This record is a partial extract of the original cable. The full text of the original cable is not available.

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 COLOMBO 002157 
 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR SA/INS 
PACOM FOR FPA 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 12/26/2015 
TAGS: PTER PHUM CE LTTE
SUBJECT: MURDER IN THE CATHEDRAL:  ASSASSINATION OF 
PRO-TIGER MP IN THE EAST FOLLOWED BY MINE ATTACK ON ARMY 
CONVOY IN THE NORTH 
 
REF: A. USDAO COLOMBO IIR 6 816 0031 06 
     ¶B. COLOMBO 2149 
     ¶C. COLOMBO 2118 
     ¶D. COLOMBO 2108 
     ¶E. USDAO COLOMBO IIR 6 816 0032 06 
 
Classified By: AMB. JEFFREY J. LUNSTEAD.  REASON:  1.4 (B,D). 
 
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SUMMARY 
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¶1.  (SBU) Following two consecutive Liberation Tigers of 
Tamil Eelam (LTTE) attacks on the Sri Lanka Navy in the 
northern district of Mannar on December 22 and 23 (Refs A and 
B), the violence continues in the north and east with no 
respite for the holiday.  Tamil National Alliance (TNA) MP 
Joseph Pararajahsingham was shot and killed by suspected 
members of the dissident Karuna faction while attending 
Christmas Mass in Batticaloa, and the LTTE detonated another 
claymore mine under a Sri Lanka Army (SLA) transport vehicle, 
killing 10 soldiers.  Pro-LTTE media, meanwhile, has launched 
a public relations offensive against Government security 
forces, attempting to depict "occupying" soldiers as human 
rights violators and "reporting" popular indignation at their 
purported depredations.  End summary. 
 
 
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CARNAGE AFTER COMMUNION 
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¶2.  (U)  Tamil National Alliance (TNA) MP Joseph 
Pararajahsingham was shot and killed while attending midnight 
Christmas Mass at St. Mary's Cathedral in the eastern 
district of Batticaloa.  The 71-year-old MP was reportedly 
shot nine times as he returned from receiving Communion; his 
wife and seven other church-goers standing near him at the 
time of the attack were injured.  It is unclear whether the 
others were shot by Pararajahsingham's assailant, who escaped 
the scene, or the security detail assigned to the MP. 
 
¶3.  (SBU)   According to local sources, Pararajahsingham 
traveled infrequently to Batticaloa, the troubled, turbulent 
epicenter of the ongoing struggle for supremacy between 
Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) militants and members 
of the dissident Karuna faction, because of fears that his 
well-known pro-LTTE sympathies would make him a target in the 
tit-for-tat violence.  Although a previously unknown group 
called the "Sennan Brigade" has claimed it carried out the 
attack, it is widely assumed that the anti-LTTE Karuna 
faction is responsible for the assassination.  (Comment:  And 
it is also widely assumed, including among members of the 
diplomatic community, that the Karuna faction receives some 
degree of Government support.)  A faxed letter to the 
Ambassador from LTTE ideologue S.P. Tamilselvan, dated 
December 25, blamed "the Sri Lankan military and the armed 
groups that work with them" for this "most despicable act." 
Military sources, on the other hand, were quoted in the local 
press on December 27 attempting to pin the attack on the 
LTTE. 
 
¶4.  (C)  The pro-LTTE website TamilNet reported on December 
25 that Tiger supremo Prabhakaran, declaring 
Pararajahsingham's death a "great tragedy in the history of 
the Tamil Eelam freedom struggle," had bestowed the LTTE's 
highest honor ("Maamanithar" or "great man") posthumously on 
the late MP.  The Tigers had reportedly taken 
Pararajahsingham's body to LTTE-controlled territory in 
Batticaloa, where, at least according to TamilNet, 
grief-stricken crowds turned out to pay their respects.  The 
mood will be significantly different during the funeral in 
government-controlled Batticaloa town, however, an American 
Jesuit priest with decades of experience in the eastern 
district predicted to poloff.  Pararajahsingham's blatant 
pro-LTTE stance made him unpopular with the local population, 
the cleric asserted, observing that the MP had not won an 
election since 2000.  (Note:  He lost in the general 
elections of 2004 but made it into Parliament as a Member 
appointed to the "national list," a quota system based on the 
number of popular votes a party gains in an election.) 
Commenting that such bloodshed has long been the norm in 
Batticaloa, the Jesuit expressed skepticism that the police 
would investigate the killing.  Instead, he said, local 
authorities, seemingly abiding by the rubric "the enemy of my 
enemy is my friend," have no apparent interest in pursuing 
killers of LTTE members or sympathizers, and are not pushed 
by their superiors to do so either. 
 
