IS SRI LANKA GOING BACK TO WAR - AND WHAT CAN WE

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 05 COLOMBO 000004 SIPDIS FROM THE AMBASSADOR E.O. 12958: DECL: 01/03/2016 TAGS: PREL PGOV PINS EFIN CE LTTE SUBJECT: IS SRI LANKA GOING BACK TO WAR - AND WHAT CAN WE DO ABOUT IT? Classified By: Ambassador Jeffrey J. Lunstead for reasons 1.4 (b) and ( d). ¶1. (C) SUMMARY: As the optimism and hope surrounding the four-year old ceasefire agreement (CFA) fade and a return to some sort of war becomes an increasing (but certainly not inevitable) possibility, the U.S. and the rest of the concerned international community need to consider how best to help maintain some semblance of progress on the peace front in Sri Lanka. While the underlying assumption of the "Tokyo process," namely that the prospect of significant economic assistance would move the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) to enter into a serious peace process and gradually transform from a military to a political group, has proven faulty, we believe the admittedly imperfect but best option is to provide (positive and negative) incentives to the LTTE to refrain from war and continue to try to create an environment in which a return to war becomes unthinkable for all parties. END SUMMARY ¶2. (C) Three years ago Sri Lanka was awash in optimism as a ceasefire was in effect, peace talks between the GSL and the LTTE were proceeding, massive development assistance was forecast for the country (especially the war-affected Tamil areas),and the government of Prime Minister Ranil Wickremasinghe promised peace and prosperity. Today the situation is dramatically different. The gory headlines of the past few weeks--as Sri Lankan military members are blown up or shot, as a Tamil parliamentarian is gunned down at Christmas mass, as the Sri Lankan Army fires at unruly demonstrators--raise the question of whether Sri Lanka is about to go back to war as the ceasefire nears its fourth anniversary. And if a return to war is possible--but not inevitable--it raises the question of what the US, and others, can do to help prevent that. This cable attempts to address these two questions. A Little History Please, Maestro -------------- ¶3. (C) South Asians have a tendency to present current problems as the inevitable result of long historical chains--in part as a way of absolving themselves from responsibility for the problems they are immersed in. While we do not believe in this type of historical inevitability, we do believe that the current Sri Lankan situation can only be analyzed properly with a little bit of recent history. The current ceasefire was informally put in place in December 2001, the same month that Ranil Wickremasinghe won a majority in a Parliamentary election and became Prime Minister, largely based on a platform of seeking a negotiated peace with the (LTTE). The ceasefire was formalized in Feb 2002 and formal peace negotiations began. The two sides (GSL and LTTE) agreed to accelerate development projects in war- affected areas. There were some major breakthroughs, and in Oslo in December 2002 the Tigers agreed to "explore a solution...based on a federal structure within a united Sri Lanka." The international community strongly supported this effort, pledging large amounts of development support, and at Tokyo in June 2003 promised some $4.5 billion over three years...but conditional on progress in the peace process. ¶4. (C) Trouble was already brewing, however. The Tigers were unable to attend the Washington preparatory conference for Tokyo because of their terrorist status. In April 2003 they suspended participation in the peace talks, complaining that the GSL was hindering development efforts in Tamil areas. They claimed that because of this situation, they would only return to talks to discuss setting up a (Tiger-run) interim administration, and would only discuss final issues after such an administration was up and running. They boycotted the Tokyo Conference. Still, people remained hopeful. The GSL presented its ideas on an interim administration, and the Tigers promised to come up with their own proposal. ¶5. (C) The Tigers in fact presented their proposal for an Interim Self-Governing Administration (ISGA) on October 31, 2003. The proposal went far beyond anything which could be described as a federal system, and was clearly unacceptable. But the Tigers expressed a willingness to negotiate. At this point southern domestic politics intervened. While Ranil Wickremasinghe had taken over as Prime Minister, his arch-rival Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga remained in the powerful Executive Presidency. Ignored and humiliated by Ranil and his colleagues, she struck back on November 3, 2003, taking over for herself three Ministries, including the crucial Defense Ministry. When the two leaders were unable to agree on a power- sharing deal to make their "cohabitation" work, Kumaratunga called for and won Parliamentary elections in April 2004. ¶6. (C) Kumaratunga and the Tigers began exchanges (through Norway as facilitator) on restarting talks. The Tigers insisted talks should be on "the ISGA," while the GSL was willing to talk