{"id":3819,"date":"2012-01-24T06:44:51","date_gmt":"2012-01-24T06:44:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/colombotelegraph.com\/?p=3819"},"modified":"2012-05-07T21:05:34","modified_gmt":"2012-05-07T21:05:34","slug":"wikileaks-sampanthan-doesnt-discuss-war-crimes-out-of-fear","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/wikileaks-sampanthan-doesnt-discuss-war-crimes-out-of-fear\/","title":{"rendered":"WikiLeaks: Sampanthan Doesn&#8217;t Discuss &#8216;War Crimes&#8217; Out Of Fear"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>By Colombo Telegraph &#8211;<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_3823\" style=\"width: 338px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/sampanthan-mahinda-colombo-telegraph1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-3823\" class=\"size-full wp-image-3823\" title=\"Sampanthan - Mahinda - Colombo Telegraph\" src=\"http:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/sampanthan-mahinda-colombo-telegraph1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"328\" height=\"305\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/sampanthan-mahinda-colombo-telegraph1.jpg 328w, https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/sampanthan-mahinda-colombo-telegraph1-300x278.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 328px) 100vw, 328px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-3823\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sampanthan was realistic about the dim prospects for any Sri Lankan government to take up the issue.<\/p><\/div>\n<p><strong>\u201cWhile he believed the Tamil community was &#8220;vulnerable&#8221; on the issue and said he would not discuss &#8220;war crimes&#8221; per se in parliament for fear of retaliation, Sampanthan would emphasize the importance of people knowing the truth about what happened during the war\u201d the US Embassy Colombo informed Washington.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The Colombo Telegraph found the related leaked cable from the WikiLeaks database. The cable is classified as \u201cSECRET\u201d and recounts details of a meeting the US Ambassador has had with Tamil National Alliance leader R. Sampanthan . The cable was written on January 15, 2010 by the US Ambassador to Colombo, Patricia A. Butenis.<\/p>\n<p>Ambassador Butenis wrote \u201che said he believed accountability was important and he welcomed the international community&#8217;s &#8212; especially the diaspora&#8217;s &#8212; interest in the issue. But Sampanthan was realistic about the dim prospects for any Sri Lankan government to take up the issue. Granting that governments in power do not investigate their own, Sampanthan nevertheless said it was important to the health of the nation to get the truth out. While he believed the Tamil community was &#8220;vulnerable&#8221; on the issue and said he would not discuss &#8220;war crimes&#8221; per se in parliament for fear of retaliation, Sampanthan would emphasize the importance of people knowing the truth about what happened during the war. We also have asked Sampanthan repeatedly for his ideas on an accountability mechanism that would be credible to Tamils and possible within the current political context, but he has not been able to provide such a model.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Below we give the relevant part of the cable;<\/p>\n<pre>VZCZCXRO9281\r\nOO RUEHAG RUEHROV RUEHSL\r\nDE RUEHLM #\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a00032\/01 0151223\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\r\nZNY SSSSS ZZH\r\nO 151223Z JAN 10\r\nFM AMEMBASSY COLOMBO\r\nTO RUEHC\/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 1120\r\nINFO RUCNMEM\/EU MEMBER STATES COLLECTIVE PRIORITY\r\nRUEHKA\/AMEMBASSY DHAKA PRIORITY 2264\r\nRUEHIL\/AMEMBASSY ISLAMABAD PRIORITY 9286\r\nRUEHKT\/AMEMBASSY KATHMANDU PRIORITY 7541\r\nRUEHLO\/AMEMBASSY LONDON PRIORITY 5373\r\nRUEHNE\/AMEMBASSY NEW DELHI PRIORITY 3699\r\nRUEHNY\/AMEMBASSY OSLO PRIORITY 5298\r\nRUEHOT\/AMEMBASSY OTTAWA PRIORITY 0159\r\nRUEHSM\/AMEMBASSY STOCKHOLM PRIORITY 0824\r\nRUEHKO\/AMEMBASSY TOKYO PRIORITY 4420\r\nRUEHCG\/AMCONSUL CHENNAI PRIORITY 9847\r\nRUEHBI\/AMCONSUL MUMBAI PRIORITY 7136\r\nRUEHON\/AMCONSUL TORONTO PRIORITY 0154\r\nRHEFDIA\/DIA WASHINGTON DC PRIORITY\r\nRUEHGV\/USMISSION GENEVA PRIORITY 0001\r\nRHHMUNA\/HQ USPACOM HONOLULU HI PRIORITY\r\nRUEHBS\/USEU BRUSSELS PRIORITY\r\nRHEHAAA\/NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL WASHINGTON DC PRIORITY\r\nRUEKJCS\/SECDEF WASHDC PRIORITY\r\nFriday, 15 January 2010, 12:23\r\nS E C R E T SECTION 01 OF 03 COLOMBO 000032\r\nSIPDIS\r\nDEPARTMENT FOR SCA\/INSB\r\nEO 12958 DECL: 01\/15\/2020\r\nTAGS PGOV, PREL, PREF, PHUM, PTER, EAID, MOPS, CE\r\nSUBJECT: SRI LANKA WAR-CRIMES ACCOUNTABILITY: THE TAMIL\r\nPERSPECTIVE\r\nREF: A. 09 COLOMBO 1180  B. COLOMBO 8\r\nCOLOMBO 00000032 