![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/K.-Vigneswaran.jpg\" "\\"K.")
<\/a>Dr. K. Vigneswaran<\/p><\/div>\n
The\u00a0Colombo Telegraph<\/a><\/span>\u00a0found the related leaked cable from the\u00a0WikiLeaks<\/a><\/span>\u00a0database. The \u2018Confidential\u2019 cable discusses\u00a0the governing SLFP\u2019s devolution proposals.\u00a0The cable was written on May 04, 2007 \u00a0by the US embassy\u00a0Charge d\u2019Affaires James R. Moore<\/a><\/span>.<\/p>\n Moor wrote; “A senior UNP Member of Parliament we contacted said he had spoken by phone on April 3 to party leader Ranil Wickremesinghe. The MP believed that the newspaper had taken Choksy’s comments out of context. What Choksy meant, he said, was that only the UNP and SLFP, working together, could put forward a viable proposal that could command the necessary majority in the South and in Parliament. However, he noted that the UNP had for months insisted that the 2000 proposal by then-President Chandrika Kumaratunga was the minimum benchmark to meet. The SLFP proposals represented a step back even from the status quo under the 13th Amendment and were therefore ‘a waste of time’. He and three UNP working committee members we saw separately all expressed deep skepticism that the SLFP proposals were serious. It appeared to them that the President was simply trying to play the ball back to the UNP. They saw this as an attempt to shift the onus to the UNP for advocating concessions to the LTTE. They made it clear that the UNP was disinclined to fall into this trap.”<\/p>\n Placing a comment he wrote; “The UNP, moderate Tamil and Muslim parties, and “crossovers” to the government such as G. L. Peiris all argue that the final devolution ‘package’ must lie somewhere between the existing structures of the 13th amendment and the LTTE’s 2003 proposal for an Interim Self-Governing Authority. The SLFP proposal, for all of these players, is simply not on the playing field. APRC chair Vitharana (himself the chair of a small left-wing party) and SLFP figures such as Health Minister and peace negotiator Nimal De Silva have emphasized that the SLFP draft is not the governing party’s final word. However, a basic analysis of the various proposals now in play shows that the SLFP draft is the outlier, and has little in common with the others. The UNP has promised to engage seriously on devolution provided the SLFP put a credible proposal on the table. Our discussions with UNP interlocutors indicate they do not see a way forward based on the current SLFP draft. The two main parties continue to be wary of each other, and it will be difficult for them to cooperate on this crucial issue as long as each suspects the other of seeking a partisan advantage. It remains true that any proposal which does not have the backing of the two main Southern parties will fail to reach the critical mass needed to move forward. Similarly, any proposal that is completely out of bounds for the great majority of Sri Lanka’s Tamils will not hold the potential to help resolve the decades-old ethnic conflict.”<\/p>\n Read the cable below for further details;<\/p>\n […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":96766,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,2187,1,6969,2375,27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-96719","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-colombotelegraph","category-most-popular","category-news","category-popular-stories","category-stories","category-wikileaks"],"yoast_head":"\nVZCZCXRO5601\r\nOO RUEHBI RUEHLMC\r\nDE RUEHLM #0661\/01 1241145\r\nZNY CCCCC ZZH\r\nO 041145Z MAY 07\r\nFM AMEMBASSY COLOMBO\r\nTO RUEHC\/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 5984\r\nINFO RUEHRL\/AMEMBASSY BERLIN PRIORITY 0376\r\nRUEHKA\/AMEMBASSY DHAKA PRIORITY 0081\r\nRUEHIL\/AMEMBASSY ISLAMABAD PRIORITY 7062\r\nRUEHKT\/AMEMBASSY KATHMANDU PRIORITY 5149\r\nRUEHLO\/AMEMBASSY LONDON PRIORITY 3723\r\nRUEHNE\/AMEMBASSY NEW DELHI PRIORITY 0932\r\nRUEHNY\/AMEMBASSY OSLO PRIORITY 3795\r\nRUEHKO\/AMEMBASSY TOKYO PRIORITY 2876\r\nRUEHCG\/AMCONSUL CHENNAI PRIORITY 7648\r\nRUEHBI\/AMCONSUL MUMBAI PRIORITY 5330\r\nRUEHON\/AMCONSUL TORONTO PRIORITY 0196\r\nRUEHGV\/USMISSION GENEVA PRIORITY 2014\r\nRHHMUNA\/HQ USPACOM HONOLULU HI PRIORITY\r\nRHEFDIA\/DIA WASHINGTON DC PRIORITY\r\nRHEHAAA\/NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL WASHINGTON DC PRIORITY\r\nRUEHBS\/USEU BRUSSELS PRIORITY\r\nRUEHLMC\/MILLENNIUM CHALLENGE CORPORATION PRIORITY<\/pre>\n
