US embassy cable - 04COLOMBO1838

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 05 COLOMBO 001838 
 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPARTMENT FOR SA, SA/INS 
NSC FOR E.MILLARD 
PLEASE ALSO PASS TOPEC 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 11/09/2014 
TAGS: PREL, KISL, CE, Political Parties 
SUBJECT: SRI LANKA:  MUSLIM ROLE IN PEACE PROCESS LARGELY 
IRRELEVANT 
 
REF: COLOMBO 1794 AND PREVIOUS 
 
Classified By: James F. Entwistle, Deputy Chief of Mission.  1.4 (b,d) 
 
1. (C) SUMMARY.  The majority of Muslims in Sri Lanka live in 
the southern, western and central regions of the country, are 
traders and businesspeople, and support the largest political 
parties, the leaderships of which are dominated by the 
Sinhalese majority.  In contrast, Muslims in the east are 
farmers and fishermen and support more "communal" Muslim 
political parties.  Eastern Muslims and Muslims from the rest 
of the country are largely indifferent to each other's 
political concerns.  Years of conflict led eastern Muslims to 
organize politically, an endeavor which was initially 
successful and gave them power in forming governments.  Now, 
however, eastern Muslim parties are very fragmented and have 
lost their political strength.  Eastern Muslims vehemently 
oppose the LTTE's proposal for an interim authority, but the 
President will likely ignore their repeated requests to 
participate in any future peace negotiations.  Rather than 
acting as a roadblock to an eventual settlement between the 
GSL and the LTTE, or fully participating in future peace 
talks, the badly fractured eastern Muslim polity is likely to 
pose little more than a speed bump that the GSL and LTTE can 
easily drive over on the road to a lasting political 
settlement.  END SUMMARY. 
 
2.  (U) Sri Lanka's 1.5 million Tamil-speaking Muslims are 
moderate Sunnis and may be viewed as two groups.  The larger 
group, (two-thirds of the Muslims) is comprised of traders 
and businesspeople scattered in central, western, and 
southern Sri Lanka.  The remaining one-third is comprised of 
fishermen and farmers concentrated in the east.  The two 
groups are largely indifferent to each other's political 
concerns. 
 
3.  (U) Many members of the larger, "majority" Muslim group 
are wealthy, and in addition to speaking Tamil, usually also 
speak Sinhala.  Majority Muslims have long aligned themselves 
with large Sinhalese-dominated parties, and often see Muslim 
"communal" parties like the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC) 
as radical.  According to many Muslim and non-Muslim 
interlocutors, majority Muslims -- nearly all businesspeople 
-- care about the business implications of the peace process. 
 They did not experience the conflict in the same (often 
devastating) way northern and eastern Muslims did and are 
only somewhat concerned with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil 
Eelam (LTTE) proposals for an Interim Self-Governing 
Authority (ISGA) in the north and east.  Majority Muslims 
nominally care about the fate of eastern Muslims and their 
experiences in the conflict, but have not applied much 
political pressure to aid Eastern Muslims.  They are 
reluctant to antagonize the Sinhalese, lest they lose market 
share in the primarily Sinhalese areas in which they do 
business.  Getting along is important to them.  Majority 
Muslims draw their elite from Colombo and Kandy, and perceive 
eastern Muslims to be lower in status. 
 
4.  (U) Eastern Muslims typically speak only Tamil and are 
roughly a third of the population in the east, the highest 
concentration of Muslims in Sri Lanka.  In contrast to 
majority Muslims, eastern Muslims are deeply concerned about 
the LTTE and its ISGA proposals because they do not feel 
secure in LTTE areas.  They have good reason: during the 
conflict (and in some cases after the 2002 cease-fire 
agreement (CFA)), the LTTE intimidated, abducted, extorted, 
and murdered Muslims in the north and east.  The LTTE also 
appropriated many Muslims' land, a critical issue for eastern 
Muslim farmers in particular.  In 1990, the LTTE forced 
50,000 Muslims out of the north in 24 hours and demanded that 
valuables, jewelry, and land deeds be left behind.  Almost 15 
years later, thousands of northern Muslims are still 
displaced and live in welfare centers in Puttalam and 
Anuradhapura.  Only about 100 Muslim families have returned 
to Jaffna. 
 
