SRI LANKA: TIGER LEADER'S ANNUAL MESSAGE GIVES

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 COLOMBO 002008

SIPDIS

STATE FOR SA/INS
USPACOM FOR FPA

E.O. 12958: DECL: 11/27/2015
TAGS: PTER PGOV CE LTTE
SUBJECT: SRI LANKA: TIGER LEADER'S ANNUAL MESSAGE GIVES
NEW GOVERNMENT LIMITED TIME FOR SETTLEMENT

REF: A. COLOMBO 1929

B. COLOMBO 2007

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

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SUMMARY
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1. (C) Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) leader
Velupillai Prabhakaran's annual Heroes' Day speech on
November 27, while less belligerent than many had feared, put
the new government of President Mahinda Rajapaksa on notice
that it must "come forward soon with a reasonable political
framework" or face an intensified LTTE "struggle for national
liberation" next year (probably a deliberately ambiguous
term). While simultaneously complaining that Tamils can
expect nothing from Sinhalese political leaders and that
Rajapaksa does not understand "the Tamil national question,"
Prabhakaran nonetheless concedes that that the Tigers will
wait to determine "how (the new President) is going to handle
the peace process." Tamil voters' "decision" to boycott the
November 17 presidential election, the Tiger top man alleges,
leaves Rajapaksa unable to claim that he represents the
minorities and exemplifies an ever-widening chasm "between
the Tamil and Sinhala nations." The long-anticipated address
contains several stand-by themes that have figured frequently
in Prabhakaran's Heroes' Day speeches in years past (lack of
consensus among southern politicians; Sinhalese politicians'
failure to address Tamil grievances; the mounting frustration
of Tamils living in no war/no peace limbo),along with a
renewed emphasis on appeals to the international community
for greater appreciation of the LTTE's position. Most
significant, the ultimatum issued this year closely resembles
a similar "move fast or else" message in the 2004 address--at
a time when Prabhakaran now claims to have been contemplating
a return to hostilities. Prabhakaran's address this year
breaks little new ground but appears to give Rajapaksa some
limited breathing space to make an overture on the peace
process. End summary.

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HEROES' DAY SPEECH:
RATTLES SOME SABERS, CALMS SOME NERVES
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2. (SBU) Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) leader
Velupillai Prabhakaran's much-anticipated annual Heroes' Day
speech on November 27 offered few surprises, largely covering
the same themes--the intractability of the Sinhalese south;
the failure of the peace process to rectify Tamil grievances;
the untenability of the current "no war/no peace" situation
rendered by the lack of a permanent settlement--highlighted
in previous annual speeches since the 2002 Ceasefire
Agreement (CFA). As in years past, after listing the many
purported reasons that Tamils should not trust the
government, the LTTE leader nonetheless announced that he is
giving the government one more chance. Many political
observers, noting the proximity of Heroes' Day to the
LTTE-mandated boycott of the November 17 presidential
election in the north and east, had feared that the Tiger
supremo would use the annual commemoration of the LTTE's
ongoing bid to win a Tamil homeland to ratchet up the
pressure on the new government of President Mahinda
Rajapaksa--perhaps by issuing a unilateral declaration of
independence and/or announcing an end to the CFA. Instead,
Prabhakaran's apparent decision to give Rajapaksa some
breathing space to see how "he is going to handle the peace
process" has allayed some of these concerns, at least for
now, and is being viewed positively by the new Prime Minister
(Ref B).


3. (SBU) As in other years since the CFA, Prabhakaran's
address contains a litany of excuses for the lack of progress
toward a permanent resolution of the conflict--all of which
lay exclusive blame on the politically divided Sinhala south.
Tamil hopes of gaining just redress of their long-standing
grievances by engaging in a peace process have not been
realized, Prabhakaran charged; as a result, "we are deeply
convinced that we cannot obtain justice from the Sinhala
political leadership," and have "lost faith" in the peace
process. Indeed, Prabhakaran admitted, the Tigers never
expected much from the peace process in the first place. In
a rare display of candor, the LTTE leader admitted that he
decided to engage in the peace process for purely
Machiavellian motives: "to secure legitimacy for our
liberation organization as the representative of our people";
to "win the support and sympathy of the international
community"; to highlight the unwillingness of "the Sinhala
racist ruling elites . . . (to) offer a reasonable political
solution"; and because the Tigers "were compelled by
unprecedented historical circumstances" (i.e., post-9/11
international condemnation of terrorism) to do so.

