Karuna challenges LTTE, Sri Lanka government and international community

"Nobody envisaged us splitting from the LTTE, so the CFA does not cover us."

May 08, Colombo: Sources from the Welikanda area, 250 km east of Colombo, say the Karuna Group is maintaining a chain of camps in the Sinhala and Tamil border villages. There are suspicions that the breakaway faction of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) is trying to establish an area of their own control in the region.

The LTTE recently attacked three paramilitary camps in the Welikanda area and assassinated several cadres. The Sri Lanka government claimed that the area where the camps were situated was in LTTE territory, rejecting LTTE claims that the area is in the territory controlled by the Sri Lanka government. A Karuna Group spokesperson first said that the camps were located on the border of Batticaloa, about 2 km from LTTE-controlled Kaddumurippu, but later said the area was not governed by either party.

Meanwhile Karuna spokesperson Thooyavan, speaking to the Daily Mirror by telephone from an undisclosed location, also dismissed allegations that the group was operating with the assistance of the government security forces, claiming that 17 of its cadres are in Anuradhapura prison for carrying arms in government-controlled areas.

“We were not given arms by the government. If the government gave us arms, then they can disarm us. The government has disarmed the groups it provided arms to. We are not a part of those groups. Our group is a splinter organisation of the LTTE. Nobody envisaged us splitting from the LTTE, so the CFA does not cover us. We will disarm only when our leader Karuna Amman tells us to do so. The government, Norway, the SLMM or the LTTE cannot disarm us,” Thooyavan said.

The splinter group led by the former leader of the LTTE Eastern Command, Karuna Amman, does not favor being called the ‘Karuna Faction’ and wants to appear as a political party named Thamil Eela Makkal Viduthalai Pulikal (TMVP).

(http://www.colombopage.com/archive/May8125756SL.html)