5.  (C) Eastern Muslims have an ambivalent relationship with 
the Government of Sri Lanka (GSL).  While the GSL did not 
always protect them from LTTE aggression, GSL security forces 
were their only hope for protection for two decades.  Eastern 
Muslims demand that their lands be returned to them and that 
the GSL protect them from further LTTE terrorism.  Many are 
skeptical about LTTE assurances that they will be treated 
fairly under an ISGA, and are angry that the GSL has not 
allowed a separate Muslim delegation to enter the peace 
process.  One such skeptic, S. Zubaideen, Joint Secretary of 
the Peace Foundation in Akkaraipattu (60 km south of 
Batticaloa), told poloff that the LTTE "will never change" 
and explained that Muslims fear a double standard in which 
Muslims would have no rights under an ISGA. Despite their 
concerns, eastern Muslims still think it is important to 
maintain cordial relations with the Sinhalese and with 
majority Muslims. 
 
------------------- 
Genesis of the SLMC 
------------------- 
 
6.  (U) While they represent 8.5% of the population, the 
Muslim polity is by no means monolithic.  Their voting base 
is fractured, denying Muslims the political strength their 
numbers might otherwise grant them.  After independence in 
1948, Muslims traditionally voted with Sinhalese majority 
parties, especially the United National Party (UNP).  In the 
ensuing decades, about 10 to 20 percent of Muslims began to 
support the other major majority party, the Sri Lanka Freedom 
Party (SLFP).  Not until the early 1980s did a distinct 
Muslim political identity emerge - and an eastern Muslim 
identity at that.  After the 1983 riots, in which about a 
thousand Tamils were killed in government-sponsored violence, 
Muslims began to feel more insecure about their own position 
as a minority group in Sri Lanka.  Many eastern Muslims began 
to feel that the Sinhalese majority parties, specifically the 
UNP, did not address perceived Muslim injustices in 
government employment and education.  In response, M.H.M. 
Ashraff, a prominent Muslim politician and lawyer from the 
east, formed the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC) in 1987. 
Ashraff, who had previously aligned himself with the Tamil 
United Liberation Front (TULF) to address minority issues, 
was motivated by the experiences of conflict-affected 
northern and eastern Muslims.  Ashraff's desire to address 
their needs via a "communal" political party found immediate 
success: the SLMC's debut in the 1989 parliamentary election 
yielded 4 seats.  In the 1994 election, the SLMC garnered 10 
seats.  In a break with traditional Muslim loyalty to the 
UNP, party leader Ashraff supported then Prime Minister 
Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga's government and was 
rewarded with powerful ministerial portfolios in ports and 
shipping. 
 
7. (U) While the SLMC garnered an impressive 25 to 30 percent 
of the Muslim vote, most Muslims still voted with Sinhalese 
majority parties.  In the late 1990s, Ashraff began thinking 
about expanding the SLMC's base from eastern Muslims to 
Muslims nation-wide.  His idea for a national platform 
yielded the 1999 formation of the National Unity Alliance 
(NUA), designed to enlist the support of Muslims and other 
groups, including Buddhists.  The NUA, legally an offshoot of 
the SLMC, was never officially registered as an independent 
party.   Muslim interlocutors told poloff that Ashraff, who 
made his mark as the leader of the  "communal" SLMC, planned 
to expand the NUA into a national political party, with 
Ashraff at the helm.  He never accomplished his goal.  In 
September 2000, Ashraff was killed in a helicopter crash in 
eastern Sri Lanka. 
 
------------------ 
The SLMC Fractures 
------------------ 
 
8.  (U) Whatever unity the young SLMC enjoyed quickly 
vanished when Ashraff died.  Ashraff's hitherto politically 
inexperienced widow, Ferial Ashraff, and his  protg Rauf 
Hakeem fought bitterly for the leadership of the party. 
Their battle resulted in an SLMC divided into two camps: 
Rauf Hakeem as leader of the party, and Ferial Ashraff as the 
leader of the NUA.  Hakeem's opponents cited his relative 
youth (at the time he was 40 years old) and lack of eastern 
heritage  (Hakeem is from Kandy) as reasons he should not 
lead the SLMC.  Ferial Ashraff's opponents derided her lack 
of political background, her hometown (also near Kandy), and 
expressed concern about a woman leading the party.  Hakeem 
and the SLMC later threw their support behind the UNP after 
the December 2001 election, allowing Ranil Wickremesinghe to 
become Prime Minister, while  Ferial Ashraff's (still 
"communal") NUA supported President Chandrika Bandaranaike 
Kumaratunga's SLFP. 
 
