Finally, they are getting Trincomalee

But this is a post Cold War world, in which American bases are viewed with maybe lorry loads of suspicion – combined with a good deal of unadulterated resignation. If Uncle Sam establishes a military base in the world's deepest natural harbour, Trincomalee, there is no doubt going to be a tirade from the JVP - and many other noises being made by today's rather under-zealous brand of anti imperialists. And, in terms of geo- political reality there will be a good deal of rapid eyebrow raising.

Sri Lanka's SAARC partners will be semi-scandalized, and perhaps the Maldivian Foreign Minister will say "You can have US bases anywhere in the world but not in Sri Lanka.'' ( "You can have talks with the Tamil Tigers anywhere in the world except in the Maldives'', he recently told a foreign correspondent.)

Trincomalee harbour has always been a whispered reality where US- Sri Lanka relations have been concerned. In the lobbies and corridors of power, or in the lush Colombo cocktail belt, many went into whispered huddles over whether the Americans were interested in the Trincomalee harbour. If an American official was involved, the reply was always one of mild derision. " We have Diego Garcia,'' they used to say. Generally, the Sri Lankan boys were patted down and told that Trincomalee after all was a creation in the Sri Lankan mind, and that the Americans could just about go anywhere to re-fuel. Sri Lankans who raised the issue generally ended up looking rather sheepish if not downright flustered.

But everyone knew that America was not really at war — and that touching Trincomalee during the Cold War was impossible given Sri Lanka's non-aligned proclivities. Those who looked sheepish in the cocktail belt can now have the last laugh, as the Americans want Trincomalee to be the most important line of defense on our side of the Middle East.

When Christina Rocca the US Assistant Secretary of State for the region visited Jaffna, she certainly looked an angel compared to Jyotindra Nath Dixit. Dixit a dark skinned Indian man. Rocca looked almost bucolic in her pleasant rotundity. But, when she was pictured raising her finger issuing a warning to the LTTE, she looked every inch the foreign dominatrix, that even J. N. Dixit would have blushed. Dixit of course was the last virtual Viceroy, before India burnt its fingers dealing with Sri Lankan affairs.

Americans are willing to hand any quid pro quo these days for a military toe-hold in the Asian region, and this was best seen in the behaviour of Pakistan strongman Pervez Musharaff after September 11. Pakistan was taken out of the doghouse, its debt written off , G.W. Bush invited Musharaff for dinner, and his dictatorship was made to look like a role model in benign statecraft. Translation: Uncle Sam wanted to conduct operations against the Taleban in Afghanistan from Pakistani soil.

The quid pro quo on offer here is so massive that Sri Lankan administration officials would have felt like smothering Rocca with kisses when she raised her finger at the LTTE, in no other place but Jaffna, the epicenter of modern Prabhakaranism. But, Rocca didn't rocka' the boat. On the Sri Lankan side, there was more jubilation than when the country had been let off gently by the British Raj in 1948. This was the real independence. The Americans were coming to free us, hallelujah.

When the tentative moves were made to establish the international Criminal Court (ICC), the US government worked towards winning immunity from ICC rules for any of its forces based in foreign countries. Prabhakaran lost out on his dream for a separate state of Eelam, they tell me now. 

But, he certainly left Sri Lanka eating out of the hands of the Americans, and that may be his most enduring legacy towards making a mockery of what is left of the Sri Lankan state. 

Geo-political reality is more unstable than Prabhakaran's mind. Prabhakaran anyway has a mortal lifespan, but geopolitical reality is forever. On the one hand, it is important for Sri Lanka to feel important. The cruder way of putting it is that it is better to be wanted — even by the devil, than be totally ignored.

The repercussions of US bases being established here in a post Cold War unipolar world will linger for a long time after Prabhakaran's bones are interred. Sri Lanka would have of course hitched its star to the American wagon, and there will be many good boys who will be jubilant about that. 

Such good boys will think that sovereignty is relative, that there is no sovereignty anyway in the soul of a nation if its economy is dependent on the whims of the World Bank and the IMF. But, if Christina Rocca wags her finger at the LTTE, she or those who come long after she is gone, will wag their fingers a lot harder at future generations of Sri Lankan leaders. 

Prabhakaran was always a threat to Sri Lankan sovereignty - but with US bases in Trinco, there is no threat. The erosion of our sovereignty will be complete. More about that on a later date – Rocca's finger is wagging all over my shoulder.