'Prabhakaran is to face trial for his insensate crimes', says TMVP leader

( By: Walter Jayawardhana)

Former Comrade in arms of Prabhakaran, Vinayagamoorthy Muralidaran alias Karuna Amman said that the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) leader is at his last gasp in Kilinochchi and he is about to be punished for all his cruel and insensate crimes.

Interviewed by the Independent Television Network (ITN), the TMVP leader and member of the Sri Lanka Parliament said, "Prabhakaran refused to listen to me and the late LTTE ideologue Anton Balasingham when we disagreed openly and many others in the LTTE dared not disagree with him like that in fear and only criticized him behind his back."

MP Muralidharan said he had raised the question of the Rajiv Gandhi assassination and the attack on the Temple of the Tooth in Kandy with Prabhakaran. When he said those acts did not really help the LTTE and created lot of opposition all over the world against the movement, Muralidharan said, the LTTE leader's simple explanation was that those had been done without his knowledge. MP Muralidharan said nothing happened in the LTTE without Prabhakaran's knowledge and he was simply lying.

The TMVP leader said "it was a historical blunder that the United National Party leader Ranil Wickramesinghe signed a Ceasefire Agreement with Prabhakaran since he signed it at a time when the LTTE was weakest in its cadre strength and its weapons power. The LTTE used the Ceasefire to fundraise, import arms and ammunition and recruit cadres by force."

He said some people who are hailed as LTTE leaders in the media like Nadesan, Daya Master and Susai were not powerful men and mere figures of no importance and Prabhakaran did not care two hoots for them and for what they thought. In fact, Susai, the leader of the 'Sea Tigers' did not know at all know to fight on the land and there was no reason to respect him, he said.

He said, the late Anton Balasingham told Prabhakaran on his face all what he (Karuna Amman) had told the LTTE leader but Prabhakaran refused to listen to him either, as the LTTE leader was an obstinate Fascist dictator.

The other person who expressed his disapprovals on the face of Prabhakaran on various matters was "Mahattaya" Mahendraraja and he and his friends in the movement had to die unfortunate deaths, MP Muralidharan said.

Looking back how he joined the LTTE, MP Muralidharan said he was a bright student, like all other siblings in his family and studying in a bio science Advanced Level class with the ambition of becoming a doctor one day when in 1983 the LTTE killed 13 soldiers and as a backlash the Black July of killing innocent Tamil civilians occurred.

He said the killings were used to recruit young people to the LTTE and he went to help those hundreds of Tamil civilians who became homeless and flocked to Batticaloa. He said he joined the LTTE and went to India to get the military training. The TMVP leader said he did not resign from the LTTE over personal problems but over disagreements over pure terrorism practiced by the group like the Rajiv Gandhi assassination. When he went to Oslo as a member of the peace talks, he said, Prabhakaran told him not to agree to any solution, but to drag the talks to five more years pretending to be interested in peace, so that he could raise funds, recruit cadres buy arms and fight back. If he had agreed for any solutions great amount of international funds were available to develop Northern and Eastern Provinces of Sri Lanka to raise the standards of the Tamil people and Prabhakaran was least interested in those things, MP Muralidharan alleged.

He said when he got out of the LTTE he did not have any political ambition and only afterwards he thought of a political career after President Mahinda Rajapaksa invited him to do so. He said there had been no other leader who had faced this problem fearlessly like President Mahinda Rajapaksa before and if he had been in power in 1983 no crisis of this nature would have ever occurred in this country. He said during his 22 years of career as a fighter he had never met a straight and brave decision maker like President Mahinda Rajapaksa. "I am 100 percent sure that President Rajapaksa would end the war and solve the North-East problem", he said.

He said he left the LTTE with 6000 cadres because LTTE was clearly showing signs of a terrorist movement and it had ceased to act as a liberation struggle as they believed. It was killing innocent Sinhala civilians, attacking places of worship of all religions, and chased out Muslims from Jaffna after confiscating all their belongings.

He also asked others of the LTTE to get out of the quagmire like Paduman of Trincomalee but it was difficult for anybody to escape from Wanni.

Recalling Ranil Wickramasinghe's Ceasefire days Muralidharan said the UNP leader went into this agreement also at a time terrorism was at its weakest point in history due to 9/11. Since it allowed the LTTE to travel anywhere in the country it started transporting bombs all over the place. In the guise of fishing LTTE boats brought into the country tons of arms and ammunition freely, he said. " Prabhakaran enjoying the privileges destroyed the whole Tamil culture. Although it was prohibited to marry under the LTTE when he wanted to marry the marriage ban was lifted. More than the innocent Sinhalese he killed Tamils. He is one of the worst terrorists in the world."

He said the truth about Prabhakaran is known to the Tamil people. He could not easily recruit cadres during the ceasefire days from the Northern Province. That's why he had to depend on the Eastern Province for his cadres. He used the Wanni people by kidnapping and recruiting them by force.

MP Muralidharan said it was true that with some Tamil democratic parties and his TMVP had differences due to separate political agendas. For instance, his party was opposed to linking Eastern Province with the Northern Province like some other Tamil parties. But he respected the different views, the TMVP leader said. He said he was for linking Northern and Eastern Provinces on cultural matters alone. He said he invites Prabhakaran to lay down arms and come and join the democratic main stream like him.

He said the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) did not represent the Tamil people in Sri Lanka and they are a proxy party of the LTTE. He said he was instrumental in forming the party when he was in the LTTE. The TNA MP's could not speak without the approval of the LTTE. The elections of the MP's were not free. They were elected under the threat of the terrorist group, Muralidharan said. People were under intimidation by the LTTE to elect them, MP Muralidharan further pointed out.

At the next general elections, he predicted, he was sure the TMVP would be able to bag 8 seats and the TNA none.

He said unprecedented development work has been started in the East. They are seeing development work not even dreamt of during the last 22 years in the area, the TMVP leader said.

He said the final military victory of the Sri Lanka security forces is now certain. Meticulously planned by the Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa, and efficiently implemented by Army Commander Sarath Fonseka Sri Lanka is on the verge of final victory , MP Vinayagamoorthy Muralidharan said.