9. (C)  Even after the early 2001 split, the SLMC continued 
to fracture.  Senior SLMC member A.L.M. Attaullah formed the 
National Muslim Congress (NMC) in 2002 in protest against 
Hakeem's leadership.  Later in 2002, a group of politicians 
calling themselves the Ashraff Congress also challenged 
Hakeem's leadership and broke away from the SLMC.  These 
groups were angry that Hakeem failed to consult senior SLMC 
leaders about major party decisions--notably Hakeem's 
decision to sign an agreement with the UNP in 2001 and to 
negotiate a separate agreement guaranteeing Muslim security 
and participation in the peace talks with LTTE leader 
Prabhakaran in 2001. (Comment:  Prabhakaran has largely 
ignored this agreement.  End Comment).  In the April 
parliamentary election, National Muslim Congress members and 
Ashraff Congress members threw their support to the 
President's coalition, the United People's Freedom Alliance 
(UPFA).  According to Ashraff Congress member S. Shahibdeen, 
Hakeem failed to convince the international community about 
Muslim participation in the peace talks and also failed to 
address the issues of Muslim internally displaced persons 
(IDPs) in Puttalam.  (Hakeem lost the votes of 35,000 Muslim 
voters in Puttalam to the UNP.) The Ashraff Congress itself 
split in 2004, dividing into the Democratic Unity Alliance 
(without parliamentary representation) and the original 
Ashraff Congress group.   Some interlocutors observe that 
while the Ashraff Congress is trying to become an umbrella 
group for various Muslim politicians, no one takes it 
seriously.  People are even more disdainful of the DUA, which 
some see as an opportunist group ready to upset the applecart 
for the highest bidder--which, in the case of the April 
election--was the President.  According to Rauf Hakeem, the 
SLMC's success in obtaining a Muslim mandate and becoming a 
force in forming governments gives SLMC politicians crucial 
leverage that others try to destroy.  The lure of majority 
party perks continue to draw Muslim MPs away from the 
contested SLMC center, most recently in October when four 
SLMC MPs (who had also fought Hakeem) jumped to the UPFA and 
were granted non-cabinet ministerships (see Reftel). 
 
--------------------------------------------- - 
Muslim Political Groups - No Longer Kingmakers 
--------------------------------------------- - 
 
10. (C) The SLMC's status as kingmaker in recent governments 
has diminished considerably.  The growing importance of a 
smaller parties like the Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU) and 
Ceylon Worker's Congress (CWC) has reduced the SLMC's 
bargaining power to make or break UNP and SLFP governments. 
After the April 2004 parliamentary election, SLMC leader Rauf 
Hakeem told poloffs that his party had the numbers to give 
the President's coalition a majority, but refused to do so. 
Hakeem held out for the President's assurance that she would 
not attempt to form a constituent assembly and for Muslim 
representation at the peace talks.  Hakeem added that he 
thought a constituent assembly would further destabilize the 
government and expressed support for the executive 
presidency, which he said is good for Muslim interests and 
offers minorities crucial leverage in selecting the 
president.  He noted that the UPFA asked him to join the 
coalition with the promises of discussing his requests 
"later."  The SLMC declined to support the UPFA. 
 
11. (U) Muslims make up more slots in Parliament than the 
SLMC's beleaguered history reveals. Only 30 to 35 percent of 
Muslims now vote with the SLMC; the other 65 to 70 percent 
vote with the UNP or SLFP (and of those, more Muslims vote 
for their traditional choice, the UNP).  Even though there 
are 24 Muslim MPs in parliament, however, they have been 
unable to unite as a single force.  In past years, various 
attempts to create a Muslim voting block (for example, the 
now-defunct Muslim Parliamentary Group), have failed. 
Overall Muslim representation in parliament spans the 
political spectrum - from the JVP to the SLMC: 
   - UNP: 7, 
   - UPFA: 11 (of which 2 JVP, 2 NMC, 2 NUA, 1 PA, 4 SLMC 
breakaway), 
   - SLMC: 6. 
 