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P-TOMS CONTROVERSY,
"SHADOW WAR" PROMOTE DISTRUST
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4. (SBU) The inability of former President Chandrika
Kumaratunga to secure acceptance of the tsunami aid
coordinating mechanism (aka "P-TOMS") from Sinhalese
nationalists within her own government, Prabhakaran alleged,
confirmed Tamils' worst suspicions of southern intransigence:
"If there was so much opposition in southern Sri Lanka to a
simple provisional arrangement, then it is a daydream to
expect to secure a regional self-governing authority in the
Tamil homeland by negotiating with the Sinhala political
leadership." Besides the P-TOMS fiasco, Prabhakaran cited a
"shadow war being waged against our organization behind a
screen of peace" as further evidence of the "duplicity of the
Sinhala ruling elites." The government's failure to disarm
anti-LTTE paramilitaries used as proxies in this "strange low
intensity war" is "a serious war offense," Prabhakaran
claimed, which has rendered "the concepts of peace, ceasefire
and negotiations . . . meaningless" for Tamils. (He
conveniently omits any mention of LTTE participation in this
"shadow war"--including the August 12 assassination of late
Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar.)


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NOT OUR PRESIDENT--
BUT WE HEAR HE'S A REALIST
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5. (SBU) Increasingly frustrated by the failure of the
Sinhalese to address their concerns, the Tamil people
"decided" to boycott the November 17 presidential election,
Prabhakaran alleges, a move he characterized as "a serious
turning point" in the Tamil political consciousness. The
Tamil boycott effectively makes Rajapaksa a president
representing the Sinhalese Buddhist majority exclusively, who
"does not represent all the social formations of this
country," thus creating "a wide rift, politically, between
the Tamil and Sinhala nations," the LTTE leader claims.
While Rajapaksa may be in the process of consolidating
Sinhalese Buddhist supremacy in the south, Prabhakaran
suggests, the LTTE is conducting a parallel process in the
north and east, with the development of "a complex
administrative infrastructure of a shadow government." While
accusing the new leader of "the Sinhala nation" of not
understanding the fundamentals of "the Tamil national
question," Prabhakaran nonetheless observes that Rajapaksa
"is considered a realist committed to pragmatic politics."
Since Rajapaksa claims to have a "new approach to the peace
process," the LTTE has decided to "wait and observe, for
sometime," his political maneuvers and actions." If,
however, the new government does not "come forward soon with
a reasonable political framework that will satisfy the
aspirations of the Tamil people . . . we will, next year . .
.intensify our struggle for self-determination, our struggle
for national liberation to establish self-government in our
homeland." (Note: It is unclear whether "next year" means
the beginning of 2006, one year from the date of the speech,
or anytime in between. We suspect the Tigers are being
deliberately ambiguous.)

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WE WERE THIS CLOSE LAST YEAR
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6. (SBU) Decrying the "delaying tactics" employed by both
former Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and former
President Chandrika Kumaratunga on the peace front,
Prabhakaran accuses Sinhalese politicians on both sides of
the aisle of insincerity in pursuing a permanent settlement.
By the end of 2004 (or about the time of last year's Heroes'
Day address),the Tigers had "decided to resume our national
liberation struggle" and "were charting our action plan" when
they were interrupted by the tsunami, Prabhakaran reports.
(Note: Last year's Heroes' Day speech contains language
similar in many ways to this one, including a thinly veiled
ultimatum that, absent progress toward a settlement, the LTTE
will be forced "to advance the freedom struggle of our
nation.") Initial Tamil hopes for post-tsunami humanitarian
cooperation with the Sinhalese were dashed with the failure
of P-TOMS, however, Prabhakaran notes, quashing "the last
hope of the Tamil people."

