How the U.S. manipulated Sri Lanka toward a federal structure

In early 2012, under the auspices of the Office of the Under Secretary-General of the United Nations (Political Affairs) B. Lynn Pascoe, attended by many professionals that included President Obama’s close confidante and information czar Prof. Cass Sustein and his wife Dr. Samantha Power, the U.S. president’s human rights-war crimes-genocide crusader in the National Security Council, to start a process of restructuring several developing Third World nations’ constitutional arrangements to promulgate federalism as an answer to ethnic minority grievances.

Dr. Power meeting President Sirisena in Colombo

The Under-Secretary-General (Political) B. Lynn Pascoe was a retired career diplomat from the US State Department.

Dr. Samantha Power meets then foreign minister Samaraweera in November 2015Since the early 2012-process commenced, a number of closed-door meetings and seminars at which the partition of UN member states has been discussed. Most of the meetings have been held under the direction of the UN Interagency Framework for Coordination on Preventive Action (the Framework Team or FT). The control of the FT fell into the domain of the current under-secretary-general of Political Affairs Jeffrey Feltman who took over from Pascoe in June 2012.

Jeffrey Feltman was a 26-year career diplomat at the U.S. Department of State, and just before he retired to join the US in mid 2012 he held the rank of career minister. The UN slot in the Department of Political Affairs, for decades, has always been assigned to an American Foreign Service officer (FSO), and it is the second most influential position next to the Secretary-General. The holder of this position as the head of the Department of Political Affairs (DPA) advises the UN secretary general on peace and security issues globally, while overseeing “good offices” initiatives and field-based political missions carrying out peacekeeping, preventive diplomacy, and peace-building activities. The incumbent also oversees the UN electoral assistance provided to dozens of its member states each year.

When a former American FSO occupies the Number Two slot of the UN, the State Department has extensive leverage over the operation of the United Nations, and it has been seen that both branches – the Department of Political Affairs and the US State Department – work together to achieve common objectives. As much as the state department and its representative – US ambassador to UN- maintain jurisdiction over the Human Rights Commission in Geneva, under internal UN arrangement, Jeffrey Feltman overseas the functioning of UNHRC.
The United States is quite conscious that the current U.N. regular budget of $5.4 billion, by a formula based on the size of a country’s economy and other factors, it contributes 22 percent, or about $1.2 billion annually.

When the process commenced in 2012, Sri Lanka, apart from Nepal, was also a target for the identity federalism engineers. During the 2008 presidential campaign, both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama received large campaign donations from front groups for the Tamil Tigers. As a way of thanking the Tigers for their support, the Obama administration and the International Peace Institute of Norway (which has been called a front for NATO and the CIA and which supported the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam [LTTE] during their long civil war against the Sri Lankan government) have been pushing for a federal system in Sri Lanka that would create a autonomous regional units.
The United States and United Nations started it in Nepal as a test case.

Federalism is one of the most important and innovative concepts in the U.S. Constitution, although the word never appears there. In America, the states existed first, and they struggled to create a national government. The U.S. Constitution is hardwired with the tensions of that struggle, and Americans still debate the proper role of the national government versus the states.

The American motto E Pluribus Unum means out of many states, one nation.

Sri Lanka, in fact, is a complete reverse: Historically, this South Asian nation has been a single nation despite, in ancient times, ruled by several kings.

The drafters of the new constitution for Sri Lanka and their political backers in the Sirisena-Wickremasinghe government categorically state that the constitution is not federal in nature hence the word ‘federal’ is not even mentioned in any drafts. So is the American constitution.

Jeffrey Feltman meets PM Wickremasinghe in Colombo July 20, 2017

It is with this scenario initiating federal structure in many Third World small nations on ethnic lines that the US State Department officials declare the best political solution to Sri Lanka’s “national issues” is serious devolution of power facilitating a federal structure.

To promote a ‘serious devolution to the peripheral regions’ – whether one calls it federal structure or otherwise – Dr. Samantha Power who initially attended the Framework Team in early 2012 with the UN Department of Political Affairs travelled to Sri Lanka in November 2015. So was the UN Under-Secretary-General (Political) Jeffrey Feltman travelled to Sri Lanka for talks in July 2017.

