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 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