001.2 OF 003\r\nClassified By: AMBASSADOR PATRICIA A. BUTENIS. REASONS: 1.4 (B, D)<\/pre>\n<p><strong><a id=\"par6\" href=\"http:\/\/wikileaks.org\/cable\/2010\/01\/10COLOMBO32.html#par6\">\u00b6<\/a>6. (S) Other Tamil politicians have not made public statements on accountability and are generally more pragmatic in their thinking. In our multiple recent discussions with TNA leader R. Sampanthan, he said he believed accountability was important and he welcomed the international community\u2019s &#8212; especially the diaspora\u2019s &#8212; interest in the issue. But Sampanthan was realistic about the dim prospects for any Sri Lankan government to take up the issue. Granting that governments in power do not investigate their own, Sampanthan nevertheless said it was important to the health of the nation to get the truth out. While he believed the Tamil community was \u201cvulnerable\u201d on the issue and said he would not discuss \u201cwar crimes\u201d per se in parliament for fear of retaliation, Sampanthan would emphasize the importance of people knowing the truth about what happened during the war. We also have asked Sampanthan repeatedly for his ideas on an accountability mechanism that would be credible to Tamils and possible within the current political context, but he has not been able to provide such a model.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>BUTENIS<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p> [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":3825,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[48,31,63,26,27],"tags":[1139,1134,1298,1397,1399,1650,6983,1402],"class_list":["post-3819","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-disappearance","category-judiciary","category-politics-2","category-war-crimes","category-wikileaks","tag-democracy","tag-human-rights","tag-sri-lankans-in-wikileaks","tag-tamil-politics","tag-tna-leader-r-sampanthan","tag-transitional-justice-and-reconciliation","tag-war-crimes","tag-war-crimes-sri-lanka"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>WikiLeaks: Sampanthan Doesn&#039;t Discuss &#039;War Crimes&#039; Out Of Fear - Colombo Telegraph<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/wikileaks-sampanthan-doesnt-discuss-war-crimes-out-of-fear\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"WikiLeaks: Sampanthan Doesn&#039;t Discuss &#039;War Crimes&#039; Out Of Fear - Colombo Telegraph\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"[&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/wikileaks-sampanthan-doesnt-discuss-war-crimes-out-of-fear\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Colombo Telegraph\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-01-24T06:44:51+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2012-05-07T21:05:34+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/samapanthan-colombo-telegraph1.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"600\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"798\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Colombo Telegraph\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Colombo Telegraph\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/wikileaks-sampanthan-doesnt-discuss-war-crimes-out-of-fear\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/wikileaks-sampanthan-doesnt-discuss-war-crimes-out-of-fear\/\",\"name\":\"WikiLeaks: Sampanthan Doesn't Discuss 'War Crimes' Out Of Fear - Colombo Telegraph\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/wikileaks-sampanthan-doesnt-discuss-war-crimes-out-of-fear\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/wikileaks-sampanthan-doesnt-discuss-war-crimes-out-of-fear\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/samapanthan-colombo-telegraph1.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2012-01-24T06:44:51+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2012-05-07T21:05:34+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/#\/schema\/person\/de9e3c959e41894c80608bdddd0387b7\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/wikileaks-sampanthan-doesnt-discuss-war-crimes-out-of-fear\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/wikileaks-sampanthan-doesnt-discuss-war-crimes-out-of-fear\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/wikileaks-sampanthan-doesnt-discuss-war-crimes-out-of-fear\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/samapanthan-colombo-telegraph1.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/samapanthan-colombo-telegraph1.jpg\",\"width\":\"600\",\"height\":\"798\",\"caption\":\"Rajavayothi Sampanthan\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/wikileaks-sampanthan-doesnt-discuss-war-crimes-out-of-fear\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"WikiLeaks: Sampanthan Doesn&#8217;t Discuss &#8216;War Crimes&#8217; 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