 
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MORE CLAYMORES IN JAFFNA 
------------------------- 
 
¶5.  (SBU)  At about 12:40 p.m. local time on December 27, a 
command-detonated claymore mine weighing as much as 30 kg 
exploded beneath a bus carrying Sri Lanka Army (SLA) 
personnel along a main road in the northern district of 
Jaffna, killing 10 soldiers and wounding four.  SLA soldiers 
reportedly had already cleared the road before the bus began 
plying the route.  Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM) Jaffna 
representative Jorn Asplund told poloff that as a safety 
precaution SLMM monitors are no longer traveling during 
daylight hours along the three main roads used by the SLA in 
Jaffna.   This latest attack brings the death toll of 
government security forces to more than 40 since the 
beginning of the month. 
 
 
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LTTE ON PROPAGANDA OFFENSIVE 
----------------------------- 
 
¶6.  (SBU) Many observers have speculated that 
Pararajahsingham's slaying might have been in retaliation for 
unprovoked LTTE attacks on Sri Lanka Navy (SLN) personnel in 
the northwestern district of Mannar on December 22 and 23 
(Refs A and B) that killed between 13-16 sailors.  The LTTE, 
perhaps feeling the sting of international criticism for its 
chronic and all-too-deadly ceasefire violations, seems to be 
doing its best recently to paint the Government of Sri Lanka 
(GSL) and its security forces as heinous human rights 
abusers.  Pro-LTTE media are attempting to depict 
Tiger-instigated protests in Jaffna as popular uprisings 
against the "occupying" forces, while stoking popular 
indignation and suspicion after the discovery of the body of 
a young woman, who had been raped and mutilated, near a naval 
base in the same district (Ref C).  Following a firefight 
between SLA troops and suspected LTTE cadres at Jaffna Fort 
on December 24, TamilNet claimed that five putative LTTE 
casualties from that exchange brought to Jaffna Hospital by 
the SLA were really innocent Tamils killed elsewhere and 
dumped by the Army at the Fort.  On Christmas Day TamilNet 
posted grisly pictures of the bullet-riddled corpses, 
including one of a young woman. 
 
¶7.  (SBU)  The same day TamilNet also alleged that GSL 
security forces set fire to a Tamil settlement near the site 
of the December 23 attack on SLN sailors in Mannar (Ref A), 
killing four civilians, including a four-year-old child. 
Embassy attempts to determine the credibility of that report 
so far have proven inconclusive.   On December 27 the 
National Human Rights Commission told us it was unable to 
send officers to that part of Mannar to investigate, while 
the SLMM Spokesman said the case was still under 
investigation.  The General Secretary of the nonpartisan 
Mannar Citizens' Committee  told POL FSN on December 27 that 
GSL security forces had raided and looted homes in the area 
following the attack on the sailors, prompting 400 people to 
flee and seek refuge in a nearby church.  He alleged that the 
four who perished in the fire were the only ones in the 
settlement who had not left by the time security forces 
arrived.  Rayappu Joseph, Catholic Bishop of Mannar, also 
blamed the security forces for the deaths.  The Mannar 
Government Agent was out of the district and could not be 
reached for comment. 
 
 
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COMMENT 
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¶8.  (C) Since the Karuna faction broke away from the LTTE in 
March 2004, there have been nearly daily assassinations, 
counter-killings and assorted other violations of the 
Ceasefire Agreement (except for a brief moratorium following 
the tsunami last year) that have inured the local population, 
especially in the east, to a certain level of violence.  Up 
until late this year, however, the violence had been largely 
Tamil-on-Tamil, a situation that made it all too easy for the 
Government and the Sinhalese south to ignore the persistent 
bloodshed.  Since late November, however, the LTTE appears to 
have made a decision to take the fight, albeit on a small 
scale, to the Government.  The reappearance of coffins 
bearing the remains of ambushed soldiers and sailors back to 
their villages in the south will put increasing pressure on a 
new and untested government that won the election by 
appealing to Sinhalese chauvinist sentiment.  To date, GSL 
security forces have demonstrated commendable restraint in 
not reacting to LTTE onslaughts.  As the pressure--and the 
body count--mount, however, it will become increasingly 
difficult to maintain this restraint. 
 
¶9.  (C)  Comment (cont.): Pararajahsingham has been an 
Embassy contact since he was first elected to Parliament (as 
a Tamil United Liberation Front MP) in 1994.  He last visited 
the Embassy on December 15 when he called on the Ambassador, 
along with other TNA MPs, with a predictably pro-LTTE 
apologia for the recent attacks on GSL security forces.  As 
noted by our Jesuit contact, this elderly politician was not 
popular with his own putative constituency and presented 
little threat to anti-LTTE forces.  In a conflict that has 
spanned two decades and seen countless horrific abuses of 
basic human rights by both sides, this murder in a cathedral 
at Christmas may present a new low. 
LUNSTEAD