Friday, August 18 2006 12:05 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New Delhi: India finds itself in a bind vis-a-vis Sri Lanka's collapsing peace process, unable to prevent the outbreak of another war that is bound to have major strategic, diplomatic and political fallouts.

New Delhi is painfully realizing its limitations in the island, where the Government is refusing to pay heed to Indian pleadings to go for a political and not military solution to the dragging ethnic conflict.

At the same time, India has virtually no influence on the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), which New Delhi outlawed in 1992 and which National Security Adviser M.K. Narayanan recently dubbed a 'dangerous' organisation.

And with both Colombo and LTTE seemingly preparing for yet another full-scale conflict, disregarding pleas for peace from all international players, officials here can only hope and pray for a miracle.

Nearly 1,000 people have been killed in rapidly escalating violence since December 2005, shortly after Mahinda Rajapakse won the presidential elections on a belligerent agenda.

Both Colombo and the LTTE have been blamed for the bloodshed, which took a gory twist when the Sri Lankan Air Force bombed a rebel-held region, killing around 60 girls, this week.

The LTTE called them school students while Colombo insinuated they were "child soldiers".

The incident has fuelled anger in Tamil Nadu, with one politician asking India to call back its cricket team from Sri Lanka in protest.

It is only one fuzzy feature in India's Sri Lanka kaleidoscope.

The Sri Lankan leadership is unhappy with New Delhi for putting pressure on it to go slow on the war effort while refusing to provide it sophisticated weapons to take on the LTTE.

In the process, Sri Lanka is more and more turning to Pakistan. While India has no problems with Sri Lanka shopping for weapons abroad including in Pakistan, it detests covert military ties between Colombo and Islamabad.

President Rajapakse has another complaint: he feels India is repeatedly hosting his foe and United National Party (UNP) leader Ranil Wickremesinghe, who is said to use these links to take potshots at the government.

The LTTE's attempts to mend fences with India have been summarily rejected by New Delhi. India also refuses to host the pro-Tiger Tamil National Alliance, the largest Tamil party in the Sri Lankan parliament.

A meeting of LTTE supporters scheduled here for Aug 30 is expected to urge India to amend its pro-Colombo line.

More than 7,000 Tamils fleeing the virtual war in Sri Lanka have taken refuge in Tamil Nadu. The inflow continues.

The larger picture in the island is no less frightening.

Many thousands - mainly Tamils and Muslims - are displaced, many running away from their homes with meagre belongings and depending on others' generosity for survival.

The Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM), the Nordic body overseeing the 2002 truce between the LTTE and Colombo that came up with quiet Indian backing, is on the verge of disintegration.

Three of SLMM's five member countries Denmark, Sweden and Finland - will cease to be members from Sep 1, the deadline set by the LTTE after the European Union (EU) banned the Tigers. All three are EU members.

This would leave the already stressed SLMM with just 20 truce monitors from Iceland and Norway, the peace facilitator. A disgusted SLMM chief, unable to end the violence, is urging Norway to pack up and leave.

Norway is sticking on. Even the SLMM will stay put as long as it feels it can be of use - any use.

India is in touch with all the international players over the peace process to see how it can be put back on the track.

But, as Lebanon showed, a well-armed and determined insurgent group is most unlikely to disarm itself or let anyone do that job, more so when the government seems intent on doing an Israel to the LTTE.