US embassy cable - 05COLOMBO1994

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 COLOMBO 001994 
 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR SA/INS AND INR/B 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 11/22/2015 
TAGS: PINR, PGOV, PREL, CE, current biographies, Elections, Political Parties 
SUBJECT: BIOGRAPHIC INFORMATION ON NEW FOREIGN MINISTER 
MANGALA SAMARAWEERA 
 
Classified By: AMB. JEFFREY J. LUNSTEAD.  REASON:  1.4 (B,D). 
 
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MANGALA GETS MFA 
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1.  (U) On November 23 President Mahinda Rajapakse appointed 
a 25-member Cabinet that retained many Ministers in the posts 
they held during former President Chandrika Kumaratunga's 
administration (septel).  Among the few changes made, 
however, was the appointment of Sri Lanka Freedom Party 
(SLFP) stalwart and Rajapakse campaign manager Mangala 
Samaraweera as Foreign Minister, replacing Anura 
Bandaranaike, Kumaratunga's brother.  This message contains 
biographic information on the new Foreign Minister. 
 
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THE SOUTH WILL RISE AGAIN 
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2.  (SBU) Like President Rajapakse, Samaraweera hails from a 
politically prestigious southern family with long-standing 
roots in the SLFP.  Samaraweera was first elected to 
Parliament in 1989, inheriting his seat in the southern 
district of Matara from his father, who had been a Minister 
in an SLFP government (headed by former President Chandrika 
Kumaratunga's mother) in the 1960s; his own mother served for 
many years as an SLFP representative to local government in 
Matara.  With Rajapakse, in 1988 Samaraweera founded the 
Mothers' Front, an SLFP-sponsored advocacy group for the 
relatives of "disappeared" youth from the south during the 
Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) insurgency. 
 
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SHIFTING LOYALTIES: 
FROM CHANDRIKA'S KITCHEN CABIINET 
TO JVP FELLOW TRAVELER 
---------------------------------- 
 
3.  (SBU) Early in his parliamentary career, Samaraweera 
aligned himself closely with Chandrika Bandaranaike 
Kumaratunga when she was battling her brother Anura for 
primacy in the SLFP circa 1993-94, openly characterizing her 
brother's faction at the time as "racist."  As early as 1993, 
when other SLFP MPs were still paying lip service to 
Kumaratunga's aged and ailing mother as party leader, 
Samaraweera correctly predicted that Chandrika's surging 
popularity among young voters would make her the party's 
ultimate choice for presidential candidate in 1994. 
Kumaratunga repaid his loyalty by appointing him Minister of 
Posts and Telecommunications after her victory in August 
1994.  In a 2000 Cabinet reshuffle, Samaraweera became the 
Minister of Urban Development, Construction and Public 
Utilities, portfolios he retained until the United National 
Party (UNP) gained control of Parliament in  2001.  He was 
appointed Chief Opposition Whip in 2001. 
 
4.  (C)  After the SLFP victory in the general elections of 
April 2004, Kumaratunga brought Samaraweera back into the 
Cabinet--this time as Minister of Information and Media, 
Minister of Ports and Aviation and Cabinet Spokesman. 
Samaraweera, along with the late Foreign Minister Lakshman 
Kadirgamar, played an important role in brokering the United 
People's Freedom Alliance (UPFA) that brought the former 
Marxist insurrectionist JVP into a coalition with 
Kumaratunga's SLFP in the April 2004 parliamentary elections. 
 Thanks in large part to the influence of the Kadirgamar and 
Samaraweera--who were arguably among Kumaratunga's closest 
advisors at the time--and their assurances that they could 
"bring the (JVP) boys along," Kumaratunga began an uneasy and 
short-lived alliance with the former revolutionaries. 
Samaraweera's unabashed pro-JVP sympathizing strained his 
relations with Kumaratunga, who found herself increasingly at 
loggerheads with her vociferous coalition partners on a 
number of issues, including the economy, privatization and, 
most important, the peace process.  Her displeasure at his 
handling of the Information and Media Ministry--especially 
the prevalence of pro-JVP coverage and nationalist overtones 
in the state-owned media during his tenure--ultimately cost 
him that portfolio.  In mid-2005 Kumaratunga took away his 
responsibilities as Information Minister and Cabinet 
Spokesman. 
 
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JVP:  CAN'T LIVE WITH THEM; 
CAN'T LIVE WITHOUT THEM 
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5.  (C) Just as Samaraweera championed Kumaratunga's bid for 
primacy in the SLFP in the early 1990s, he seems to have been 
equally instrumental in helping Mahinda Rajapakse clinch the 
party's presidential nomination.  Although Samaraweera's ties 
to the JVP had often irritated Rajapakse as Prime Minister, 
when he became the SLFP presidential candidate Samaraweera's 
closeness to the leftist nationalists, with their strong 
grass-roots organization in the rural Sinhalese south, 
appears to have become more attractive to Rajapakse.  In a 
reprise of the deal-brokering role that created the UPFA in 
1994, Samaraweera helped forge the electoral pact between 
Rajapakse and the JVP, a critical element in the SLFP 
candidate ultimate success at the presidential polls on 
November 17.  Although Samaraweera was often quoted in the 
local press as Rajapakse's campaign manager, he was actually 
one of several with that title--the proliferation of 
"managers" possibly Rajapakse's way of watering down 
potentially overbearing JVP influence in his campaign. 
 
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PERCEPTIONS OF THE U.S. 
------------------------ 
 
6.  (C) In his early political career as an opposition MP and 
as a minister in Kumaratunga's first administration, 
Samaraweera was friendly and accessible.  After his 
appointment in 1994 as Minister of Posts and 
Telecommunications, he contacted the Embassy to ask for help 
in "getting up to speed" in his new position.  He became 
somewhat less accessible (as did most ministers in 
Kumaratunga's government due, in part, to her habit of 
calling extended and impromptu Cabinet sessions) as time 
elapsed and, as his closeness to the JVP increased, somewhat 
more outspoken on anti-globalization and Non-Aligned Movement 
(NAM) sympathies.  (In a speech before Parliament a year ago, 
Samaraweera extolled an essay by author Arundhati Roy 
condemning the rapaciousness of corporate globalization and 
commending Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez for "holding on" 
in the fight against globalization "despite the US 
Government's best efforts.")  In general, however, 
Samaraweera does not appear to be anti-west or anti-US and is 
genuinely appreciative of US assistance to his 
tsunami-devastated home district.  He served as the "duty 
 
SIPDIS 
minister," or official host, during the post-tsunami visits 
of then-Secretary Powell and former Presidents Bush and 
Clinton earlier this year. 
 
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PERSONAL DATA 
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7.  (SBU) Samaraweera was born April 21, 1957.  He was 
educated at the elite Royal College in Colombo and received a 
B.A. with honors in clothing design and technology from St. 
Martin's College in London (where, reportedly, the singer Boy 
George was a classmate). In the early 1990s he was a visiting 
lecturer at the University of Kelaniya in the Aesthetics 
Department.  A Sinhala Buddhist, he is unmarried and has no 
children.  His English is excellent. 
LUNSTEAD