Solheim's new book on Sri Lanka claims:

Balasingham repented Rajiv's assassination

Assassinating former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi was the Tamil Tigers' biggest mistake, a new book quotes the late LTTE ideologue, Anton Balasingham, as having said.

Balasingham had told Norway's former special envoy to Sri Lanka, Erik Solheim, that LTTE Leader Velupillai Prabhakaran and his feared Intelligence Chief, Pottu Amman, initially denied their involvement in the killing. But they admitted the truth to Balasingham "a few weeks" after the 21 May 1991 assassination, says Mark Salter's book, To End A Civil War (Hurst & Company, London).

"Perhaps, most controversially, in terms of official LTTE policies, Balasingham conceded that the killing of Rajiv Gandhi was the biggest mistake the LTTE had ever made," says the newly released, 549-paged book.

It is the most exhaustive account of the Norwegian-led peace process that sought to end three decades of the often violent conflict in Sri Lanka. It finally ended when the Sri Lankan military crushed the LTTE in May 2009, wiping out its entire leadership, including Prabhakaran and Amman.

The LTTE has never officially admitted to killing Gandhi, who was killed after he was blown up by a Sri Lankan Tamil woman suicide bomber at an election rally near Chennai.

Privately, Balasingham told the Norwegians that Rajiv's killing "was a complete disaster." IANS