Saturday, May 12, 2007

Pillayan vows to fight both Karuna and Prabha

New breakaway group claims to have more cadres; Karuna likely to flee

Former Karuna associate Pillayan yesterday vowed to continue his fight against the LTTE while ruling out reconciliation with Karuna Amman from whose faction he broke away recently following a bitter feud.

“We will continue to fight against the Prabhakaran-led Wanni cadres but we will definitely not patch up with Karuna Amman,” a spokesman for the Pillayan group told the Daily Mirror.

He said the Karuna-breakaway group led by Pillayan and including senior military and political leaders and some 350 cadres was based in Trincomalee.

“Most of the former Karuna faction’s senior military and political wing leaders are with us. Karuna is only left with a handful of seniors,” the spokesman said.

He said military and political leaders like Jeyam, Markan, Thooyavan – the former spokesman for the Karuna faction - Eelamaran, Pradeep Master - former eastern political leader and Suranga, have joined forces with the new splinter group.

The Pillayan spokesman said leaders like Sinnathambi, Bharathee, Thileepan and Jeevendran were among those still loyal to Karuna.

“We have the full control of the military wing of the Karuna faction. We do not want to link with the Wanni’s fascist terrorists and will continue our struggle to rescue innocent Tamil-speaking people from Prabhakaran’s grip,” the spokesman claimed.

He revealed that though the initial arrangement was for Karuna to be the overall leader of the TMVP (Tamil Makkal Viduthalai Pulikal) – the political wing of the Karuna faction with Pillayan the party’s deputy leader in charge of its military wing.

“But it did not work out as Karuna did not like that arrangement,” the spokesman said. Meanwhile, it is learnt that Karuna was to leave the country with some of his close associates because of split in the faction.

A few weeks, ago, Karuna’s deputy leader Pillayan parted ways with Karuna over the alleged misuse of TMVP funds by Karuna Amman. Later two close associates of Pillayan were killed by Karuna.

(http://www.dailymirror.lk/2007/05/12/front/1.asp)

No comments: