US embassy cable - 03COLOMBO1466

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 COLOMBO 001466 
 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPARTMENT FOR SA, SA/INS, INR/NESA 
 
E.O. 12958:  DECL:  08-21-13 
TAGS: PREL, PGOV, PTER, PINR, SOCI, CE, Political Parties, KWMM, ECONOMICS 
SUBJECT:  Sri Lanka's hill country:  Strong support for 
peace track amid a highly fractured political landscape 
 
Refs:  (A) Colombo 1453; (B) 02 Colombo 136 
 
(U) Classified by James F. Entwistle, Charge' 
d'Affaires.  Reasons 1.5 (b, d). 
 
1.  (C) SUMMARY:  During an August 18-19 visit to Sri 
Lanka's central highlands, interlocutors expressed 
strong support for the peace process.  The local 
political situation in the region was badly fractured, 
however, due to personality clashes and differences over 
a dam project.  Contacts also noted that a major leader 
of the majority tea estate Tamil community was steadily 
losing influence to a more dynamic rival.  If unchecked, 
the political troubles in the region could cascade to 
the detriment of the fragile United National Front (UNF) 
governing coalition.  END SUMMARY. 
 
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Visit to Sri Lanka's Hill Country 
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2.  (C) A Mission team consisting of polchief, poloff, 
pol intern, and pol FSN visited Nuwara Eliya District in 
Sri Lanka's hill country from August 18-19.  The region, 
which is Sri Lanka's major tea growing area, was veiled 
in a rainy mist much of the visit.  Compared to a 
Mission visit in early 2002 (see Ref B), the town of 
Nuwara Eliya, with a population of about 40,000, seemed 
to be better off, with well-dressed locals thronging the 
town's well-kept streets and foreign tourists selling 
out the town's hotels.  The town's leadership seemed 
dynamic and reform-minded:  in a meeting with the team, 
for example, Chandanala Karunaratne, the town's new 
mayor, highlighted plans to revitalize a large lake near 
the town with water sports to draw more tourists to the 
once-picturesque British hill station. 
 
3.  (C) While Nuwara Eliya town may be on the upswing, 
the district as a whole still has its share of problems. 
Living conditions for the district's roughly 700,000 
people are poor, and educational opportunities are 
limited, with the population of the district having an 
average literacy rate 10 percent lower than Sri Lanka's 
93 percent average.  Interlocutors stated that the 
situation was slowly improving as the government worked 
to fund local welfare projects, especially for the 
region's tea estate Tamils, who have historically faced 
discrimination and very limited economic opportunities. 
(Note:  Tea estate Tamils represent over 5.5 percent of 
Sri Lanka's total population and are the majority 
community in Nuwara Eliya.  In addition to Nuwara Eliya, 
many live in Uva Province in the southeast, Kandy 
District, and in Colombo.)  Despite the GSL's efforts, 
Nuwara Eliya District remains one of the poorest regions 
in southern Sri Lanka, though it is significantly better 
off than the war-torn north and east. 
 
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Strong Support for the Peace Track 
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4.  (C) Across the board, interlocutors conveyed to the 
U.S. team strong support for the Sri Lankan government's 
peace process efforts.  This confirms local independent 
polling that shows an 87 percent island-wide approval 
rating for the peace track, the highest since the advent 
of the process in December 2001.  Both government and 
opposition MPs stated that district residents -- both 
the majority Tamils and the minority Sinhalese -- were 
strongly in favor of the GSL's efforts to negotiate with 
the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).  Local 
approval for the peace track was strongly correlated to 
the economic improvement that it was bringing to the 
region in the form of increased tourism and access to 
"peace dividend" funding from the GSL, according to 
Muthu Sivalingam, an MP from the ruling UNF.  As is true 
with most Sri Lankans, interlocutors did express 
concerns about LTTE behavior, including the group's 
involvement in a spate of recent assassinations of 
opponents.  That said, contacts believed that the 
government needed to continue to test the LTTE's 
commitment to the peace track because a return to war 
was not a viable option.  Polchief underscored strong 
U.S. support for the peace process and our hope for a 
timely resumption of the peace talks.  He also stressed 
our deep concern about LTTE violence. 
 