C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 COLOMBO 000661 \r\n\r\nSIPDIS \r\n\r\nSIPDIS \r\n\r\nDEPARTMENT FOR SCA\/INS\r\nMCC FOR F REID, D NASSIRY AND E BURKE \r\n\r\nE.O. 12958: DECL: 05\/03\/2017\r\nTAGS: PGOV PREL PHUM CE\r\nSUBJECT: SRI LANKA: CRITICISM OF RULING PARTY DEVOLUTION\r\nPROPOSAL MOUNTS \r\n\r\nREF: COLOMBO 643 \r\n\r\nClassified By: Charge d'Affaires James R. Moore, for reasons 1.4(b, d). \r\n\r\n\u00b61. (C) SUMMARY: Most parties represented in parliament,\r\nincluding several elements of the ruling coalition, have come\r\nout publicly or privately against the governing Sri Lankan\r\nFreedom Party draft devolution proposals. The Sinhalese\r\nnationalist JVP has also attacked the plan, saying it is\r\ncontrary to the President's anti-federalist 2005 election\r\ncampaign manifesto, which the JVP accepted when it supported\r\nhim. The opposition United National party (UNP) is awaiting\r\nthe return of its leader, Ranil Wickremesinghe, currently\r\ntraveling in Europe, before taking a definitive position.\r\nThe prevailing sentiment in the party is that the UNP has\r\nlittle to gain by engaging on basis of the SLFP text, which\r\nthey regard as incapable of addressing the country's ethnic\r\nconflict. Most Tamils believe that district-level devolution\r\nhas been tried at least twice before in previous decades and\r\nfound to be inadequate for Sri Lanka. End summary. \r\n\r\nOPPOSITION TO SLFP PROPOSALS VIRTUALLY UNANIMOUS\r\n--------------------------------------------- --- \r\n\r\n\u00b62. (C) The chorus of voices criticizing the governing SLFP's\r\ndevolution proposals continued. The Sinhalese nationalist\r\nJVP denounced the draft as contrary to the President's\r\nelection manifesto, which was stridently anti-federalist.\r\nJVP parliamentary leader Wimal Weerawansa noted, \"the\r\nproposals refer to a federal form of government which was\r\nagainst the people's mandate.... if the government believes\r\nit can resolve the problem by increasing the number of\r\nadministrative bodies , it will be a joke.. (This) would\r\nonly help corrupt politicians misappropriate public funds by\r\nbeing part of the system.\" \r\n\r\n\u00b63. (C) Sri Lankan Muslim Congress (SLMC) leader Rauff Hakeem\r\ntold Pol Chief that his party had not yet discussed the\r\nproposals, but he personally did not think they could\r\ncontribute to a settlement of the ethnic conflict. This\r\nwould depend mostly on the attitude of moderate Tamil\r\nparties, he said, whose spokesmen so far had expressed \"deep\r\ndistress\" over the ruling party's draft. Hakeem thought that\r\nthe proposal to devolve power to the districts would open to\r\nthe door to manipulation by the central government and could\r\nactually help \"extend the power of the executive presidency\r\nto the periphery.\" He commented that the SLFP's 2000\r\nproposals were \"much better,\" and called for further\r\ndiscussions within the APRC on the basis of the \"Majority\r\nReport\" of the Experts Committee, rather than the SLFP draft. \r\n\r\nTHIRD TIME LUCKY?\r\n----------------- \r\n\r\n\u00b64. (C) A key member of the SLFP drafting committee (strictly\r\nprotect) confided to Pol that the President had rejected the\r\nwork of his committee, which had proposed provincial level\r\ndevolution. The President then convened a second, smaller\r\nworking group that excluded this contact and other prominent\r\nSLFP moderates. Nevertheless, this working group had also\r\nreported out a proposal to devolve power to the Provincial\r\nCouncils. The third and final draft was the brainchild of\r\nSri Lanka's Chief Justice (known for his extreme and quirky\r\nviews) and a lawyer close to the JVP. Our source told us