These two visits cannot be considered lightly.

The Settled Mind-set of US diplomats: The FSOs of the US overseas post in Sri Lanka, since the inception of LTTE militarism in the 1980s, have conditioned themselves to have a settled mind-set about the national issue of Sri Lanka. Various elements and aspects of this settled mind-set were revealed on many occasions. These perceptions of Sri Lanka’s national issue reached the South Asia Bureau of the US State Department over the years to influence those who were at the helm who had the privilege of testifying before the Senate foreign affairs committee and the House international relations committee. Washington went through all these perceptions that have been fed periodically by the American embassy in Sri Lanka, half-truths, distortions, and analyses to settle a point that the panacea to all ills was the establishment of a federal structure.

The “disclosure” by the then Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia Richard Boucher in 2006 was the result of the developed mind-set within the US diplomatic mission in Colombo, which was largely influenced the political leaders in Sri Lanka to give serious thought to a constitutional system that provides unusual power structure to the peripheral regions on the lines of ethnicity.

Richard Boucher, in one of his official visits to Sri Lanka, at a press conference in Colombo on June 1, 2006, expressed the US policy in this manner:

(Quote) I think we all understand that the Tamil community in Sri Lanka has certain rights and certain needs and certain grievances that need to be addressed.
Although we reject the methods that the Tamil Tigers have used, there are legitimate issues that are raised by the Tamil community and they have a very legitimate desire, as anybody would, to be able to control their own lives, to rule their own destinies and govern themselves in their homeland; in the areas they’ve traditionally inhabited. (End Quote)

When Boucher recognized the “homeland concept” and “traditionally inhabited” areas, the right to “govern themselves in their homeland,” and inalienable right to “control their own lives,” it formed a policy plank in the State Department as early as 2006 the vitality of a serious devolution of power to the peripheral provinces, especially the north-east region.

US Embassy Workshop on Federalism: The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) office in Sri Lanka, with the collaboration of a local NGO, Centre for Policy Alternatives, supported by Office of Transition Initiatives (OTI) of the USAID, from September 2005 through March 2006, mobilized over forty grassroots organizations to convene a series of workshops in their local areas.

This train-the-trainer program consisted of a five-day in-depth training on federalism and concluded with sessions on training techniques and methodologies. Basic information about the history of Sri Lanka’s ethnic conflict, past attempts at a negotiated settlement, and the vital features of the decline of power and federalism were all discussed at these nationwide workshops.

The USAID Washington press release, dated March 13, 2006, stated the following: (Quote) on conclusion of the program, the trainers began a series of workshops for the grassroots groups in their communities. The objective of these workshops was to create a larger, more cohesive group from all ethnicities who are knowledgeable about the complexities of the island’s ethnic conflict and who have a more in-depth awareness of federalism and related issues. A special effort was made to respond to concerns and fears that many people have about the federal idea. (End Quote)

In fact, the objective of the US embassy in organizing these workshops was to promote federalism when there was no mood in the country for such an administrative structure.

Ambassador Robert Blake spoke to C. A. Chandraprema interview with the Sri Lanka newspaper the Island on February 6, 2007: “The problem is that terrorism exists because of the failure of successive governments to address the grievances that have given rise to terrorism in the first place. That is why we advocate a political solution to the problem and not a military solution.”

Then he went on to say the following: “Almost every Tamil that I speak to wants a federal solution within a united Sri Lanka. They do not want a separate Eelam. One of the arguments against any kind of negotiations is that Prabhakaran will never agree to anything less than an independent state. I don’t believe that’s true. I believe that there is great pressure on the LTTE to agree to some sort of federal solution or a power sharing proposal within a united Sri Lanka, and that the overwhelming majority of Tamils here and overseas will support such a solution”.

