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Decision to give up armed struggle taken by Prabakaran: KP

COLOMBO: In a new twist to LTTE politics in the post-Prabakaran era, new Tiger chief Selvarasa Pathmanathan known as “KP on Thursday claimed that the decision of the Tigers to give up armed struggle and take recourse to “political and diplomatic moves” was taken by Velupillai Prabakaran along with other commanders at Mullivaikkal in Mullathivu district days before his death in the Eelam War IV.

In a statement posted on his website KP, supposedly operating out of South-East Asia and wanted by the Interpol, dealt at length on his earlier statement about the LTTE’s decision to achieve the goal of Tamil Eelam.

The statement titled, “What are the fundamentals for the next phase of our struggle?” said, “In these pages last week I had stated, our liberation movement had concluded that applying pressures through political and diplomatic means to achieve the national liberation of the people of Tamil Eelam were the most practical and strongest ways forward.”

It assumes significance as KP’s statement was contested by sections of the LTTE Diaspora. The issue was apparently sorted out a few days ago and an announcement was made that KP is to carry forward Prabakaran’s movement for Tamil Eelam.

“I had also stated that this conclusion was reached on the basis of the current difficult situation our people face, taking into account the massive setbacks our freedom struggle had encountered in recent times, existing international environment, regional restrictive circumstances and the external factors that influence the existential realities in Tamil Eelam.

“In accordance with the resolution that our leader had taken in Mullivaikkal, I had said that the next steps of our journey to win our goal of freedom will continue with silenced guns and through political and diplomatic means.

“I also stated that this political position was an important one in the next steps of our struggle and that we will further explore this in this week’s pages”, KP said in his latest entry on his blog.

He said after he had announced the “new diplomatic path”, some asked him two intricately linked questions: “Can we not continue the guerilla warfare while we continued a diplomatic pursuit? Would that not create greater pressure on Sri Lanka and assist in the diplomatic process? These were the two questions”.

KP asserted that after the incident at Mullivaikkal (it is not clear if the reference is to LTTE announcement on silencing of guns on May 16 or death of Prabakaran on May 19), the decision to take a political and diplomatic path was not taken by him alone but was made in consultation with the military commanders who were in the field at that time and with other divisional cadres.

“In the context of today’s world order, to pursue a military option while pushing forward with a political and diplomatic option is contrary to each other, similar to travelling in two different directions. This will cause many practical obstacles in moving to the next stage our freedom struggle that seeks to centralise the welfare of the people”.

Meanwhile, the military said that in view of the festival at Nallur Temple in Jaffna and marked improvement in security situation, the Army has relaxed curfew hours by one more hour.

“The curfew hours will accordingly come into effect only between 12.00 (midnight) and 4.00 a.m.”, it said.

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