LTTE dug its own grave: Karunanidhi

The LTTE had dug its own grave through a series of mistakes starting with the killing of fellow Tamils, moderates and militants alike, and climaxing in indirectly helping Mr Mahinda Rajapaksa to win the Nov 2005 presidential election by asking the Tamils to boycott the polls, resulting in the defeat of peacenik and UNP rival Ranil Wickremasinghe, DMK leader and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karunanidhi has said.

Writing in the party organ "Murasooi", he said that by asking the seven lakh Tamils to boycott the presidential election, the LTTE ensured the defeat of Mr Wickremesinghe, who had promised to hold peace talks with the Tamil rebels if elected to the office.

In this connection, he pointed out that Mr Wickremasighe lost by a narrow margin of 1.87 lakh votes.

In this connection, he cited the interview given to a Tamil magazine by Mr Wickramasinghe during his recent visit to India that despite his promise to resume peace talks with the LTTE if he won elections, most of the Tamils had boycotted the polls.

The provocation for Mr Karunanidhi's candid criticism of the LTTE was the meeting held by pro-Eelamists here three days ago to express their “silent agony" over the decimation of the LTTE and the death of Prabhakaran. It was an indirect indictment of Mr Karunanidhi's failure to stop the war in time to save the LTTE.

Mr Karunanidhi said the assassination of TELO leader Sri Sabaratnam by the LTTE in Jaffna in 1986 even as he was appealing through a Tamil Eelam Supporters Conference in Madurai to stop the fratricidal war.

He listed the killing of Amirthalingam, Yogeswaran and Neelan Tiruchelvan of the TULF, K Pathmanabha and ten other members of the EPRLF and Prabharan's one-time deputy Mahendraraja alias Mahattaya by the LTTE and said this weakened the militant movement.

The climax was the assassintion of Mr Rajiv Gandhi on Tamil Nadu soil. Mr Karunanidhi recalled that in 1989( that is after the then President Premadasa served quit notice on the IPKF) Mr Rajiv Gandhi asked him and Murasoli Maran to talk to the LTTE. He quoted Mr Gandhi as having told him:"You, Maran and Vaiko go to Jaffna to meet Prabhakaran. I shall make all arrangements. Take your own time( to bring the LTTE round). I am ready to do everything possible to help the Tamil cause".

The assassination of that young leader "has doused the fire of the Eelam struggle"

Mr Karunanidhi said that thanks to the LTTE's lack of political widsom and purely militaristic approach, thousands of Tamils had died and thousands upon thousands had to take refugee all over the world.

- Asian Tribune -