Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
04COLOMBO1563
2004-09-20 11:26:00
CONFIDENTIAL
Embassy Colombo
Cable title:  

SRI LANKA: GOVERNMENT LOSING MOMENTUM, CEDING

Tags:  PGOV PTER PHUM ASEC CE LTTE 
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This record is a partial extract of the original cable. The full text of the original cable is not available.
C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 05 COLOMBO 001563 

SIPDIS

STATE FOR SA/INS
NSC FOR DORMANDY

E.O. 12958: DECL: 09/18/2014
TAGS: PGOV PTER PHUM ASEC CE LTTE
SUBJECT: SRI LANKA: GOVERNMENT LOSING MOMENTUM, CEDING
INITIATIVE IN STATIC PEACE PROCESS

REF: A. COLOMBO 1526


B. COLOMBO 1521

C. COLOMBO 1558

Classified By: AMB. JEFFREY J. LUNSTEAD. REASON: 1.4 (B,D).

-------
SUMMARY
--------

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 05 COLOMBO 001563

SIPDIS

STATE FOR SA/INS
NSC FOR DORMANDY

E.O. 12958: DECL: 09/18/2014
TAGS: PGOV PTER PHUM ASEC CE LTTE
SUBJECT: SRI LANKA: GOVERNMENT LOSING MOMENTUM, CEDING
INITIATIVE IN STATIC PEACE PROCESS

REF: A. COLOMBO 1526


B. COLOMBO 1521

C. COLOMBO 1558

Classified By: AMB. JEFFREY J. LUNSTEAD. REASON: 1.4 (B,D).

--------------
SUMMARY
--------------


1. (C) President Chandrika Kumaratunga's five-month-old
government has so far proven unable to regain the momemtum
lost in the peace process since the Liberation Tigers of
Tamil Eelam (LTTE) walked out of negotiations with her
predecessor's government in April 2003. Without encouraging
signs of progress toward resuming talks, other disturbing
developments, such as intra-factional LTTE violence in the
East, activism by Sinhalese chauvinists, and the President's
increasing preoccupation with her uncertain political future,
are fueling a popular impression that the nineteen-month-long
ceasefire is in jeopardy. Kumaratunga must mobilize public
support for peace and forestall chauvinist efforts against a
political resolution to the conflict. The U.S. can assist in
several ways, including by galvanizing opinion in the
international community, urging support among contacts in the
Tamil diaspora in the U.S., and highlighting the benefits of
peace in our programs. That said, the real impetus to
reinvigorate the stalled peace process--and the political
will to carry it through--obviously has to come from
Kumaratunga herself. If she doesn't act--and act
quickly--she risks ceding the initiative to other, more
decisive players, like the LTTE and the chauvinist Janatha
Vimukti Peramuna (JVP),whose agendas and aims differ
radically and unhelpfully from her own. End summary.

--------------
GOVERNMENT YIELDS INITIATIVE;
PEACE PROCESS LOSES MOMENTUM
--------------


2. (C) Since winning the election in April with a firm
commitment to re-energize the stalled peace process,
President Chandrika Kumaratunga has so far proven unable to
mobilize support within her own government--let alone the
general public--on a negotiating stance from which to resume
talks, suspended since April 2003, with the Liberation Tigers

of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). Instead, much of the time and energy
she has expended in the five months of her administration
seem aimed at shoring up her own position as leader of a
fractious coalition government, the largest partner of which
is the Janatha Vimukti Peramuna (JVP),whose members' radical
left-wing, pro-nationalist politics are largely out of sync
with the President's more moderate Sri Lanka Freedom Party
(SLFP). In particular, the JVP's vociferous opposition to
re-opening negotiations based on discussion of the LTTE's
proposed interim administration for the north and east has
complicated progress toward resuming dialogue. While the
President has often reiterated her willingness to restart
talks with the Tigers, conflicting statements on important
issues, including the peace process, issued by members of her
Cabinet undercut those commitments, contributing to an
impression of disarray within the government and furnishing
the Tigers an easy pretext for continued stonewalling. With
her own political survival dependent on maintaining the
precarious coalition, the President seems unwilling to rock
her shaky ship of state by pressing for consensus on
reopening negotiations.


