SRI LANKAN OPPOSITION LEADER GIVES FRANK

C O N F I D E N T I A L COLOMBO 000136 SIPDIS SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 01/24/2016 TAGS: PGOV PREL PTER CE SUBJECT: SRI LANKAN OPPOSITION LEADER GIVES FRANK ASSESSMENT ON PEACE AND DIPLOMACY TO UNDERSECRETARY BURNS Classified By: Ambassador Jeffrey J. Lunstead. For reasons 1.4 (B&D) ¶1. (C) SUMMARY: On January 23 Under Secretary Burns and Ambassador Lunstead met with United National Party (UNP) leader and former Prime Minister and presidential contender Ranil Wickremesinghe. Wickremesinghe thanked U/S Burns for showing support for Sri Lanka and the peace process. The veteran opposition leader feared that Sri Lanka was sliding back to war due to President Rajapaksa's extremist political allies in the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) and Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU). He claimed that the January 20 all party conference had achieved a consensus that President Rajapaksa not try to renegotiate the Cease-Fire Agreement (CFA) and that any future solution should be based on the Oslo principles. He worried that the military was starting to carry out offensive operations and claimed that paramilitary groups were operating with full government knowledge. Wickremesinghe doubted that Sri Lanka would do more than abstain in any upcoming International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) vote against Iran. The UNP leader recommended that the stakeholders in the peace process needed two plans: one to rescue the CFA and one on how Sri Lanka would emerge from an upcoming conflict. END SUMMARY. Greasing the Skids for War -------------- ¶2. (C) Former Sri Lankan Prime Minister and failed UNP presidential candidate Ranil Wickremesinghe met with U/S Burns and Ambassador Lunstead on January 23. U/S Burns repeated Secretary Rice,s support for the Government of Sri Lanka (GSL) efforts to return to negotiations and said that the USG recognizes the difficulty of the current situation. He underscored the importance of the GSL continuing to hold the diplomatic and moral high ground as well as exercising restraint in the face of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam,s (LTTE) provocations. U/S Burns said that Norway and the United States would make a joint statement following his meeting with Erik Solheim later that day. The opposition leader saw both the GSL and the LTTE sliding back to full-scale war. He believes that the LTTE is carrying out a long-term plan, albeit interrupted by the 2004 tsunami, to force a resolution by any means and that the LTTE-enforced boycott of the November 17 presidential election was designed to ensure the rise of Rajapaksa and JVP and JHU hardliners. He believes that any anti-LTTE backlash among the Tamils has been overshadowed by their resentment of the administration,s heavy-handed tactics. He thinks that the LTTE is using a combined intifada and direct attack strategy to make the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) overreact and galvanize the Tamil population. He claimed that the large explosion on January 21 in an LTTE-controlled area of Mannar district was the work of an SLA deep penetration patrol targeting LTTE political head S.P. Thamilchelvan (note: high-level government sources have denied the military had anything to do with this still-murky incident). Wickremesinghe was perplexed as to the timing of the attack so close to the visits of U/S Burns and Norwegian peace envoy Solheim. He believed that the January 23 attack in Batticaloa that killed three SLA soldiers was an LTTE reply, a move that would only harden positions. When asked about the readiness of the SLA, Wickremesinghe opined that the SLA was weak, having ignored his advice to restructure over the last several years. He felt supply lines of the 40,000 troops garrisoning Jaffna were particularly vulnerable to seaborne attack and that the GSL was down to one fast attack craft. He believed that recent bombings were designed to force the military to re-deploy troops while leaving other areas vulnerable. ¶3. (C) The January 20 all-party conference was intended to help President Rajapaksa achieve his "southern consensus." According to Wickremesinghe, the consensus was that the President could agree to Oslo as a venue for talks, that the CFA must be implemented, not re-negotiated, and that the "principles of Oslo" would be the road map for a negotiated settlement. Wickremesinghe recommended that the co-chairs and the Indian government give a hard talk to the GSL prior to the start of talks. When asked by U/S Burns the way forward for Sri Lanka, Wickremesinghe replied that there must be two plans, one to rescue the CFA and a second plan on how to emerge from a possible new war. He also added that he thought that U/S Burns' idea of a co-chairs meeting in the region in February would be a very good idea, assuming that the CFA was still holding. 800-Pound Guerilla -------------- ¶4. (C) Wickremesinghe predicts that the overriding theme of any talks with the LTTE will be section 1.8 of the CFA, the disarming of paramilitary forces. Although no paramilitary groups are named in the CFA and the agreement pre-dates the LTTE-Karuna schism, it is the renegade Colonel Karuna that is the thorn in the Tiger's paw. Wickremesinghe said that there were clear links between the SLA and the Karuna faction. He claimed that the LTTE has sleeper agents in some of Karuna's cells. When asked if these could be rogue Army operations, he flatly stated that there are no rogue operations in the SLA and that the use of paramilitaries is known as high as the Defense Secretary, the president's brother Gothabaya Rajapaksa. (Note: the Defense Secretary has denied this to the Ambassador.) All Politics is Local -------------- ¶5. (C) Wickremesinghe told U/S Burns that the two main parties must work together to move the peace process forward, but that Rajapaksa could not abandon his hard-line JHU and JVP partners due to his narrow election victory (180,000 votes) and the UNP claim that 100,000 of their supporters were excluded from the voter registry. He believes that Rajapaksa wants local elections as soon as possible so he can gain advantage from his election victory and wrest some power away from the JVP. Iran to the Security Council -------------- ¶6. (C) U/S Burns shifted the conversation to the USG position on Iran and asked Wickremesinghe if Sri Lanka would vote in favor of sending Iran before the Security Council. Wickremesinghe agreed that Iran had gone too far and needed a clear message, but he thought that the President was too beholden to Muslim voters, as well as desperate for inexpensive oil concessions, to vote in favor of such a resolution. He added that if Russia and China were to join the US position, then Sri Lanka might abstain. COMMENT -------------- ¶7. (C) Wickremesinghe reflects a growing view concerning Sri Lanka,s prospects for peace. If his observations (which in many respects smack of sour grapes),particularly those concerning the military and the paramilitaries forces, are true, then President Rajapaksa is facing a complete breakdown of the Cease Fire Agreement. It will be a test of his political skill and authority as commander in chief to enforce a paramilitary stand down as the LTTE continues to press their provocative attacks. ¶8. (U) U/S Burns has cleared this message. LUNSTEAD