Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
04COLOMBO109
2004-01-21 11:18:00
CONFIDENTIAL
Embassy Colombo
Cable title:  

President's party signs pact with radical JVP;

Tags:  PGOV PINS PINR PHUM CE NO 
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C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 COLOMBO 000109 

SIPDIS

DEPARTMENT FOR SA, SA/INS, INR/NESA; NSC FOR E. MILLARD

PLEASE ALSO PASS TOPEC

E.O. 12958: DECL: 01/21/14
TAGS: PGOV PINS PINR PHUM CE NO
SUBJECT: President's party signs pact with radical JVP;
Key JVP leader based in UK on rare visit to Sri Lanka

Refs: (A) Colombo-SA/INS 01/20/04 fax

- (B) Colombo 103, and previous

(U) Classified by James F. Entwistle, Deputy Chief of
Mission. Reasons 1.5 (b,d).

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 COLOMBO 000109

SIPDIS

DEPARTMENT FOR SA, SA/INS, INR/NESA; NSC FOR E. MILLARD

PLEASE ALSO PASS TOPEC

E.O. 12958: DECL: 01/21/14
TAGS: PGOV PINS PINR PHUM CE NO
SUBJECT: President's party signs pact with radical JVP;
Key JVP leader based in UK on rare visit to Sri Lanka

Refs: (A) Colombo-SA/INS 01/20/04 fax

- (B) Colombo 103, and previous

(U) Classified by James F. Entwistle, Deputy Chief of
Mission. Reasons 1.5 (b,d).


1. (C) SUMMARY: Amid fanfare, President Kumaratunga's
SLFP party and the radical JVP formally entered into a
political alliance on January 20. The alliance is
basically an electoral pact, but an MOU attacking the
GSL's handling of the peace track was also agreed to.
In a related development, Somawansa Amarasinghe, a key
JVP leader and noted hard-liner based in the UK (see
bio-data in Para 10),is making a rare visit to Sri
Lanka. While some observers believe the pact is
inherently shaky, there is renewed speculation that
parliamentary elections may be in the offing. END
SUMMARY.


2. (SBU) PACT SIGNED: As flagged in Ref B, President
Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga's Sri Lanka Freedom
Party (SLFP) and the radical Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna
(JVP) party formally entered into a political alliance
called the "United People's Freedom Alliance" on
January 20. (The SLFP is the core constituent element
in the President's People's Alliance, "PA," grouping.)
The pact was signed amid considerable fanfare and at "an
auspicious hour" at a ceremony in a conference hall in
Colombo. The ceremony was televised live on state-owned
television and was broadcast on radio. The high point
of the ceremony was the signing of the SLFP/JVP
"Memorandum of Understanding" (MOU) which is reviewed
below. Maithripala Sirisena, chief of the SLFP, and
Tilvin Silva, General Secretary of the JVP, signed the
document on behalf of their respective parties. (For
reasons that are unclear, President Kumaratunga did not
attend the ceremony.) In his speech, Sirisena said the
SLFP supported peace with the Tamil Tigers, but opposed
how the GSL was handling the peace process. Silva,
meanwhile, condemned the GSL on various fronts in much
harsher terms and also paid homage to Rohana Wijeweera,

the JVP founder who was killed during the JVP's 1987-89
insurrection.


3. (SBU) None of the speeches at the ceremony mentioned
the Norwegian government's peace facilitation role,
which has been on hold pending resolution of the
cohabitation impasse between the President and the Prime
Minister. The MOU also did not mention Norway. At a
January 21 joint SLFP/JVP news conference, however,
Mangala Samaraweera, a senior PA MP, stated that
"Norway's role has been questioned by many. We will
reconsider the role of Norway." Tilvin Silva of the JVP
also piped in to say that he did not think Norway had
any role in the peace process.


4. (SBU) (Note: Although Buddhist, Hindu, and Muslim
prelates attended the ceremony, Christian clergy did
not, though they seem to have been invited. The fact
that Christian clergy did not attend could be a
reflection of their concerns about recent attacks on
churches, but Catholic and Protestant leaders made no
public announcement to that effect.)


5. (SBU) BASICALLY AN ELECTORAL PACT: At its root, the
SLFP/JVP political alliance is an electoral pact. As
envisaged by its sponsors in the SLFP and JVP, the pact
will allow the two left-leaning parties to run a joint
slate of candidates in parliamentary elections.
(Parliamentary elections are due by December 2006, but
there is renewed speculation that the signing of the
pact indicates that the President may call them much
sooner than that -- see Para 9.) By running on a joint
slate, the two parties hope to combine their vote vis-a-
vis the governing United National Party (UNP) coalition
and thus take those seats allocated on a "district"
basis. (In Sri Lanka, most parliamentary seats are
allocated on a proportional representation basis, but
"bonus seats" are awarded to the party that wins each of
Sri Lanka's 25 districts and there are also "national
list" seats. The UNP coalition won most of these
"district" seats in the December 2001 election and was
able to form the government, although its vote total
nationally was only roughly equal to that won by the PA
plus the JVP.) Per the signing of the pact, the two
parties could also run joint slates during the
Provincial Council elections slated to take place in
April, but it is not known whether they plan to do so.