about "an interim administration." The two sides also differed on whether and how talks on final issues should commence. There was little progress, as the Tigers showed zero flexibility. Two external events intruded. In March 2004 LTTE Eastern leader Karuna fell out with the LTTE leadership and broke away. His formal military structure disintegrated when threatened by the Tigers, but his group continued to operate in small units in the East--with at least the acquiescence, if not the active support, of the GSL. ¶7. (C) The other event was the tsunami of December 2004. The tsunami hit both Government and Tiger areas, and immediately afterwards there was considerable on the ground cooperation between the two sides. They also began discussions on a "Joint Mechanism"--later changed to the "Post- Tsunami Operational Management Structure"(PTOMS)-- SIPDIS to apportion and administer tsunami reconstruction. After long negotiations, the two sides agreed on PTOMS. This was a major breakthrough, the first time the two sides had been able to agree to work together and share responsibility. The great hope was that a successful PTOMS would build confidence and allow the resumption of peace talks. ¶8. (C) Of course this was not to be. Sinhalese nationalist forces in the South filed a case in the Supreme Court, which suspended PTOMS. In another surprise, the court in August 2005 ruled that the Presidential election was due in November that year, not in 2006 as asserted by President Kumaratunga. And in the meantime, violence between the Karuna forces and the LTTE became an almost-everyday occurrence. The Tigers, seeing the hand of the GSL behind Karuna, began killing GSL military and some civilians, including Foreign Minister Kadirgamar in August 2005. In the Presidential election, former PM Ranil Wickremasinghe essentially promised a return to the former peace process, while his rival Mahinda Rajapakse, allied with several Sinhalese chauvinist parties, promised a harder line. ¶9. (C) Rajapakse won, aided by an LTTE-enforced election boycott in Tamil areas, but immediately began to back off from his hardline positions. In contrast to his election platform, he asked Norway to stay as facilitator, made positive noises about other international involvement, and agreed to consider maximum devolution of power within a united Sri Lanka. What Do the Tigers Want? -------------- ¶10. (C) Throughout this peace process, Tiger motivations and intentions have remained a mystery. Did the Tigers give up on their demand for a separate state ("Eelam") when they agreed at Oslo to continue federalism? Or were they just seeking a respite while they re-armed in preparation for a continuing struggle? From the moment the ceasefire was signed, they violated portions of it, showing themselves unwilling to tolerate even peaceful political opposition, as they ruthlessly murdered political opponents. If they never intended to shift to a political struggle, why did they agree to the ceasefire? The conventional wisdom is that the Tigers realized after Sept 11, 2001 that the international community would no longer accept terrorism as a means to a political end. It was also widely assumed that promises of massive development assistance and a better life for Tamils in Sri Lanka would motivate the Tigers to participate sincerely in the peace process. The Tigers quickly showed that they always subordinated economic goals to preservation of their political dominance, however. The truth is, we just don't know what the Tigers were doing and why they were doing it. ¶11. (C) This uncertainty bedeviled the peace process from the beginning. Ranil Wickremasinghe accepted it and set a longer goal. He envisioned the international community as an "international safety net" which would both provide support to his government and put pressure on the Tigers to negotiate. Never denying that the Tigers remained a brutal authoritarian group, he anticipated that the peace process and resultant changes on the ground as development reached the North and East would essentially make the Tigers irrelevant and force them to become a political--not a military-- group. This was a risky strategy, with long odds to face. Because of the domestic politics of the South, we will never know if it might have worked. No Respite for Rajapakse -------------- ¶12. (C) The LTTE gave new President Rajapakse no breathing space. In his annual speech shortly after the Presidential election, Prabhakaran warned of a return to conflict if Tamil demands were not quickly met. And then the attacks began- -Sri Lankan Navy sailors gunned down, claymore mines blowing up military convoys. When Rajapakse agreed to Tiger demands to hold talks on the ceasefire agreement outside of Sri Lanka, and proposed somewhere in Asia, the Tigers demanded the talks be in Oslo. The Tigers claim-- completely implausibly--that the attacks are the result of "the Tamil peoples' anger," which they profess to be unable to control. The Sri Lankan military has been remarkably restrained in the face of the attacks, and the Government has emphasized it does not want to break the ceasefire agreement. At some point, however, the Government will