--------------------------------- 
Eastern Muslim Opposition to ISGA 
--------------------------------- 
 
12. (C) While majority Muslims are often indifferent to the 
LTTE's ISGA proposals, eastern Muslims desperately oppose 
them and want a voice in the President's handling of the 
peace process.  SLMC leader Rauf Hakeem explained to poloffs 
that, "...it is widely accepted that Muslims are important 
stakeholders in the peace process," and that the present 
government has marginalized Muslim participation in the peace 
process.  Hakeem, who participated in six rounds of peace 
talks under Ranil Wickremesinghe's government, asserted that 
talks should be reformulated so Muslims' proper status in the 
process is restored.  Hakeem claimed that there must be three 
separate proposals on the table:  from Muslims, the LTTE, and 
the GSL.  Hakeem, however, has not submitted any proposals, 
and when asked about what theoretical Muslim proposals might 
include was vague.  Minister of Housing and Construction, 
Industry and Eastern Province Education and Irrigation 
Development and NUA leader Ferial Ashraff told poloffs that 
the LTTE wants everything for itself, and noted that Muslims 
who want to be involved in the peace process are not being 
consulted at all.  She commented that while the LTTE 
guarantees a place for Muslims in an ISGA, she lamented the 
lack of communication between Muslims and the LTTE and 
worried that Muslims will have no say about how they will be 
represented.  M.I.M. Mohideen, leader of the Muslim Rights 
Organization, voiced the fears of many Muslims -  that the 
ISGA is actually a permanent arrangement.  He told poloff 
about the eastern Muslim desire for their own "traditional 
homeland" in which Muslims live together, independently, with 
security. 
 
------- 
Comment 
------- 
13. (C) As vehemently as eastern Muslim politicos decry their 
lack of representation in the peace process and in future 
negotiations for an interim governing arrangement in the 
north and east, it seems likely the President will ignore 
their demands.  When the SLMC functioned as "kingmaker" in 
Ranil Wickremesinghe's parliament, its power to influence the 
peace process was much greater.  Now that the President has 
assured her coalition's majority in parliament (just in time 
for budget season) from the CWC and angry SLMC defectors, 
Hakeem's mainline SLMC is decreasingly relevant.  SLMC 
interlocutors charged that the President is trying to destroy 
the SLMC by "buying off" MPs.  While her long history of 
meddling with the SLMC supports this accusation, the 
President is probably only taking advantage of the 
opportunity the SLMC's internal fragmentation and leadership 
crisis present.  Hakeem is clearly a divisive figure for 
eastern Muslims, but no other politician has emerged to take 
his place.  The SLMC's ability to become relevant will depend 
on whether and how the party's leadership crisis is resolved. 
 Although Muslim leaders like Hakeem and Ferial Ashraff 
express hope that the rift in the eastern Muslim polity will 
heal and SLMC strength will be restored, there are no 
indications that this will be reality anytime soon. 
 
14. (C) Meanwhile, the idea of Muslim interim arrangement 
proposals does not enjoy widespread support outside of the 
fragmented eastern Muslim polity, half of which is now part 
of the President's coalition.  Hakeem's seeming discomfort 
and indecision about what a Muslim proposal would really look 
like further complicates its viability.  Majority Muslims may 
have the numerical might to augment eastern Muslim opposition 
to the ISGA, but they lack the political will to do so.  The 
GSL, which never went to great lengths to protect 
northeastern Muslims in the first place, wants and needs a 
settlement with the LTTE badly enough that it will likely 
ignore eastern Muslim opposition to an interim arrangement. 
The LTTE, which sees Muslims as competition for resources and 
an impediment to their influence in the east, is also more 
than happy to ignore Muslim concerns.  Rather than acting as 
a roadblock to any eventual settlement between the GSL and 
the LTTE, or as a full participant in the peace process, the 
badly fractured eastern Muslim polity is likely to be a speed 
bump the GSL and LTTE easily drive over on the road to a 
lasting political settlement. 
 
 
 
 
LUNSTEAD