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INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY:
TAKE NOTE
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7. (SBU) The 2005 address contains no fewer than 11
references to the international community--a measure of the
importance the LTTE places on international opinion and its
recognition of the need to improve its image after the August
12 assassination of Foreign Minister Kadirgamar and the
subsequent EU travel ban. Prabhakaran appeals to the
international community to heed several purported examples of
past Government double-dealing, e.g., former Prime Minister
Wickremesinghe's use of an international "safety net" to
stall negotiations; the defeat of P-TOMS by "Sinhala-Buddhist
chauvinism" despite overwhelming international support; and
the ongoing "shadow war" against the LTTE. In addition,
Prabhakaran calls on the international community to witness
the expansion and development of the "efficient" LTTE
administrative structure in the "Tamil homeland," while
objecting to the decision by "some international governments"
(e.g., the US and India) "to retain our organization on the
terrorist list." The Tiger supremo blames such "biased
positions taken by powerful nations acting as guardians of
the peace process" for being partially responsible for "the
collapse of the peace talks" in 2003.

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GLASS HALF-EMPTY OR HALF-FULL?
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8. (C) The local media took varying views of Prabhakaran's
speech, with the Tamil vernacular press inclined to
accentuate its more negative aspects and the Sinhala and
English news outlets generally taking a more benign view. As
reported Ref B, the new Prime Minister sees the address as a
hopeful sign. In a November 28 meeting, a Tamil National
Alliance (TNA) MP and Jaffna University professor in contact
with the LTTE told poloff that the speech should be viewed
positively. They asserted that Prabhakaran's address
reflected an LTTE assessment of Rajapaksa as a "pragmatist"
and "realist" capable of selling a permanent solution to the
Sinhalese masses--something neither Wickremesinghe nor
Kumaratunga could ever do. (Note: This assessment of the
new president tracks with the reported LTTE reaction to
Rajapaksa's initial back-channel overtures during the
campaign as "practical" (Ref A).)


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COMMENT
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9. (C) Some of our NGO contacts who know the Tigers have
told us that the LTTE, for all of its terrorist bravado,
remains deeply paranoid of being "taken in" by the more
sophisticated Wickremesinghe who, they reportedly feared,
would use his standing in the international community to draw
out peace talks while quietly undermining the Tigers'
military machine. These sources speculated that the Tigers
might prefer dealing with the less experienced Rajapaksa,
whom they expect to make some initial grand gesture to
jump-start the peace process, and whom--unlike
Wickremesinghe--they could paint as a racist and a hardliner.
Another possible reason for the Tigers' "support" to
Rajapaksa: his categorical dismissal of federalism as part
of a permanent solution. Skeptics of the Tigers' commitment
to the peace process (including this Embassy) suspect the
LTTE never wanted to accept federalism as a substitute for a
Tamil homeland. Now Rajapaksa has conveniently taken it off
the table.


10. (C) Comment (cont.): Given the wild speculation
preceding the Heroes' Day speech that Prabhakaran might
declare a Tamil homeland, end the ceasefire or take an
equally dramatic step, the apparent sense of relief on the
part of the Government is understandable. That said, while
the Tigers may have given Rajapaksa some breathing space, it
is of limited (and perhaps very short) duration and puts all
the burden of "satisfy(ing) the political aspirations of the
Tamil people" squarely on the new and inexperienced
President. That the language of this most recent ultimatum
tracks closely with that in the 2004 Heroes' Day speech--a
time when Prabhakaran now acknowledges he was actively
considering breaking off the CFA--is no cause for comfort.
Moreover, by claiming that the LTTE-enforced Tamil boycott of
the presidential election makes Rajapaksa the leader of the
Sinhalese Buddhists alone, Prabhakaran may be laying the
groundwork for an eventual case to the international
community that the new president can never represent Tamil
interests and is a racist incapable of sincere negotiations.
This latest installment in the compendium of Heroes' Day
addresses seems to signal little more than that the Tigers
are lying in wait, keeping their options open.
LUNSTEAD