Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
06COLOMBO976
2006-06-09 06:00:00
CONFIDENTIAL
Embassy Colombo
Cable title:  

SRI LANKA: POPULATION MOVEMENTS IN CONFLICT AREAS

Tags:  PREF PTER PHUM CE 
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PP RUEHBI
DE RUEHLM #0976/01 1600600
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
P 090600Z JUN 06
FM AMEMBASSY COLOMBO
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 3631
INFO RUEHNE/AMEMBASSY NEW DELHI 9700
RUEHIL/AMEMBASSY ISLAMABAD 6131
RUEHKT/AMEMBASSY KATHMANDU 4166
RUEHKA/AMEMBASSY DHAKA 9237
RUEHNY/AMEMBASSY OSLO 3123
RUEHKO/AMEMBASSY TOKYO 2199
RUEHLO/AMEMBASSY LONDON 3031
RUEHCG/AMCONSUL CHENNAI 6681
RUEHBI/AMCONSUL MUMBAI 4565
RUEKDIA/DIA WASHDC
RHEHNSC/NSC WASHDC
RHHMUNA/HQ USPACOM HONOLULU HI
RUEHBS/USEU BRUSSELS
RUEHGV/USMISSION GENEVA 1202
C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 COLOMBO 000976 

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

GENEVA FOR RMA

E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/20/2014
TAGS: PREF PTER PHUM CE
SUBJECT: SRI LANKA: POPULATION MOVEMENTS IN CONFLICT AREAS
WORRY OBSERVERS, MYSTERIOUS LEAFLET TARGETS MUSLIMS

REF: COLOMBO 696

Classified By: James F. Entwistle, Deputy Chief of Mission. 1.4(b,d)

------------
Summary
------------

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 COLOMBO 000976

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

GENEVA FOR RMA

E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/20/2014
TAGS: PREF PTER PHUM CE
SUBJECT: SRI LANKA: POPULATION MOVEMENTS IN CONFLICT AREAS
WORRY OBSERVERS, MYSTERIOUS LEAFLET TARGETS MUSLIMS

REF: COLOMBO 696

Classified By: James F. Entwistle, Deputy Chief of Mission. 1.4(b,d)

--------------
Summary
--------------


1. (C) The unsteady security environment since April 2006,
including ethnic communal incidents and military action, has
led to displacement among Sinhalese, Muslim, and Tamil
communities in the North and East of Sri Lanka. The United
Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) currently
estimates some 30,000 people have fled Trincomalee district
to other areas of the North and East; of those, an estimated
1,700 have fled to Tamil Nadu, India. In Trincomalee, a
suspected Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) front
distributed a threatening leaflet demanding Muslims leave the
area for their own safety. In order to stabilize communities
and avoid an escalating internally displaced persons (IDP)
problem mirroring the unsolved displacement of the 1980s and
1990s, confidence between the public and authorities must be
rebuilt and citizens resettled along the lines of what was
discussed at the May 30 Co-Chairs' meeting in Tokyo. End
summary.

--------------
Background
--------------


2. (U) UNHCR, which has worked on the resettlement issue in
Sri Lanka since the mid-1980s, estimates up to 1 million Sri
Lankans were displaced during the two and a half decades of
armed ethnic conflict due to: forceful eviction by the LTTE,
Sri Lanka Military High Security Zones (HSZ),loss of
livelihood, and human rights violations by the military,
police, and militant Tamil groups. Some 200,000 emigrated
from Sri Lanka. When the Government of Sri Lanka and the
LTTE signed the Ceasefire Agreement (CFA) in February 2002,
approximately 730,000 individuals remained displaced
island-wide by conflict. By November 2004, one month prior
to the tsunami, UNHCR counted 352,582 conflict IDPs. The
vast majority of these were displaced from the North and
East, and remain concentrated in Trincomalee, Jaffna,
Puttalam, Vavuniya, Mannar, and Anuradhapura.

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IDP Estimates in Flux
--------------



3. (C) Numbers of IDPs since the April 2006 rise in violence
were initially overestimated and then promptly exaggerated by
the Tamil and international press. An April 27 report from
the Government Agent (GA) of Trincomalee district listed
40,000 IDPs from Trincomalee district, a number that was
quickly reduced to 12,000 to 15,000 by the United Nations
High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) office in Colombo.
According to UNHCR, however, the number of internally
displaced persons has risen towards the GA's initial estimate
due to communal incidents and military action.


4. (C) A June 2 draft document given to DCM by UNHCR
estimated the number of IDPs from the current eruption of
violence at 37,878 individuals nation-wide, or 10, 489
families. UNHCR stated that between April 7 and May 29,
32,401 people, fled Trincomalee to Tiger-controlled
Mullaitivu and Kilinochchi, parts of Batticaloa, and Mannar
on the west coast, where approximately 1,700 have continued
on by boat to India. Smaller numbers, approximately 5,000,
have fled other predominantly Tamil areas of Batticaloa,
Jaffna, Mannar and Vavuniya. According to the Consortium of
Humanitarian Agencies and various press reports, since
mid-April, LTTE fronts had been asking Tamil citizens to
vacate government-controlled areas in the North and East to
Tiger-controlled territory by May 30.