6. (SBU) MOU BLASTS PEACE TRACK: The MOU signed by the
two parties (see Ref A for text) blasted the
government's handling of the peace process in no
uncertain terms, stating:

"The ethnic question of Sri Lanka has taken an
undesirable turn since the formation of the UNP
government. In the name of the aspirations of all our
peoples for an honorable and durable peace, the UNP has
set out on a path toward a separatist `Eelamist' state."

That said, the MOU supports trying to achieve a
negotiated settlement with the Tamil Tigers. In a stark
commentary on the historical difference between the two
parties' positioning on the matter, however, the MOU
also explicitly noted that the SLFP supports the concept
of "devolution" as a means of settling the dispute,
while the JVP only supports "administrative
decentralization...within a unitary state."


7. (SBU) The MOU also contained the following
highlights:

-- Economy: The MOU criticized the GSL's handling of
the economy, stating, in part: "The economic policies
of the UNP are determined by the lending agencies with
scant regard for local priorities and the aspirations of
the people...The poor are called upon to bear the brunt
of these policies."

-- Human Rights: The MOU asserts that the UNP
government has systematically murdered 60 SLFP activists
and done harm to 3,000 others. (Note: These figures
are wildly inflated.)

-- Foreign Policy: In a glancing blow aimed at the U.S.
and the UNP government's generally pro-U.S. policies,
the MOU states: "Our foreign policy which was based on
regional cooperation and mutual respect has been
replaced by one of servitude and the absence of national
dignity."

-- "Five Noble Objectives": The MOU also contains a
hortatory statement reviewing "Five Noble Objectives"
involving: (1) the Economy; (2) "Ethnic Harmony;" (3)
"Strengthening Democracy;" (4) Cultural Policy; and (5)
Foreign Policy. (In a clear nod to Sinhalese Buddhism,
the "Cultural Policy" segment includes a call "to halt
the rapid erosion of social values and direct society
toward cultural rejuvenation.")


8. (C) KEY JVP LEADER MAKES VISIT: In a related
development, Somawansa Amarasinghe, a key JVP leader
based in the UK and a hard-liner, arrived in Sri Lanka
on January 20 for a visit (see bio-data in Para 10).
The exact nature of Amarasinghe's rare visit is not
clear (his last visit was in late 2001) and he did not
attend the SLFP/JVP signing ceremony on January 20.
Since his arrival, however, he has been involved in
meetings with other JVP officials and has been giving
some media interviews.

9. (C) COMMENT: The pact signed on January 20 took
almost a year to conclude, with the President mulling
over the matter for months before giving it her
blessing. This is in fact the second time that the two
parties have signed a pact: in September 2001, the JVP
agreed to support the then-PA government in Parliament.
That pact collapsed about a month later when the PA
government fell and elections were called. The
September 2001 deal was shaky and this latest pact may
be shaky, too. Minister Milinda Moragoda told the
Ambassador today that he thought the two parties would
get into serious arguments about seat allotments in
Parliament down the line. He added that he did not see
how a party "run by a family" (the SLFP) could
realistically align for long with an ideologically
driven party like the Marxist JVP. That said, the
signing of the pact has led to renewed speculation that
parliamentary elections may be in the offing. Moragoda
did not appear too concerned about that possibility.
Other observers, however, believe the President may
think that the pact provides her party its best chance
to defeat the UNP in elections, while also giving her
leverage over the PM during the ongoing cohabitation
dispute. END COMMENT.


10. (C) Bio-Data on Somawansa Amarasinghe:
Amarasinghe, 59, had been in exile in Europe for 12
years until he was allowed to return to Sri Lanka in
late 2001. Now living in the UK, he is the last
surviving member of the JVP "Politburo" involved in
launching the failed 1987-89 insurrection against the
Sri Lankan government. In that role, he was a close
associate of Rohana Wijeweera, the slain JVP leader, who
led the 1987-89 revolt and an earlier revolt in 1971.
Amarasinghe's current role in the JVP is not precisely
clear, but he is treated as a major leader of the party.
He is known to be a hard-liner, who spouts Marxist
rhetoric. Earning a reputation as a Sinhalese
extremist, he also has regularly condemned the GSL's
peace process policies. When he returned to Sri Lanka
in 2001, he gave a number of speeches for the JVP during
that year's parliamentary election campaign. His
speeches were long and verbose, and were not well-
received. He is a Sinhalese Buddhist and hails from the
town of Wadduwa, located about 35 kilometers south of
Colombo. He is thought to be related to Wimal
Wimalwansa and Nandana Goonetillake, two JVP MPs. End
Bio-Data. He is thought to be a widower.


11. (U) Minimize considered.

LUNSTEAD