Up close with Tiger-turned-MP

Blindfolded and taken to an undisclosed location, ISN Security Watch's Anuj Chopra talks to elusive Colonel Karuna, a former LTTE commander recently nominated to the Sri Lankan parliament and now topping the Tiger hit list.

Once a battle-hardened, underground guerrilla, Vinayagamoorthi Muralitharan, more popularly known by his nom de guerre Colonel Karuna Amman, eastern commander of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), now rubs shoulders with MPs as a part of Sri Lanka's political mainstream.

The erstwhile Eastern LTTE commander was appointed as a member of parliament, supported by the ruling United People's Freedom Alliance led by President Mahinda Rajapakse.

At one point, he was LTTE's commander for the Eastern Province, a favorite of LTTE chief Velupillai Prabhakaran, and effectively number two in the Tamil Tiger military organization. But in 2004, he broke ranks with the LTTE, citing differences with Prabhakaran, and formed a mainstream political party called the Tamil Makkal Viduthalai Pulikkal (TMVP).

After defecting, he began fighting alongside government forces against the Tigers. His fighters joined the Sri Lankan government in its offensive against the rebels and helped the security forces to recapture parts of the eastern region from them.

In an exclusive three-hour interview at an undisclosed location with ISN Security Watch, Colonel Karuna spoke about everything from his reasons for breaking ranks with the LTTE ("I want to liberate our people - the Tamils - from the hands of the liberators") to his political ambitions ("I am in the race to convert a bullet to a ballet") to why he still maintains his private army ("I'm on the top of LTTE's hit list.")

The interview with the reclusive renegade Tiger was arranged through a set of intermediaries. The ISN correspondent was blindfolded by Karuna's personal body guard and driven to a plush resort in a village abutting Colombo.

From renegade to lawmaker

"Tamil people can now have the faith of solving their own problems through parliamentary democracy. We should forget the bitter past experiences and work to win the trust of the Tamils," Colonel Karuna told the Sri Lankan Parliament as he was nominated as an MP this week.
 
Talks of democracy might be an anachronism for a fierce guerrilla fighter who once inspired fear in the hearts of Sri Lankan army soldiers, but Colonel Karuna says his path is akin to the Maoists of Nepal.
 
"No one believed they would lay down arms. No one believed I would either. But I did," he says, lounging on a chair in a crisp stripped shirt, looking every bit the lawmaker as opposed to the guerrilla commander. "Here I am."

Karuna was appointed to the 225-member parliament to fill the vacancy of a lawmaker who quit recently to contest local polls.

But his appointment as MP has already triggered controversy.

The Sinhala nationalist Janata Vimukthi Peramuna party (JVP) has challenged his appointment in the Supreme Court, arguing the vacancy he took up belongs to an MP of their political outfit.

Moreover, human rights group Amnesty International has strongly criticized Colonel Karuna's appointment, accusing him crimes against humanity, including torture and the use of child soldiers.
 
Colonel Karuna, however, seems undeterred by such allegations.

Betrayal weakens Tigers?

Colonel Karuna alleges that the LTTE lost 70 percent of its fighting capacity after his group parted ways with the Tigers.
 
"I broke away with 6,000 cadres; 4,000 of them were battle-hardened guerrilla fighters," he told ISN Security Watch. "The LTTE recruited most of their suicide cadres from the east. Moreover, my group had the potential to launch offensive attacks."

Colonel Karuna refused to share the specifics of his current military collaborations with the Sri Lankan army. However, the Sri Lankan government has made some unprecedented gains against the Tigers in recent months, in large part because of his support. His fighters joined the Sri Lankan government in its offensive against the rebels and helped the security forces to recapture the eastern region from the Tigers last year. In the Wanni battle zone, he is believed to have shared intelligence with the Sri Lankan army about Tiger hideouts.

A military commander posted in Jaffna told ISN Security Watch that he eliminated several hundred LTTE infiltrators in government-controlled Jaffna region after he was tipped off by Karuna.

"In the current fighting in the Wanni, you notice the LTTE are only launching defensive attacks. They don't have the potential to launch offensive attacks," Karuna added. "That's why they are losing."

"Liberated from the liberators"

Karuna says he joined the ranks of the LTTE in 1983 because he believed the "war against Sinhala hegemony" was a just one.

Over the last two decades, he says the LTTE has been able to sustain itself as the world's longest running insurgency because Prabhakaran directed his efforts primarily toward building up the military.

"He built a military office of the Tigers in Tamil Nadu in 1983. He bought books on military hardware and armaments, and appointed translators to translate them into Tamil. He dedicated his efforts to building ground cadres, a naval wing, and later, the aerial wing. Cadres were sent to the middle east and south east Asia for training with other rebel groups," Karuna said.

"The LTTE's military capacity was not built up over night. It took many years of sustained effort."

