SRI LANKA: BIOGRAPHIC INFORMATION ON INVESTMENT

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 COLOMBO 000271 SIPDIS SIPDIS STATE FOR SCA/INS AND INR/B E.O. 12958: DECL: 02/20/2016 TAGS: PINR PGOV EINV CE SUBJECT: SRI LANKA: BIOGRAPHIC INFORMATION ON INVESTMENT MINISTER AND GENEVA DELEGATION MEMBER ROHITHA BOGOLLAGAMA REF: COLOMBO 256 Classified By: CDA JAMES F. ENTWISTLE. REASON: 1.4 (B,D). ¶1. (C) Rohitha Bogollagama, Sri Lankan Minister for Investment Promotion and Industries, is a colorful, aisle-crossing politician and lawyer whose bipartisan experience--as well as his involvement in a few sensational local scandals--may make him uniquely qualified for the delicate job of press spokesman for the Government of Sri Lanka (GSL) delegation to the February 22-23 talks in Geneva with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) (Reftel). A tireless self-promoter, Bogollagama can be counted on to try to turn this foray onto the international stage to his personal political advantage. ¶2. (SBU) Born on August 6, 1954, Bogollagama first became active in United National Party (UNP) politics in 1972. After graduating from Sri Lanka Law College in 1976, Bogollagama continued his political activities, campaigning for the party in the 1977 general elections in Kurunegala District (where his uncle was a candidate for MP),as well as in 1979 bye-elections, and becoming a UNP Executive Committee Member in 1988. Continuing his climb through the party ranks, he was named a UNP Working Committee member in 1994. In 2000 he was first elected to Parliament as a UNP MP for Kurunegala District. After Bogollagama was re-elected to Parliament in 2001, then-Prime Minister Wickremesinghe bestowed on him the non-Cabinet portfolio of Minister for Industries. Bogollagama's other government posts have included Director of the Foreign Employment Bureau (1990-1992); Director of the state-owned Lanka Cement Company (1993-1994); and Chairman/Director General of the Board of Investment (1992-1994). ¶3. (SBU) After the UNP's defeat in the 2004 general elections (and after, according to some sources, rumors of his involvement in several high-profile corruption cases during his tenure as Board of Investment Director and Industries Minister),Bogollagama joined the United People's Freedom Alliance (UPFA) government of President Chandrika Kumaratunga in November 2004, earning in the process the (newly improvised) Cabinet portfolio of Advanced Technologies and National Enterprise Development. A UNP bid to strip him of his party membership for joining Kumaratunga's government failed after the Supreme Court struck it down in early 2005, and Bogollagama technically remains a member of the opposition UNP. Following his November 17, 2005 victory as the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) presidential candidate, Mahinda Rajapaksa appointed Bogollagama Minister of Investment Promotion and Industries. ¶4. (SBU) Besides his political career, Bogollagama also led a successful legal practice in commercial and contract law, specializing in such areas as shipping, insurance, broadcasting, trade and investment. From December 1992 till September 1998 he was employed as a legal consultant for the U.S. International Broadcasting Bureau (IBB) project, then known as VOA, and was instrumental in the negotiations that led to the opening of the current IBB site north of Colombo. He also served as a legal consultant to several state-owned enterprises, including the Fertilizer Corporation of Sri Lanka and the Sri Lanka Broadcasting Corporation (1985-1989). His official trips to the U.S. include his participation in an International Visitor Program in 1990 and in a 2005 Voluntary Visitor program as a member of the Committee on Public Enterprise. ¶5. (C) Bogollagama is probably best known, however, for being implicated in two high-profile local scandals (which, in the Sri Lankan context, present no significant bar to one's political ambitions). In 2004 his wife assaulted a woman reputed to be Bogollagama's mistress at a public event. The victim, a physician, filed an assault case against Mrs. Bogollagama, naming another prominent local surgeon as a witness. In an apparent effort to discourage him from testifying, the minister's wife reportedly stabbed the surgeon in the back at his residence in 2005--resulting in the surgeon filing attempted murder charges against her. Ultimately, both cases were settled out of court in 2005. COLOMBO 00000271 002 OF 002 Bogollagama has also been known to push sometimes dubious visa cases with the Embassy and, presumably, with others. ¶6. (SBU) Bogollagama is married to the former Deepthi Samarakoon, who also practices law in Colombo. (She is reportedly accompanying him on the trip to Geneva.) The couple has a son Dhakshitha who attended university as an engineering student in the U.S. but is now back in Sri Lanka, apparently largely recovered from injuries suffered in a serious car accident in the U.S. The couple's other child, a younger daughter Dilshani, is attending university in the UK. ENTWISTLE