In 1999 Victor L. Tomseth, who was assistant secretary at the State Department in Washington for South Asia (1982–1984), was asked in an interview by Charles Stuart Kennedy for the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training if they were “involved at all in trying to moderate or do anything about the Tamil movement in Sri Lanka.” Tomseth confirmed that Washington and the embassy in Colombo “were fairly proactive in that…But we, the U.S., were trying to do what we could to encourage some kind of dialogue with responsible Tamil political leaders and pushing on the government a bit to think in terms of some kind of structure through federalism or regionalism that would address a lot of the concerns that a lot of Tamils had, not just the radicals,” he declared.

Mr. Tomseth, who was later (1984–1986) assigned to Colombo as the deputy chief of mission at the US Embassy, in the same interview, said the following: “The United States felt that there were some real grievances on the side of the Tamil community and that one way of addressing those grievances was through a greater degree of local autonomy in Tamil majority areas in the north and the east. I think that was a view that the U.S. government shared, that you could separate the portion of the Tamil community, which we thought was a fairly substantial majority if you would make some reasonable concessions in terms of greater local autonomy to Tamil majority regions. That too was part of the bilateral dialogue between the U.S. and Sri Lankan governments”.

Atul Keshap: US Envoy (2015-) to Sri Lanka Espouses “Federal Structure”: The current US ambassador to Sri Lanka, Atul Keshap, has gone on record as saying that the United States supports a federal structure as a catalyst for national reconciliation among the Sinhalese majority and Tamil minority.

Mr. Keshap, when he was deputy assistant secretary in the State Department’s South Asian Bureau, made the authoritative declaration that Sri Lanka needs a federal structure to redress minority Tamil grievances. Previously, he was working very closely on Sri Lankan issues with Robert Blake when the latter was the assistant secretary of the South Asian Bureau.

Atul Keshap has been to Sri Lanka on two occasions, one in June 2014 and the other in February 2015.

Ignoring the Sinhalese sentiments that establishing a federal structure on the island is a stepping stone for separatism, Atul Keshap made the pronouncement when he accompanied assistant secretary for South and Central Asia Nisha Biswal on an official tour in June 2014 at a media interview in Colombo.

If officials in the US State Department make policy statements to the effect of what another nation should undertake, they reflect Washington’s policy decisions taken at some high level in the American government.
When Mr. Atul Keshap declared, not once but several occasions in the same interview with a Sri Lankan newspaper—the Daily Mirror—about the vitality of establishing a federal structure in Sri Lanka, he was obviously pronouncing a policy plank of the US government already consolidated at some high level.

During this June 20, 2014, interview Mr. Keshap told what the United States believed:

“The U.S. believes in a very bright future for this country and it believes that Sri Lanka has the potential in terms of human capital, in terms of resources, in terms of geographic location, in terms of having secured peace after a very brutal civil war—a country connected to the entire world. A country that is not the subject of UN Human Rights Council Resolutions because it has perfected its democracy and perfected its respect for human rights. A country that has created a meaningful formula for devolution of power and federalism, to ensure coherence among the various regions. A country that is reconciled, peaceful, and prosperous”.

Lamenting about the long delay in bringing changes, Mr. Keshap said, “It’s been five years since the war ended and I haven’t seen any meaningful discussion or movement along the lines of a meaningful negotiation of the very tricky political issues related to federalism.”

He reiterated in another place in this interview, “We care about meaningful devolution of powers to ensure that a true federal compact can be forged to really cement the peace and put the country on a good track.”

This Daily Mirror interview was carried in full on the American embassy website, giving tacit approval to every sentiment Mr. Keshap expressed, including the importance of a federal structure for Sri Lanka.

The previous Mahinda Rajapaksa administration resisted the Washington influence on constitution-making despite it succumbed to their pressure to seriously focus on the peripheral regions – especially the north and east – getting enhanced power beyond the Thirteenth Amendment of the 1978 constitution, the Sirisena-Wickremasinghe administration could not escape the long advocacy of Washington (and New York) toward a constitutional structure that resembles a federal structure – though not explicitly mentioned – as depicted by a draft now circulating as a prerequisite to constitution making.

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