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A Tumultuous Local Political Situation 
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5.  (C) The Conflict between Tamil Parties:  While 
interlocutors were knowledgeable about the peace track, 
their seeming first love was not policy but political 
intrigue.  Indeed, politicians in the region seemed 
consumed by bitter personal squabbling.  Much of the 
local tension seems to revolve around the Ceylon 
Worker's Congress (CWC), the major political party in 
the region.  Contacts told the team that support for 
Arumugam Thondaman, the CWC leader, continued to decline 
in favor of P. Chandrasekaran, the leader of the 
Upcountry People's Front (UPF), a rival tea estate Tamil 
party.  V. Puthrasigamoney, an MP for the People's 
Alliance, theorized that while significant support for 
Thondaman remained, much of it was there only out of 
respect for his grandfather and the CWC's founder, 
S. Thondaman, who died in 1999.  Puthrasigamoney said 
the younger Thondaman was considered a poor politician 
and had yet to fill the shoes of his well-regarded 
grandfather.  At the same time, the UPF's Chandrasekaran 
was considered dynamic and charismatic.  The conflict 
between the two is problematic for the UNF governing 
coalition in that both men are UNF ministers (Thondaman 
is minister of housing and Chandrasekaran is minister of 
community development). 
 
6.  (C) Puthrasigamoney, along with other local 
politicians, highlighted a key political difference 
between Thondaman and Chandrasekaran -- that of the 
latter's close relationship with the Tigers.  Although 
no one characterized Chandrasekaran as pro-LTTE per se, 
interlocutors noted that the UPF leader often met with 
LTTE officials and at times almost seemed to parrot some 
of their positions.  While strongly pro-peace process 
and not particularly critical of the Tigers, Thondaman 
generally took a hands off approach to the group, much 
like his grandfather did.  Given Chandrasekaran's 
positioning, there was some feeling that the general 
level of support for the Tigers among tea estate Tamils 
might have increased a bit in recent years.  There was 
wide accord, however, that there was little danger of 
the LTTE gaining a "bridgehead" of support in the hill 
country.  Coming from a remote region, tea estate Tamils 
have traditionally had little involvement with the 
ethnic conflict.  Other than language, they also have 
had little in common with Jaffna and eastern Tamils, who 
form the core of the LTTE's support base. 
 
7.  (C) Conflict over Dam Project:  Another source of 
divisiveness in the region is the Upper Kotmale dam 
project.  After much study, the government wants to move 
forward on the Japanese-funded project, which would 
build a 150-megawatt hydroelectric power station slated 
to increase the country's energy capacity by seven 
percent.  The power station would be built in Kotmale, 
an area in western Nuwara Eliya District.  Navin 
Dissanayake, a high profile UNP MP for the Nuwara Eliya 
District, strongly supports the dam project, which puts 
him at odds with Thondaman, who bitterly opposes it. 
Thondaman maintains that the dam will have disastrous 
environmental effects and displace hundreds of local 
Tamil families.  Countering Thondaman's claims, 
Dissanayake essentially told the team that Thondaman was 
a demagogue and was making unsubstantiated allegations 
about the project.  Dissanayake, whose father-in-law is 
Minister of Power and Energy Karu Jayasuriya, the chief 
GSL proponent of the dam project, went on to insist that 
the project must go forward for the country's sake no 
matter what Thondaman wants. 
8.  (C) The conflict over the project is not going away 
anytime soon -- and there are indications that it could 
escalate.  In the past several months, for example, 
Thondaman has at times seemingly threatened to bolt the 
governing coalition if plans for the dam project go 
forward.  Dissanayake, for his part, has also given 
hints that he is not satisfied with the government's 
performance and there are reports he has engaged in 
talks about joining the opposition.  At this point, 
against this messy background of political mud 
wrestling, plans are for work on the project to start in 
2004, but the government is reportedly mulling over what 
to do given all of the political static. 
 
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COMMENT 
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9.  (C) If unchecked, the political troubles in the hill 
country region could cascade to the detriment of the UNF 
governing coalition, which maintains only narrow control 
of Parliament.  The personal and political rivalries 
dividing Thondaman and Navin Dissanayake, and Thondaman 
and Chandrasekaran, among a myriad of other local 
personal conflicts, are deep and seemingly intractable. 
Prime Minister Wickremesinghe will have to use all of 
his political wiles to ensure that the antagonists 
remain on board with his coalition -- and not move over 
to the opposition in an attempt to gain an edge over 
their local rivals.  Simply put, if there are any 
defections from his coalition, the PM knows his 
government is in serious peril. 
 
10.  (C) COMMENT (Continued):  Regarding the tea estate 
Tamils, the community has clearly made a lot of socio- 
economic progress over the years, and the CWC can take a 
lot of credit for that.  At this point, however, the CWC 
-- which was once the undisputed center of power in the 
highlands -- appears to be in the midst of a steady 
decline in political influence.  To some extent, the 
party's decline can be attributed at least in part to 
its success in moving hill estate Tamils up the ladder. 
Thondaman's ongoing failure to live up to his 
grandfather's reputation is also a key factor in the 
CWC's problems, however.  END COMMENT. 
 
11.  (U) Minimize considered. 
 
ENTWISTLE