US embassy cable - 04COLOMBO117

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 COLOMBO 000117 
 
SIPDIS 
 
OFFICIAL INFORMAL 
 
FOR SA/INS 
 
E.O. 12958:  DECL:  01/22/14 
TAGS: AMGT, CE, MV, LTTE - Peace Process, Political Parties, Elections 
SUBJECT:  OFFICIAL INFORMAL NUMBER 009 (01/22/04) 
 
 
Classified by DCM James F. Entwistle for reasons 1.5 b and 
d. 
 
CONTENTS: LTTE DECLINES TOKYO FOLLOWUP MTG INVITE 
          PROVINCIAL COUNCIL ELECTIONS ON APRIL 28? 
          UPDATE ON MINISTERIAL OFFICIALS IN CHARGE 
          BAD BEHAVIOR GIVES UNP BLACK EYE 
          DISCUSSION ON IMF VISIT 
          MPP 
 
LTTE DECLINES TOKYO FOLLOWUP MTG INVITE 
--------------------------------------- 
 
1.  (C) FYI.  Late January 22, the pro-LTTE website, 
"TamilNet," reported that the Tigers will not attend the 
Tokyo donors followup meeting scheduled for January 23 
in Colombo.  LTTE political leader Thamilchelvam 
declined the invitation on the grounds that there was 
"no political stability and unified leadership of 
government in Colombo now."  As reported, the Jan. 23 
meeting, hosted by Japanese Special Envoy Akashi, will 
bring bilateral and multilateral donors together with 
the GSL to discuss assistance issues.  The Ambassador 
will represent the U.S. at the meeting.  By the way, the 
LTTE turn down of its invitation was pretty much 
expected. 
 
2.  (C) In other news regarding the Tigers, LTTE spokesman 
Anton Balasingham has spoken out in strident opposition to 
the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP)-Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna 
(JVP) alliance.  In a January 21 report on pro-Tiger website 
"TamilNet," Balasingham asserted that: 
 
"The memorandum of understanding signed between the JVP and 
the SLFP after a year of intense dialogue fails to produce 
any concrete, realistic formula for a negotiated settlement 
of the Tamil national question.  Rather, this anti-peace 
political pact articulating an incoherent, confused and 
mutually contradictory position on a serious national issue 
might create objective conditions for the resumption of 
ethnic war." 
 
3.  (C) Balasingham went on to add that the Tiger leadership 
was "studying with great concern the unified reemergence of 
Sinhala-Buddhist chauvinistic forces under the new banner of 
the so-called United People's Freedom Alliance.  This 
alliance is opposed to peace and peaceful resolution of the 
ethnic conflict."   Balasingham's comments come amid other 
TamilNet headlines stating things like "LTTE commander warns 
of grave consequences" and "Tamils ready to face war." 
Clearly the LTTE is a tad restless.  (POL) 
 
PROVINCIAL COUNCIL ELECTIONS ON APRIL 28? 
----------------------------------------- 
 
4.  (C) FYI.  At its weekly meeting on January 21, in 
which both the President and PM were in attendance, the 
full Cabinet reportedly agreed to hold the Provincial 
Council (PC) elections on April 28.  (The President's 
attendance at this weekly meeting is a great rarity, 
especially in these hard-bitten cohabitation days.  It 
is not clear whether her attendance presages some sort 
of thaw with the PM, but most observers do not think so. 
By the way, we have heard that the President-PM joint 
committee meetings have been further postponed.) 
According to contacts, the details of the PC elections 
and possible electoral reforms to be implemented prior 
to them may be finalized in the coming days.  Media 
reports suggest that the apparent bipartisan decision on 
when to hold the PC elections may preclude the 
possibility of an earlier general election.  While we 
think scheduled PC elections may lower the probability 
of a sudden general election, we note that there are 
still a lot of calendar days between now and April 28. 
(POL) 
 
UPDATE ON MINISTERIAL OFFICIALS IN CHARGE 
----------------------------------------- 
 
5.  (SBU) FYI.  Pls also pass to INR/NESA:  In light of 
the President's November 4 ministerial takeovers, we 
want to flag the names of officials she has put in 
charge.  Here goes: 
 
-- In the Defense Ministry, Cyril Herath replaced Austin 
Fernando as Secretary.  (Herath represented the Defense 
Ministry in New Delhi during the recent defense 
cooperation talks.) 
-- Tilak Ranaviraja replaced Kumar Abeysinghe as 
Secretary of the Ministry of Information and 
 
SIPDIS 
Telecommunications (formerly Ministry of Mass 
Communications). 
-- M.N. Junaid remains as Secretary of the Ministry of 
Internal Security (formerly the Ministry of Interior). 
The President herself remains in charge of all three 
ministries and, as such, has not appointed any 
ministers.  (POL) 
 
BAD BEHAVIOR GIVES UNP BLACK EYE 
-------------------------------- 
6.  (SBU) FYI.  Just want to flag some local stories 
that are giving the UNP government a black eye.  In an 
ever deepening scandal, Thilanga Sumathipala, Sri Lankan 
Telecom chairman and president of Sri Lanka's cricket 
board (both major jobs here, perhaps the latter more 
so), is accused of massive corruption and connections to 
a well-known underworld figure who was slain in a 
courtroom in Colombo recently.  Sumathipala, who is in 
jail pending trial, is a GSL strong supporter and donor, 
and the PM has resisted pressure to fire him from either 
his telecom or cricket board jobs.  In a separate 
incident that made the UNP look a bit thuggish, the sons 
of two GSL ministers (Mahinda Wijesekara and S.B. 
Dissanayake) were recently arrested for allegedly 
attacking another minister's (Kabir Hashem) relatives 
outside a Colombo nightclub.  The three attackers were 
released on bail and are awaiting trial.  These things 
go up and down, but the UNP is taking some flak for 
alleged bad behavior of late.  (POL) 
 
Discussion on IMF Visit 
----------------------- 
 
7. (C) We talked with Jeremy Carter the IMF ResRep today. 
He said the visit last week was not great, that the GSL did 
not rise to the occasion and that the loan tranche for this 
year was unlikely, as the IMF was putting Sri Lanka back in 
the Article IV process.  The board will meet in March and 
another review will likely take place in May.  We will do 
more front channel on this next week, but wanted to send a 
few quick points: 
 
--according to Carter, missing the USD 80 million loan 
tranche is unlikely to cause a big problem, unless GSL tries 
to defend its currency in an unwise fashion. 
 
--there is the potential for some problems if WB and 
Japanese hold off on their budgetary assistance, as 
potential amount is closer to USD 200 million.  Required 
financing could affect the fiscal deficit target and could 
put pressure on interest rates. 
 
We're going to try to get with WB and Japanese to see what 
more we can glean.  (ECON) 
 
MPP 
--- 
 
8. (U)  FYI - we're working hard to get draft MPPs for both 
our countries into SA next week as requested but continue to 
be plagued with software/database problems.  Latest woe is 
that trying to print out a copy results in being thrown into 
a worldwide queue that may or may not spit out a copy some 
hours from now (all of this from the MPP helpdesk which also 
told us they can't do anything to help speed along our print 
request).  (DCM) 
 
LUNSTEAD