In meeting with the Ambassador and other local

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 COLOMBO 002179

SIPDIS

DEPARTMENT FOR D, SA, SA/INS, EUR/NB, EAP/J, INR/NESA
DEPARTMENT PLEASE ALSO PASS TOPEC

E.O. 12958: DECL: 12-24-13
TAGS: PGOV PREL PINS CE NO JA EU LTTE
SUBJECT: In meeting with the Ambassador and other local
envoys, PM urges that Tokyo co-chairs meet at high-level

Refs: (A) Colombo - SA/INS 12/24/03 class e-mail

- (B) Colombo 2160
- (C) Colombo 2119, and previous

(U) Classified by Ambassador Jeffrey J. Lunstead.
Reasons 1.5 (b, d).


1. (C) SUMMARY: The Ambassador joined other local
co-chairs of the Tokyo process in a meeting called by
the Prime Minister late December 23. The PM
expressed his concerns about an official gazette
notification recently approved by the President that
re-arranged responsibilities among the three
ministries she took over in early November (Defense,
Interior, Mass Communications -- the President also
renamed the latter two ministries). The PM wondered
whether the President's action signaled her view that
there was no use for further cohabitation talks and
he urged the co-chairs to hold a high-level meeting
outside of Sri Lanka soon to put pressure on her.
When asked about the notification, presidential
advisers insisted that no political message was meant
and that the President still supports cohabitation
talks. We are not sure whether a high-level meeting
would be wise or practical at this time. In the
near-term, as reviewed in Refs B-C, we think that the
proposed separate letters to the two principals from
the Secretary, followed by a statement issued by
Colombo Chiefs of Mission co-chairs in early January,
could play a useful role. END SUMMARY.

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Gazette Notice on Ministries
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2. (C) Ambassador Lunstead joined other co-chairs of
the Tokyo process (Japan, Norway, Italy/EU) in a
meeting called by Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe
late December 23. Minister Milinda Moragoda, a close
confidant of the PM, was also present. At the start
of the meeting, the PM handed out an official gazette
notification issued in the name of President
Kumaratunga dated December 19. He said he had just
received a copy of the document earlier in the day
and had not been briefed on it by the President.
(Until the PM handed it out, none of the co-chairs
had yet seen it either. The notice, the text of
which is contained in Ref A, received front-page
coverage in the local press on December 24.) The PM
remarked that he was very surprised by the notice's
contents, which were confusing to him. The notice,
for example, announced the formation of a new
ministerial position called "Minister of Internal
Security" (formerly "Interior") which would be
responsible for police functions alone. (The name
"Internal Security Minister" has not been used in Sri
Lanka before.) In addition, the Defense Minister
spot had folded into it new responsibilities such as
prisons, the census, and immigration/emigration. The
folding of such departments into Defense did not make
much sense to him, the PM remarked. (Mission also
noticed that the former "Minister of Mass
Communications" position had been renamed "Minister
of Information and Telecommunications." FYI: All
three ministerial positions -- Defense, Internal
Security, and Information/Telecommunications --
remain in the President's hands.)

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PM Urges a High-Level Meeting of Co-Chairs
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3. (C) The PM said he was not sure exactly what the
President was trying to accomplish by issuing the
gazette notification. He wondered whether it was a
shot across his bow, i.e., a message that the
cohabitation talks were not working and that she
planned to take more steps without consulting the PM
from now on. He noted that the talks in any case
were not going well and he doubted they would
succeed. (The "committee" talks are technically on
hold, as Mano Tittawella and Malik Samarawickrama,
the President's and PM's chief delegates to the
talks, respectively, are on holiday.) The PM noted
that the two sides remain at loggerheads over how to
deal with the Defense Ministry. The President wants
to keep the ministerial title, but has offered to
give some functions related to the peace process to
the PM. He regards this as unworkable. The PM said
it remained his firm view that control of military
functions had to be returned to his government, or
the GSL could not successfully move forward with the
peace process. However, the President could "keep
the nameplate," he said. Queried as to whether
elections were more likely now, the PM said that as
far as he understood the President did not want
elections. (Under the Sri Lankan Constitution, only
the President can dissolve Parliament and call
elections.)


4. (C) Given the ongoing impasse, and concerns over
the new gazette notification, the PM requested that
the co-chairs convene a high-level meeting to take
place soon outside of Sri Lanka. The express purpose
of the meeting would be to pressure the President to
negotiate and to resolve the crisis, the PM said. In
response, Japanese Ambassador Akio Suda was negative
about the idea. He said he would review the matter
with Tokyo, but the GSL should consider whether it
really wanted to send a message to the rest of the
international community that "it could not solve its
own problems." Norwegian Ambassador Hans Brattskar
was more supportive of the idea. (Per Ref B, Norway
has previously expressed interest in having a high-
level meeting at some point in the January/February
timeframe to discuss how to handle development and
humanitarian assistance in light of the ongoing
impasse.) The PM noted that he planned to be out of
Colombo from December 26-30, and suggested that there
be another chat with the co-chairs on December 31.

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President's Aides: "We Support Cohabitation Talks"
-------------- --------------


5. (C) On December 24, Mission spoke with aides to
President Kumaratunga and discussed the gazette
notification. Harim Peiris, one of the President's
press spokesmen, told us that she was not aiming to send
any political signal by issuing the notice -- "It was
merely an administrative act and nothing else." When
queried about the timing, he replied that the gazette
notification had been planned for some time and when the
formalities were completed, it was issued. Peiris said
the President still supported the cohabitation talks and
wanted to see them succeed. She hoped that the
Tittawella/Samarawickrama committee could meet soon
after the end of the holiday season. In a separate
conversation, Eric Fernando, another close assistant to
the President, mirrored Peiris' comments, stressing that
the President still supported efforts to end the
cohabitation crisis amicably.

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COMMENT
--------------


6. (C) We are not sure whether the high-level meeting
idea proposed by the PM would be wise or practical at
this time. (This is probably what Moragoda will raise
with the Deputy Secretary in Washington on Monday.) The
PM seems to think that a high-level meeting of the co-
chairs would necessarily redound to his benefit. That
might well not be the case, however, as any statement by
the co-chairs would have to be roughly equivalent in
nature, or it probably would exacerbate the cohabitation
dispute and not help resolve it. (FYI: We do not see
the President's gazette notification as the casus belli
the PM believes it is. That said, its timing was
unfortunate, as it shows a certain lack of good faith on
the President's part and some parts of it, like putting
prisons and immigration under Defense, are odd.) In the
near-term, as reviewed in Refs B-C, we continue to think
that the proposed separate letters to the two principals
from the Secretary, followed by a statement issued by
the Colombo Chiefs of Mission co-chairs in early
January, could play a useful role. END COMMENT.


7. (U) Minimize considered.

LUNSTEAD