India Sri Lanka Accord
India-Sri Lanka Accord
The India-Sri Lanka accord was signed July 29, 1987, between Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and Sri Lankan President J.R. Jayewardene. The accord was expected to resolve the ongoing Sri Lankan Civil war between Tamil secessionist groups including the LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Ealam) and the Sri Lankan Government. The conflict arose when ethnic tamil secessionist groups wanted to create Tamil Ealam, an independent state in the north and east of Sri Lanka as an ethnic homeland for the minority Tamils; In a state in which the majority of the population was Sinhalese. The accord assigned a degree of regional autonomy to the Tamil areas, with the establishment of a regional council that was to be administered by the Eelam People's Revolutionary Liberation Front (EPRLF). Tamil militant groups were also required to lay down their arms and the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF), which was part of the Indian Army, was sent to Sri Lanka to enforce disarmament and to watch over the regional council. However, Tamil militant groups did not have a role in the formation of the agreement as it was signed between the Sri Lankan and Indian Government.
The LTTE rejected the accord because they opposed the candidate who was to administer the regional council. The candidates proposed by the LTTE were rejected by India, stalling the settlement.
The Government of India decided that the IPKF should disarm the LTTE by force and launched a number of campaigns, including Operation Pawan which attempted to capture Jaffna. The ruthlessness of the Indian intervention, made the Indian army extremely unpopular with not only the Tamils in Sri Lanka, but also the majority Sinhalese population. The IPKF left the country in 1990 on the request of the Sri Lankan government. Fighting continued throughout the 1990s and Rajiv Gandhi, the then Prime Minister of India was assassinated by a suicide bomber associated with the LTTE in 1991. In 1993 Sri Lankan president Ranasinghe Premadasa was also assassinated. Relations between India and Sri Lanka became sour due to the conflict. President Mahinda Rajapaksa finally declared military victory over the Tamil Tigers on May 16, 2009 after 26 years of conflict.