have to respond with military force. Once it does, the ceasefire will be effectively over, even if neither side formally withdraws. Why are the Tigers Doing It? -------------- ¶13. (C) There are two likely interpretations of the Tiger offensive. The most benign is that the Tigers are sending a message. Under this interpretation, they want to show Rajapakse that they remain a powerful force which can strike at will. This will give them a position of strength for resuming negotiations and force concessions from the President. The second interpretation is that the Tigers want to go back to war, but want the blame to fall on the Government. They will strike and strike until the Government has to strike back. This could be still tactical--they may feel they can resume fighting for a year or two, then resume negotiations with an exhausted Sri Lankan government. Or they may feel, despite all the odds against it, that they can eventually win an independent state. ¶14. (C) The current situation puts the Government in a bind. It is an asymmetrical situation, both politically and militarily. On the political side, if war returns, economic confidence will evaporate and the President's ambitious plans for economic development will have to be put on hold. The Tigers, by contrast, are willing to inflict more suffering on the Tamil people if it furthers their political goals--and they don't have to worry about whether they can win the next election. On the military side, the Tigers win as long as they don't lose, while the Government loses as long as it does not win. The government cannot defeat the Tigers, although it may reclaim some ground, particularly in the Karuna-dominated East. But the Tigers can inflict disproportionate damage through their suicide tactics. The Tiger attack on Colombo's airport in 2001, when they destroyed half of Sri Lankan Airline's fleet on the ground, is a prime example of this. What Can We, and Others, Do Now? -------------- ¶15. (C) The international community tried at Tokyo to influence Tiger (and GSL) behavior through positive economic incentives. That did not work. Nonetheless, the Tigers do seem to care at least a bit about international opinion and potential economic assistance--if only because their eventual goal of an independent state would otherwise be impossible. We need to keep this incentive in our toolkit, but not place much hope in it for now. In the face of continued Tiger intransigence, we need to show the Tigers that their behavior has a cost. One way to do that would be to crack down on Tiger fundraising abroad, starting with a demand that the TRO-USA prove it does not provide material benefit to the LTTE and that contributors are not exhibiting "willful blindness" to their contributions' ultimate destination. The Tiger diaspora--in the UK, Canada, Australia, the US and throughout Europe--is a major source of Tiger funds which are turned into the weapons of war. Some of these funds are extorted by the Tigers directly. Some, we suspect, are contributed to "humanitarian" organizations which are legally registered in various countries overseas but act as Tiger fronts. We believe that even an announcement that the US is investigating Tiger fundraising would have a chilling effect, as the otherwise law- abiding doctors, accountants and engineers who provide these funds will not want to risk possible prosecution. A coordinated effort with other countries would have even more impact. ¶16. (C) At the same time, we should make it clear that we acknowledge that Sri Lanka's Tamils have legitimate historical grievances, that the Government needs to address these grievances to resolve the ethnic issue, and that if the Tigers give up violence and terrorism, the international community will engage positively with them. This should be coupled with the clearest possible statement that the international community will not countenance the division of Sri Lanka--India's stance is particularly important here. ¶17. (C) As yet another incentive for the Tigers to leave war aside, we should continue our efforts to make the Sri Lankan military a better-equipped, better-trained force. This is not to encourage the GSL to go back to fighting, but to make it clear to the Tigers that they will face a stronger--not weaker--Sri Lankan military if they return to war. High-level visits, training and joint exercises, a modest but visible FMF program and provision of appropriate excess defense articles can make a difference. We know that the Tigers are aware of our efforts with the Sri Lankan military, as we hear their complaints through Tiger proxies. ¶18. (C) In sum, since we cannot divine ultimate Tiger intentions, we need to continue Ranil's strategy. Provide enough incentives (positive and negative) so that the Tigers feel they cannot go back to open hostilities, even if that is their aim. And in the meantime, try to create an environment in which a return to war becomes less and less welcome--both to the Tamil people and ultimately to the Tigers themselves. This is a sophisticated strategy, and not one easy to pull off, or guaranteed of success. It is, however, the best hope we can see for the present. LUNSTEAD