3. (C) Even the Norwegian facilitators agree the peace
process needs reinvigoration. The September 14-17 visit of
Special Envoy Erik Solheim saw no new initiatives from either
side (Ref C). According to the Norwegian Ambassador, the
visit was intended more at maintaining the ceasefire, which
the Norwegians see as increasingly under threat, than at
jump-starting talks, which they view as a more remote
prospect in the near term.

--------------
LTTE: "CLEANING HOUSE" IN THE EAST
--------------


4. (C) The Government's seeming lack of focus contrasts
sharply with other players--most notably, the LTTE and the
JVP (themselves former practitioners of the art of armed
insurgency). The activities of both--targeted killings by
the Tigers and Sinhala nationalist hardlining by the
JVP--help contribute to a popular impression that the
ceasefire is in peril. The LTTE continues to use the
comparative quiet of the ceasefire to seal up the fissure in
its once-monolithic facade wrought by the March defection of
Karuna, its former Eastern military commander, by
assassinating political opponents and Karuna supporters in
the East and elsewhere.


5. (C) However short-lived Karuna's formal rebellion, his
break with LTTE headquarters highlighted long-simmering
frictions between northern "Jaffna" Tamils, who make up most
of the Tiger leadership, and their poorer Eastern cousins,
who comprise most of the front-line foot soldiers and, at
least according to Karuna, absorbed many of the casualties in
battle. Whether grounded in fact or not, the reports of
such regional tensions clearly challenge the LTTE's
long-standing claim to represent all Tamils and, thus, to an
"Eelam" ("homeland") in both the north and east. The
sensationalist (and likely unfounded) claim by anti-LTTE
Eelam People's Democratic Party (EPDP) leader and Government
Minister Douglas Devananda to be assisting Karuna in
launching a political party further antagonized the Tigers.
Karuna's unprecedented desertion has rattled the LTTE
leadership, which is now focused on reasserting unchallenged
control of the East. As a result, the Tigers are replacing
many of the eastern cadres (who have either deserted, died,
or are now distrusted) with more reliable counterparts from
the north. The influx of hard-core, well-armed cadres from
the north, the remnants of pro-Karuna supporters still hiding
in scattered outposts, the interference of the EPDP, and
rumors of Sri Lankan Army complicity in aiding the Karuna
faction have made the security situation in the ever-volatile
East more fragile than ever. Residents and aid workers in
Batticaloa report that stepped-up Government of Sri Lanka
(GSL) checkpoints (which subject Tamils to greater scrutiny
and more intensive searches) are exacerbating ethnic tensions
and contributing to a feeling that the ceasefire is
unraveling in the East.


6. (C) Absent other developments in the deadlocked peace
process, the Tigers' repeated and flagrant violations of the
Ceasefire Agreement--which add up to at least 37
assassinations since July--dominate the news. As long as the
Tigers feel uncertain of their grip on the East--and thus the
legitimacy of their claim to a Tamil Eelam--conventional
wisdom holds that they are unlikely to resume negotiations.
In the public perception, the Tigers are making all the gains
in the East, while the GSL, along with the Nordic-sponsored
Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) and Norwegian
facilitators, are doing nothing to rein them in. The Tigers
have dismissed SLMM complaints on the killings by claiming
that since most of the assassinations occurred in
government-controlled territory, they are the responsibility
(and hence the fault) of the GSL. The Sri Lankan Army,
perhaps in an effort to avert such criticism, has complained
to the SLMM that the Tigers are building new camps in the
east in violation of the Ceasefire Agreement. (Note:
According to SLMM Deputy Hagrup Hauckland, the camps are not
new, and the Sri Lankan military knows it. He conceded,
however, that Tiger positions in Trincomalee--presumably
already in place at the time of the ceasefire--dominate
strategic views of the harbor and give the GSL legitimate
cause for concern. End note.) The LTTE, moreover,
continues to delay SLMM-brokered meetings with Sri Lankan
military authorities in the East to address these and other
concerns.

