Prabhakaran never wanted peace: Karuna tells BBC

The leader of the breakaway faction of the Sri Lankan Tamil Tigers Vinayagamoorthi Muralitharan alias Colonel Karuna Amman, in an exclusive interview with BBC News said that LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) leader, Vellupillai Prabhakaran, was never serious about the peace process.

He also said that Prabhakaran was not serious about peace negotiations with the Government of Sri Lanka: "I was a member of those talks.... What we were told by him was to drag these talks out for about five years, somehow let the time pass by, meanwhile he will purchase arms and we'll be ready for the next stage of fighting. That was his order, I told him many times - 'Let's get a federal kind of solution. This federal settlement will bring an immediate solution for the Tamils'. But he never really accepted that."

Colonel Karuna told BBC News that he left the rebel movement because disproportions numbers of cadres from the East, like him, were being sacrificed on the battlefield, while the rebels from the north controlled the organisation.

He denied reports that his cadres were seen carrying weapons in Government controlled areas and have been helping the Sri Lankan military to capture areas in the East that were under LTTE control. "By our coming out of the LTTE I mean with me leaving the LTTE, they have lost seventy percent of their fighting capacity. The LTTE has lost its strength to fight. That's an important factor. That has been a motivation for the Sri Lankan military. We being together with them is not right, we have never been together with them and we will not be together with them. But by our leaving their (the LTTE's) strength has been broken, and by our leaving the morale of the Sri Lankan army has been boosted, morale has been built up. Because of that only Sri Lankan troops were able to capture most of the areas."

Colonel Karuna also denied allegations that his organisation has been involved in recruiting child soldiers. "Definitely we have no need to recruit them because we have no need of building up a military body. At the moment the Sri Lanka Government, all three armed forces, are fighting against the Liberation Tamil Tigers. We have no need to do so. And at the same time, I would like to tell you clearly, this is also another reason for us to come out of the LTTE. Our Eastern children had been taken to the northern fighting zone and sacrificed by Prabhakaran. We didn't accept that. Our Eastern children should study, they should live in freedom."

However, in the face of evidence that Human Rights Watch had spoken to the relatives of some of the missing he conceded that there may be children in his camps: "If we are receiving any accusation like that maybe there are people who had come willingly, may be even the parents would have given the wrong information, saying that we have taken these people by force. Definitely they can meet them and if they like they can definitely return to their parents. At the moment we are not a military body we are a political body, so we have no need to keep fighters like that or to build up a fighting force. The interview saw Colonel Karuna wearing a suit and tie. He told BBC News that his newly formed political party, the TMVP would contest future provincial and general elections. He said that he has abandoned the idea of Tamil Eelam, the Tamil homeland for which the Tigers have fought for decades, and now wants a solution to the ethnic conflict under one united Sri Lanka.

When asked if he was worried about the possibility that the Tigers may try to kill him, he replied "I am really not looking at this as a major problem. I am the one who protected Prabhakaran. There was a time when Prabhakaran was even facing threats from within the Tigers. While he was having major threats and was shaking. I protected him and also made the Liberation Tigers known to the world and guided them. And also Prabhakaran saying 'traitor', I am really not warried. Today that is what he is. It's because of Prabhakaran, a single man, that all these killings and violence have been taking place."

(Courtesy: BBC News)