COLOMBO 00000976 002 OF 003




5. (C) In a June 5 news article by Indian Sri Lanka analyst
M.R. Narayan Swamy, S.C. Chandrahasan, a welfare worker for
Tamil refugees in Tamil Nadu opined, "The people who are
coming feel the Sri Lankan Government is not going to protect
them from Sinhalese mobs: Relief centers need to come up in
Mannar where refugees can live without being disturbed by the
Security Forces or the LTTE. Then people won't come to
India."

-------------- --------------
Oppressed by the Oppressed - Muslims Cry Tiger
-------------- --------------


6. (C) On May 29, a group calling itself the Tamil Eelam
Motherland Liberation Army, a suspected LTTE front,
distributed a Tamil-language flyer calling for Muslims in the
Trincomalee-district town of Muttur (under partial
LTTE-control) to evacuate the area before June 2. An English
translation given to poloff by the UNDP accuses Muslims of
being in cahoots with government paramilitaries, a favorite
topic of the LTTE's avoidance of reentering peace talks.
This raised memories of Tiger attrocities in 1990 when the
75,000 Muslims of Jaffna, Vavuniya and Kilinochchi were given
48 hours to leave by the LTTE.


7. (C) The Sri Lanka Army immediately ordered civil
organizations to cease redistributing the pamphlet and asked
civilians to remain in the area under the military's
protection. By the supposed three-day deadline of June 2, no
Muslims had left the area, according to Ms. Vasantha
Mathiaparanam of the Human Rights Commission (HRC) in
Trincomalee. A representative from the Dutch Zuis Oost Azie
(ZOA) office in Muttur told Pol FSN on May 31 that following
the distribution of the leaflet, Muslim families remained,
though some Tamils continued to leave Muttur.


8. (C) Known LTTE sympathizers dismissed the leaflet report.
Virakesari editor Thevaraj told poloff Muslims had
distributed the pamphlet themselves to gain the sympathy of
the government and the international community, and Tamil
media largely ignored the story. Assumedly more balanced,
government-appointed HRC Coordinator Mathiaparanam similarly
questioned the leaflet's authenticity, telling poloff that in
her personal opinion "another group" was trying to create a
rift between the LTTE and civilians.


9. (C) Some Muslim political organizations in Colombo,
however, took the reports quite seriously. In a May 30
letter addressed to the Ambassador, N.M. Ameen, president of
the Muslim Council of Sri Lanka, an umbrella group of over 75
national organizations, asked the Co-Chairs to "call upon the
LTTE to refrain from any action that would jeopardize the
security of innocent Muslims," noting that the LTTE has
targeted Muslims often throughout its 25 year liberation
struggle, including trying to label Sri Lankan Muslims as
extremists. On June 2, Disaster Relief Services Minister and
All Ceylon Muslim Congress leader Y.L.S. Hameed, however,
told poloff he knew little about the leaflet but anticipated
a "third party" of wishing to stir up tension between Muslims
and Tamils.

-------------- --------------
Put Them in a Bus and Send Them Home
-------------- --------------


10. (C) In a June 2 call on the DCM, Axel Bishop of UNHCR
said the GSL had urged UNHCR to take emergency action to
resettle recent IDPs. The GSL's conception of the problem,
however, was limited, suggesting that UNDP forcibly bus
civilians from Mannar back to the areas in Trincomalee they
had fled before they could continue on to India. Instead,
UNHCR proposed a series of confidence building measures
awaiting approval for implementation from the GSL. DCM told
Bishop that the UNHCR proposal was very similar to confidence

COLOMBO 00000976 003 OF 003


building measures being considered by the USG and also
discussed by the Co-Chairs at their May 30 meeting.

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Comment
--------------


11. (C) Continually the true victims of the island's ethnic
violence, civilians in the unstable North and East are
fleeing to areas they consider safer, including Tiger
controlled territory, as well as Mannar on the west coast,
the gateway to Indian Tamil Nadu. In partially
Tiger-controlled Muttur, home of over 16,000 civilians,
Muslim citizens have been forced to decide to play a
potentially disastrous political game of go or stay. The
number of new IDPs has risen above 30,000 since April 2006, a
potential crisis that UNHCR and others are working hard to
avoid. With IDP populations remaining in camps in the North
and East from displacements two decades ago, the Government
of Sri Lanka cannot linger long in allowing UNHCR to
implement measures to return citizens to secure homes. End
Comment.

LUNSTEAD