US-India struggle for control in disaster zone

[Judi Lynn]

US-India struggle for control in disaster zone
Colombo, Jan. 3 (Reuters): Sri Lanka’s tsunami devastation has drawn a huge international aid response, but a geopolitical game of influence between India and the US is playing not too subtly in the background, analysts said today.

“There is no innocence in the politics of humanitarian assistance,” said Jayadeva Uyangoda, the head of the department of political science at Colombo University.

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.
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http://www.telegraphindia.com/1050104/asp/nation/story_4209890.asp