--------------
JVP: RAISING THE FLAG AND
RAISING THEIR PROFILE IN THE EAST
--------------


7. (C) While the LTTE continues its mopping-up operations in
the East, the JVP is trying to energize public opinion
against talks on an interim administration for the north and
east. In the absence of an active pro-peace (and
pro-dialogue) campaign from the GSL, the JVP is using its
formidable grass-roots organization to galvanize opposition
to the LTTE's proposal and to press for a "de-merger" of the
north and east. To this end, the one-time revolutionaries
have now recast themselves as ardent patriots fighting
against the proposed dismemberment of the Sri Lankan nation,
and are attempting to expand their traditional base in the
predominantly Sinhalese south to the more ethnically diverse
west and east, particularly among the Muslim community. They
are making some gains: the April election secured them an MP
slot in the eastern district of Trincomalee and a seat for a
female Muslim MP in the Western district of Gampaha.


8. (C) The JVP sees the East, with its Muslim majority, as
particularly fertile ground for its "de-merger" message.
(The deeply splintered Muslim political leadership, which has
now subdivided into at least four separate but equally
impotent parties, has done little to oppose the JVP's
inroads.) The Tigers' "concept of Eelam is finished now
because of what is happening (as a result of Karuna's
defection) in the East," JVP leader Somawansa Amarasinghe
recently claimed to us. To capitalize on this, JVP members
have started a community action organization called
"Awakening in the East" to drum up support among Sinhalese
and Muslim electorates for a "de-merger." Although
"Awakening" can claim few adherents thus far, it may gain
ground if the Sinhalese and Muslim populations in the East
continue to feel overlooked by the GSL and their own
political leadership. The party is also trying to tap into
resentment within the Sinhalese community in the East. On
September 9-10 the JVP led a two-day strike in Trincomalee to
protest the August 18 abduction of two Sinhalese home guards
by the Tigers. According to media reports and sources in the
JVP, on September 12 the JVP MP from Trincomalee, learning
that the LTTE had forbidden the Sri Lankan flag from being
flown at an official ceremony to inaugurate a new district
court building, crashed the program and raised the flag in
defiance of the Tiger diktat. While what actually happened
may differ somewhat from the media's account (the Secretary
of Justice, for one, disputed the JVP's version of events to
us),the incident attracted widespread and favorable
mainstream coverage for the JVP. The intended message to the
public is clear: only the JVP is brave enough to take on the
Tigers in the East.

--------------
TIGERS SINCERE OR STONEWALLING?
--------------


9. (C) The Tigers' continued ceasefire violations and
their refusal to be flexible on the agenda for negotiations
raise questions about the sincerity of their claims to want a
political resolution to the conflict. While their long-term
objectives may be in doubt, however, it seems unlikely to us
that the Tigers are contemplating a return to full-scale
hostilities anytime soon. The loss of Karuna's cadres has
undoubtedly depleted the LTTE's fighting force; the Tigers'
continued recruitment of children may reflect an attempt to
fill that gap. The LTTE, moreover, likely views their grip
on the East as still too uncertain to risk reopening the
conflict at this time. Instead, the Tigers will likely
continue to exploit the ceasefire to serve their immediate
goals: eliminating political opposition; re-establishing
control in the East; developing parallel civil
administrations in the north and east; amassing funds from
"taxes" on roads and businesses that would close if the
conflict resumed; gaining international goodwill (and
donations from a sympathetic Tamil diaspora); and, most
important, seeing how much the GSL will cede through
negotiations. The GSL's internal disarray suits those
purposes well, and the Tigers may be in no rush to change the
dynamic--and give Kumaratunga's leadership a boost--either by
agreeing to negotiations or by resuming the conflict.