the\r\nPresident pushed this third proposal through the party's\r\nCentral Committee. He believed that his plan for devolution\r\nto the provinces commanded much support within the SLFP, but\r\nin the end, Central Committee members were unwilling to cast\r\nvotes against the President. His own draft went down to\r\ndefeat, 33 to 3, although the President subsequently endorsed\r\nseveral amendments he suggested. \r\n\r\nCOLOMBO 00000661 002 OF 003 \r\n\r\nUNP SENSES A POLITICAL TRAP\r\n--------------------------- \r\n\r\n\u00b65. (C) The principal opposition UNP has yet to take a\r\ndefinitive position on the SLFP concepts, mainly because its\r\nleader, Ranil Wickremesinghe, is currently traveling in\r\nEurope. UNP delegate to the APRC K. N. Choksy gave an\r\ninterview to the daily newspaper \"Island\" in which he\r\nreportedly said the principal difference between the two main\r\nparties was on the unit of devolution ) the province or the\r\ndistrict. He turned the President's development argument on\r\nits head, saying the district units would be too small to\r\ncarry out sustainable development, and would tend to fragment\r\nthe country. Choksy did, however note that the UNP and SLFP\r\nwere both on record as advocating substantial devolution\r\nwithin one nation. Choksy expressed hope that this consensus\r\non the central issue could help advance the stalled peace\r\nprocess. \r\n\r\n\u00b66. (C) A senior UNP Member of Parliament we contacted said\r\nhe had spoken by phone on April 3 to party leader Ranil\r\nWickremesinghe. The MP believed that the newspaper had taken\r\nChoksy's comments out of context. What Choksy meant, he\r\nsaid, was that only the UNP and SLFP, working together, could\r\nput forward a viable proposal that could command the\r\nnecessary majority in the South and in Parliament. However,\r\nhe noted that the UNP had for months insisted that the 2000\r\nproposal by then-President Chandrika Kumaratunga was the\r\nminimum benchmark to meet. The SLFP proposals represented a\r\nstep back even from the status quo under the 13th Amendment\r\nand were therefore \"a waste of time.\" He and three UNP\r\nworking committee members we saw separately all expressed\r\ndeep skepticism that the SLFP proposals were serious. It\r\nappeared to them that the President was simply trying to play\r\nthe ball back to the UNP. They saw this as an attempt to\r\nshift the onus to the UNP for advocating concessions to the\r\nLTTE. They made it clear that the UNP was disinclined to\r\nfall into this trap. \r\n\r\n\u00b67. (C) The UNP working committee members we spoke to\r\n(protect) were also suspicious of the role the Chief Justice\r\nplayed in developing the SLFP proposal. They believed that\r\nany consensus emerging from political discussion among the\r\nparties would probably later be rendered moot by a Supreme\r\nCourt decision orchestrated by the Chief Justice. They cited\r\nnumerous precedents for this, noting that the same Supreme\r\nCourt had ruled -- on grounds that many have found dubious --\r\nthat both the Post-Tsunami Operational Management Structure\r\n(PTOMS) and the 1989 merger of the North and East Provinces\r\nwere unconstitutional. They expected the Supreme Court would\r\nsoon overrule an appeals court decision and declare the 2002\r\nCeasefire Agreement unconstitutional as well. \r\n\r\nTHE BASIS OF OBJECTIONS TO THE SLFP PROPOSAL\r\n-------------------------------------------- \r\n\r\n\u00b68. (SBU) The idea of devolution to the district level is\r\nnot new - proposals for decentralization of power in Sri\r\nLanka along those lines go back nearly fifty years.\r\n-- In 1957, Prime Minister S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike reached a\r\npartial agreement with Tamil Federal Party head Chelvanayakam\r\non devolution to the provinces, but the accord soon fell\r\napart over the issue of Tamil language rights.\r\n-- In 1965 Prime Minister Dudley Senanayake and Chelvanayakam\r\nagreed on a plan for district councils. This plan was also\r\nshort-lived and, in the view of most Tamil-speaking people,\r\ndid not result in any significant autonomy .