Over the years, Karuna said, he was dismayed to see Prabhakaran was ignoring the interests of the eastern Tamil people, and that angered him tremendously. It was the main reason for his break with the Tigers.

He vehemently denies the LTTE allegation that his real reason for betraying the Tigers was because its intelligence wing was closing in on him for corruption and violation of the LTTE code of conduct.

At the moment, the Tigers are at their weakest and on the cusp of defeat, if Karuna is to be believed.

"The Sri Lankan government cannot afford to call a ceasefire," he says. "He [Prabhakaran] has to be crushed. You cannot trust that man."

Karuna alleges that Prabhakaran intentionally dragged out peace talks so that the rebels could use the cessation in hostilities to re-arm for further combat. "This is a battle to liberate the Tamil people from the liberators," Karuna said.

In the recent fighting in South Ossetia, Karuna says, the international community insisted the civilian population be given safe passage; until then the warring factions should not exchange fire.

"Why is the international community quiet about Sri Lanka?" he asked. "200,000 Tamils are trapped close to Kilinochchi, trapped by Prabhakaran and used as human shields. If he were a true liberator of Tamils, he would let them go. He must be pressured to give the civilians safe passage."

Several military analysts say that even if Kilinochchi falls, the Tigers will recede to the jungles, and a low-level insurgency will continue to simmer in Sri Lanka.

Karuna doesn't agree.

"War depends on territory," he says. "From the jungle, they can only manage hit-and-run attacks, but that will hardly leave a dent. The LTTE will be crushed once you push them out of their strongholds."

External forces speculation

When Colonel Karuna turned renegade in 2004, it seemed unlikely that he could have challenged Prabhakaran to this extent without some assurances from powerful patrons. Few Tiger dissidents have survived Prabhakaran's wrath in the past. There was even speculation that external forces - RAW (Research and Analysis Wing, India's most powerful intelligence agency) or the CIA - might be behind Karuna's rebellion.
 
When asked about this, Karuna smiled knowingly. "Wouldn't I be sitting in America or India if they had helped me? I live in virtual hiding because I am on top of the LTTE's hit list."

Human rights violations

Colonel Karuna was the LTTE head of the eastern province in 1990, when 600 unarmed police officers who surrendered to his group were subsequently massacred.

To this allegation, he shrugs, "I wasn't present in Batticaloa, but in Jaffna at that time." He says he isn't aware who was behind that massacre.

When Colonel Karuna was part of the LTTE, he was also implicated in the massacre of Muslims, including the Kattankudy and Erovar massacres in the eastern province. According to Sri Lankan military intelligence sources, "Karuna was not in the eastern province but in the Wanni during the time of the attacks on Kattankudy and Eravur Muslims. He was, however, intercepted giving orders to his cadres in the east in relation to various activities."

Even now, after laying down arms, he is accused of forming death squads to muzzle journalists and silence those who oppose his point of view and of being involved in the disappearances of civilians. UNICEF and Human Rights Watch also accuse him of recruiting child soldiers.

"Return to War: Human Rights Under Siege," a report on the human rights abuses of the current Sri Lankan government, accuses Colonel Karuna of human rights violations with the aide of the Sri Lankan government.

"The Sri Lankan government has failed to take action against the abusive Karuna group, a Tamil armed group under the leadership of V. Muralitharan that split from the LTTE in 2004 and now cooperates with Sri Lankan security forces in their common fight against the LTTE. With the LTTE's loss of territories in the east, the Karuna group has exerted de facto authority in the districts of Ampara, Trincomalee, and Batticaloa. The group also expanded its operations in the northern Vavuniya district, engaging in extortion and abductions," the report says.

Karuna has categorically denied these allegations, claiming that the LTTE is trying to discredit him.

"I have given arms to only a few cadres - 200 or 300 - for our own protection," he said. "LTTE infiltrators in the eastern province are waging a campaign to wipe out TMVP cadres. We need to protect ourselves."

While with the LTTE, he says he was involved in recruiting child soldiers, but denies his continued involvement. 

"We just disbanded an army of 6,000 cadres. Why would we now engage in recruiting children? That's an absurd allegation," he said.

But he doesn't deny that some of his cadres, used to an ominous gun culture for two decades, could be involved in some violations.

"Fighting is all they have seen for two decades. It will take some time for their thinking to change," he said. "A lot of them still don't have jobs. We are trying to integrate them into the Sri Lankan defense forces. But morally, Tamils of the east hate war. We've suffered enough."
 
Karuna was arrested in November 2007 in the United Kingdom and served half of a nine-month term for entering on a forged diplomatic passport. He was released on 3 July 2008.

There were speculations that his passport and visa were arranged for him by the Sri Lankan defense secretary.

Karuna would not comment on who arranged the documents for him to ISN Security Watch. He said he entered the UK on forged documents because of "security reasons" to be with his wife and children.
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