--------------
WHO'S IN CHARGE HERE?
--------------

10. (C) While few doubt President Kumaratunga's personal
commitment to achieving a negotiated resolution to the
conflict, many doubt her ability to do so under current
circumstances. Her well-known tendency to micro-manage the
most important roles in the government--even if she has
neither the time nor the expertise to execute them--combined
with her equally well-known penchant for procrastination may
be her greatest liabilities. Distrustful and wary of others,
she has difficulty sharing information and delegating real
responsibility to more capable technocrats, like Jayantha
Dhanapala of the Peace Secretariat. As a result, those who
should be working most closely with the President on the
peace process, like Dhanapala, Foreign Minister Kadirgamar or
even Prime Minister Rajapakse, often admit they are not privy
to the President's thinking. With no one else really in
charge of the peace process--and with the President herself
preoccupied with maintaining the fragile coalition that keeps
her in power--the GSL appears too distracted and too divided
to develop a coherent strategy to revive negotiations. The
vacuum has allowed the anti-peace lobby, fueled by Sinhala
chauvinists like the Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU) and the JVP,
to grow more vocal. With no public relations campaign to
highlight the benefits of peace, the GSL has done little so
far to repudiate those claims.


11. (C) The President must refocus her scattered attention
on the peace process or risk ceding center stage to the
Tigers, the JVP or Opposition. She can help rectify the
deteriorating security situation in the East by instructing
the Sri Lankan Army to step up patrols in
government-controlled territory (and, perhaps, by ensuring
the military has ceased support to the Karuna faction). As
Peace Secretariat head Jayantha Dhanapala suggested, she
could orchestrate a comprehensive public relations campaign
on the benefits of the peace process (Ref A). As Norwegian
Special Envoy Solheim recommended, she could make a
unilateral offer to consider the LTTE-proposed interim
administration as a starting point for negotiations (Ref C).
Such a position would pre-empt Tiger stonewalling on
restarting dialogue while leaving open the possibility of
considering other proposals on a "final arrangement," thereby
neutralizing criticism from the JVP and other pro-nationalist
groups. If the JVP and other coalition partners support the
initiative, Opposition Leader Ranil Wickremesinghe has
indicated the United National Party (UNP) would likely
support it as well (Ref B).



12. (C) The lack of recent progress on the peace front is
creating a public impression of GSL inertia and
indecisiveness, and allowing less encouraging developments,
like the violence in the East and the JVP's anti-negotiating
stance, to dominate the landscape. The President must
reclaim the initiative on the peace process and mobilize
public support for negotiations. A unilateral move to reopen
talks would put pressure on the Tigers to stop stonewalling
and force the JVP to come clean on support for the peace
process. Such a step is politically risky for the President,
however, whose short-term interests rest on retaining the JVP
as a coalition partner. Whether she decides to take the
"bold step" recommended by the Norwegians (Ref C) or wait for
greater clarity on the domestic political front, the
appearance of GSL inaction has clearly become a liability.

--------------
WHAT THE U.S. CAN DO
--------------


13. (C) In the longer term, the U.S. can assist the GSL
reinvigorate the peace process in a number of ways. Through
diplomatic channels in Colombo and Washington, we can help
galvanize international support for GSL efforts, encouraging
the international community to speak with one voice in
condemning Tiger terror. As suggested by Dhanapala, we can
reach out to influential members of the Tamil diaspora in the
U.S. for their help in prodding the Tigers back to the table
(Ref A). Periodic public statements, like that issued by the
Department on August 16, and high-level visits, like that of
Counterterrorism Coordinator Ambassador Cofer Black
(September 6-9),keep the pressure on the LTTE to renounce
terrorism. We can redouble our ongoing efforts to
emphasize, through a public relations campaign of our own,
the "peace dividends" provided by increased foreign
investment opportunities and by USAID programs specifically
linked to the peace process. We should also continue to
encourage the main Opposition UNP to play a responsible role
and support the President's peace attempts.


14. (C) In the short term, the President must either co-opt
the JVP into supporting her or move ahead without them. We
can help by making clear to her that she will have U.S.
support if she is willing to take chances for peace and that
the U.S. remains committed to the sovereignty and territorial
integrity of Sri Lanka. If the Secretary were to make this
point when they meet at the UNGA, it could have tremendous
impact.
LUNSTEAD