Stay against execution of LTTErs purely procedural says prosecution

Special to The Sunday Times

By Our Correspondent

As the defence crowed about its "success" in getting the Indian Supreme Court to stay the execution of 26 LTTErs in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case, the prosecution clarified that the interim stay ordered by the court was only a routine one, applicable to all cases involving a death sentence.

"Death sentences passed by trial courts cannot be carried out without the sanction of the Supreme Court, and the apex court routinely stays executions to enable it to go through the case material presented to it. This is precisely what it did on Friday," said Jacob Daniel, counsel for the prosecution.

Daniel said that the Special Investigation Team had a cast-iron case against the 26 persons and was confident that the court would uphold the death sentences passed by the Special Designated Court in Poonamalle near Chennai on January 28 this year.

On Friday, a three-man bench of the Supreme Court, headed by Chief Justice, M.M. Punchchi, passed an interim order staying the execution and asked that the statements of the 288 witnesses, running into thousands of pages, be translated from the original Tamil into English. Judge V. Navaneetham of the Special Designated Court, Poonamalle, had sentenced to death by hanging all the 26 Indian and Sri Lankan Tamils tried for conspiring to kill Rajiv Gandhi. Rajiv was killed by Dhanu, a Sri Lankan Tamil female suicide bomber, at an election meeting in Sriperumbudur, near Chennai on May 21, 1991.

A Special Investigation Team, headed by D.R. Karthikeyan, found that 41 persons, headed by the LTTE supremo, V. Prabhakaran, his top intelligence operatives Pottu Amman and Akhila, and the one eyed Hatchet man, Sivarasan, had plotted the assassination. 12 of the accused, including ten Sri Lankan Tamils, had committed suicide during the manhunt.

The remaining 26, who were tried, were sentenced to death for conspiring to kill the Indian leader. Defence Counsel, S. Dorai Swamy, while admitting that the LTTE did commit the crime, said those dragged before the court were only minor functionaries. Many of them had no knowledge of the plot till it was executed, he said. Further, the trial court's judgement was based only on the confessions made to the police, under the draconian anti-terrorism act, TADA (since repealed).

But in an exclusive interview to The Sunday Times after the verdict, SIT Chief Karthikeyan said that the evidence was both scientifically collected and voluminous. "The judgment is in the national interest, as India is threatened by terrorism. It shows that India is not a soft state," he said.

Source of untapped potential

Africa:

Two and a half years ago France's minister for overseas development, Jacques Godfrain, startled an international conference suggesting that "Africa is on the way to becoming the tiger of the twenty-first century - following the pattern of the tiger economies of east Asia 30 years ago".

Few people predicted their fabulous growth rates, he observed, "Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia were at war. Thailand was riven by internal conflict. Malaysia and Indonesia were battling communist insurrection. South Korea was still emerging from a debilitating war.... but look what they achieved and now it is going to be the same story with Africa."

At the time Mr. Godfrain was widely disparaged. Today, it seems, half the world is jumping on the African bandwagon. What was yesterday's disaster continent is tomorrow's tropical repository of unrealized, latent possibilities. President Bill Clinton may have his own reasons for taking such a long trip to Africa but his troubles at home redound to Africa's advantage. It gives Africa the break and boost it is ready for.

No country illustrates Africa's potential more than the desert democracy of Botswana, a well-chosen stop on Mr. Clinton's itinerary, one that would not have even been considered for such a visit 20 years ago. These days it has growth rates that make even (pre-crash) east Asia look slow off the mark - 16% a year in the 1970s and in the 1980s 11%. In the nineties, hit by drought and the collapse of the diamond market, which accounts for a third of the national income, it still managed a healthy 6 to 7%.

It is no use blaming Botswana's success on diamonds. Of course it helps. But Nigeria has been swimming in oil for decades and has nothing to show for it. The Congo under Mobutu and now under Kabila remains "the heart of darkness", despite its fabulous deposits of not just diamonds, but copper, bauxite and gold. At least half the African continent has something the world desperately wants. In fact the remarkable thing about Botswana's development is that once the shine was off the diamond market, it successfully re-directed its energy and resources into non-traditional export - vehicle assembly, textiles and food processing.

The rewards for the people of Botswana are tangible - life expectancy, school enrollment and health care have improved dramatically. And now Botswana is cutting its tax rates, privatising government departments, eliminating crop subsidies and turning its attention to the plight of rural and low income urban households.

Botswana is undoubtedly Africa's flagship but boats are leaving port all over the continent - countries as diverse as the (violence-free) Ivory Coast, (war-torn) Angola, (once-run-by-mad-men) Uganda, (land-locked, eroded, mineral-poor) Lesotho and (ex-private fiefdom) Malawi have all thrown off the shackles, economic and political, of the past and have hit growth rates of tiger proportions. And over half of sub-Saharan African countries have averaged economic growth rates of 4% in recent years - not enough to erase the decline and damage of the last two decades any time soon, but nevertheless giving hope for the next generation that they have a future.

A telling sign of Africa's new maturity was the extraordinary reception for the two white men who visited Africa this week, Pope John Paul II and Bill Clinton.

There was no sign of what would be more than understandable, a current of hostility to what Mr. Clinton had the courage to be open and contrite about - a history of exploitation from the days of slavery right up to the recent past when "during the Cold War... we dealt with countries in Africa based more on how they stood in the struggle between the U.S. and the Soviet Union than how they stood in the struggle for their own people's aspirations."

The African character remains as it always was, the most generous and least-complicated in the best sense, the people most ready to turn a new leaf and let bygones be bygones.

If only Nigeria, Africa's most populated - and potentially wealthiest - country, could become part of the new Africa, the continent then could be said to have truly broken with its own bad past, of despotic tyranny and gross economic mismanagement. In Nigeria a cruel and vicious military regime continues to hold unchallenged sway, its political opponents all under lock and key. The Pope rightly decided to concentrate his energies there. Mr. Clinton took the easy option and gave the country a pass. But only when mighty Nigeria takes the same walk in the sun as modest Botswana has done, will the continent be assured of the future it deserves.

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