BALASINGHAM REVEALS THE PAST BETRAYALS OF UNP LEADERS AND SPEAKS OF RECRUITMENT DURING RANIL’S TIME AND HOW PREMADASA OFFERED THE NORTH FOR THE EAST
By Walter Jayawardhana reporting from Los Angeles
March 18, 01.00 PM: In a London interview to attack Tamil renegade leader Karuna, the main peace negotiator of the Tamil Tigers, Anton Balasingham revealed they recruited rebels for a separatist army making use of a Ceasefire with Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and former President Ranasinghe Premadasa once wanted to trade Northern Province by granting it a full separate state while keeping Eastern Province for Sri Lanka.
In a front-page interview published as the lead story in the main organ of the Tamil Tigers, the London based Tamil Guardian, the rebel group’s chief negotiator Anton Balasingham said that the troops, now under the renegade leader Karuna were recruited during the Ceasefire between Prabhakaran and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe. Balasingham also handles the international operations of the LTTE from London, although the UK government has banned the rebel group as a terrorist organization.
Condemning the troops under Karuna as “recent recruits” and “with no combat experience” the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) negotiator and “theoretician” said, during the ceasefire time, “They were recruited for the cause of liberating the Tamil Homeland consisting the North East,” from Sri Lanka. He also complained that the troops now under the renegade leader Karuna, had actually taken an oath of allegiance to LTTE Supremo, Velupillai Prabhakaran.
For a long time, opponents have been accusing that the LTTE signed the Ceasefire Agreement with Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe insincerely to make use of the ceasefire period with the UNF regime to build up their troops and continue with the separatist struggle. Since the Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe valued the ceasefire more than anything else for his political existence he allegedly freely allowed the recruitment of thousands of new guerillas to the rebel army and passively allowed arms smuggling by them.
This was the first time Balasingham openly admitted that the LTTE was recruiting during the ceasefire to fight for a separate state in Sri Lanka. . In the course of the interview, Balasingham , also revealed that a former UNP leader, the Late President Ranasinghe Premadasa, once proposed to trade Eastern Province for the granting of full separate state for the Northern Province through him to Prabhakaran but Prabhakaran refused to give up Eastern Province for the receipt of the Northern Province.
The revelations were made not to attack the UNP leaders but to belittle the renegade leader Karuna and to show LTTE leader Velupillai Prabhakaran’s attachment to the Eastern Province and its Tamil population.
Speaking about the new recruitments during the Ceasefire Anton Balasingham said, “We are not aware of the exact number of fighters he has under his command. What we know is that the vast number of his fighters are recent recruits and with no combat experience. They were recruited during the ceasefire times, for the cause of liberating the Tamil homeland constituting the northeast. All his fighters have taken an oath of allegiance to the Tamil national leader Mr Pirapaharan (Prabhakaran). In actual fact, they are Mr Pirapaharan’s (Prabhakaran’s) freedom fighters who have pledged their lives for the cause of the LTTE. It is a treacherous act of bad faith on the part of Karuna to impose his leadership on these innocent young men and women who joined the LTTE pledging their allegiance to the national leader and to the national cause.”
Speaking about the offer of the Late Premadasa of a separate state for the Northern Province Balasingham said, “I can quote an incident to prove how deeply Mr Pirapaharan (Prabhakaran) is committed to the principle of a single, indivisible Tamil homeland. During the Premadasa talks the former President, at one point, urged me to convey a message to Mr Pirapaharan (Prabhakaran) saying that he was willing to grant even political independence to the north as a separate Tamil state but he never allow the eastern province to be part of the Tamil homeland. When I conveyed this message to the LTTE leader he said, ‘Please tell Mr Premadasa that he is even prepared to give up the north, but he will not, under any circumstances, be prepared to abandon the eastern province and its people.”
By downplaying the Karuna crisis as a problem that would fizzle out Balasingham also showed how serious and worried they were about the problem by repeating the former warning of Thamilselvan to the Sri Lanka government by stating , “He has established clandestine contacts with the Sinhala military hierarchy and with chauvinistic political forces to gain recognition and concessions. We should let it be known to his contacts that they will cause irreparable damage to the peace process if they exploit Karuna’s dissent.”
But Balasingham also said, “I do not think Karuna’s dissent will seriously undermine the peace process or the Tamil national struggle. The peace process will resume after the general elections between the LTTE and the new government elected by the Sinhala people with a mandate for peace and negotiated political settlement.”
