
but few rewards.
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S.J. Tambiah's Sri Lanka Ethnic Fratricide And The
Dismantling of a Democracy gives a critical account of
both the ideological and socioeconomic bases of the ethnic crisis
and forcefully argues that the Sinhalese-majority government
bears a major responsibility for the violence and for the erosion
of democratic institutions. A book by Craig Baxter et al.,
Government and Politics in South Asia, provides a detached
but useful overview of Sri Lankan society, political dynamics,
and governmental institutions. Janice Jiggins's Caste and
Family in the Politics of the Sinhalese, 1947-1976 provides
analysis of the pre-Jayewardene era, giving an excellent
description of the often neglected factor of caste in politics.
On the evolution of political institutions and attitudes from the
very earliest times to the 1970s, see K.M. de Silva's A
History of Sri Lanka.
The biweekly India Today and the weekly Far Eastern
Economic Review provide good coverage of the latest political
developments. Articles on Sri Lanka are also frequently published
in Asian Survey, Pacific Affairs, and journals
covering comparative politics, such as the Political Science
Quarterly. (For further information and complete citations,
see Sri Lanka -
Bibliography.)
Data as of October 1988
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