Sri Lanka tsunami aid becomes geopolitical game

Sri Lanka's tsunami devastation has drawn a huge international aid response, but a geopolitical game of influence between India and the United States is playing not too subtly in the background, analysts said on Monday. Sri Lanka's tsunami devastation has drawn a huge international aid response, but a geopolitical game of influence between India and the United States is playing not too subtly in the background, analysts said on Monday. "There is no innocence in the politics of humanitarian assistance," said Jayadeva Uyangoda, head of the department of political science at Colombo University.


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Uyangoda said Washington's decision to send as many as 1,500 Marines and an amphibious assault ship to Sri Lanka was seen in New Delhi as not "merely humanitarian".

"It is a symbolic intrusion into India's sphere of influence," he said.

Nearly 30,000 Sri Lankans were killed by the Dec. 26 tsunami and nearly a million have been made homeless.

India, determined not to be seen as just a victim after losing more than 15,000 people in the disaster itself, moved quickly to send help to Sri Lanka and others.

Close to 1,000 Indian military personnel, five Navy vessels including a hospital ship, a field hospital, and