\r\n-- In 1979, President Jayawardene proposed a system\r\nremarkably similar to the present SLFP concept, including\r\nDistrict Development Councils (DDCs) with appointed District \r\n\r\nCOLOMBO 00000661 003 OF 003 \r\n\r\nManagers to plan economic development activities. Tamil and\r\nMuslim parties in the North and East found the system\r\nunworkable because the unit of devolution was too small to be\r\neconomically viable.\r\n-- As a direct result of the 1987 Indo-Lanka Accord, the 13th\r\namendment to Sri Lanka's Constitution replaced the DDCs with\r\nProvincial Councils. This is the status quo that the SLFP\r\nproposes to supersede, essentially by turning back the clock\r\nto pre-1979. \r\n\r\n\u00b69. (C) Tamils find this broadly unacceptable, saying that\r\ndistrict-level autonomy was been tried at least twice before\r\nand found unsatisfactory. Ceylon Workers Congress spokesman\r\nYogarajan, whose party represents \"Up-Country\" Tamils of\r\nIndian origin, said \"President Jayawardene introduced the\r\nprovincial council system because people rejected the\r\ndistrict councils in the 1980s. Tamils were not satisfied\r\nwith them even then. That is why war is going on even today.\r\n Now the SLFP has taken a step backward.\" Even the anti-LTTE\r\nEelam People's Democratic Party, part of the governing\r\ncoalition, has come out against it. Party spokesman\r\nThavarajah commented: \"We are very clear that any devolution\r\npackage should be based on the provinces proposal. Also, we\r\nare in favor of the Northeast merger.\" \r\n\r\n\u00b610. Dr. K. Vigneswaran, a member of the APRC Experts\r\nCommittee, told us that Tamils do not believe that devolving\r\npowers to the district level will meet their aspirations.\r\nThe concept of the merged Northeast Province speaks to their\r\nneed for security and for proper representation, he said.\r\nTamils fear that the Districts, whose heads are to be\r\nappointed by the President, will be subject to manipulation\r\nby the central government. Tamils believe that\r\n\"colonization\" of their traditional areas by Sinhalese would\r\naccelerate. Further, Vigneswaran argued, the SLFP proposal\r\nremoves the powers of police, land and irrigation from the\r\nprovinces, but replaces them with nothing. He asserted that\r\nreserving the security, land and water portfolios to the\r\ncentral government leaves it unclear what is left to be\r\ndevolved to the districts. \r\n\r\n\u00b611. (C) COMMENT: The UNP, moderate Tamil and Muslim parties,\r\nand \"crossovers\" to the government such as G. L. Peiris all\r\nargue that the final devolution \"package\" must lie somewhere\r\nbetween the existing structures of the 13th amendment and the\r\nLTTE's 2003 proposal for an Interim Self-Governing Authority.\r\n The SLFP proposal, for all of these players, is simply not\r\non the playing field. APRC chair Vitharana (himself the\r\nchair of a small left-wing party) and SLFP figures such as\r\nHealth Minister and peace negotiator Nimal DeSilva have\r\nemphasized that the SLFP draft is not the governing party's\r\nfinal word. However, a basic analysis of the various\r\nproposals now in play shows that the SLFP draft is the\r\noutlier, and has little in common with the others. The UNP\r\nhas promised to engage seriously on devolution provided the\r\nSLFP put a credible proposal on the table. Our discussions\r\nwith UNP interlocutors indicate they do not see a way forward\r\nbased on the current SLFP draft. The two main parties\r\ncontinue to be wary of each other, and it will be difficult\r\nfor them to cooperate on this crucial issue as long as each\r\nsuspects the other of seeking a partisan advantage. It\r\nremains true that any proposal which does not have the\r\nbacking of the two main Southern parties will fail to reach\r\nthe critical mass needed to move forward. Similarly, any\r\nproposal that is completely out of bounds for the great\r\nmajority of Sri Lanka's Tamils will not hold the potential to\r\nhelp resolve the decades-old ethnic conflict.\r\nMOORE<\/pre>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"