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Sri Lanka Tigers vow to take back land as rivals brace along river bank


TRINCOMALEE, Sri Lanka (AFP) - Sri Lanka's rival Tamil Tiger factions deployed fighters on the banks of a river here as the main guerrilla outfit vowed to take back territory from a renegade regional commander.

The political wing leader of the main Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in the northeastern port district of Trincomalee, S. Thilak, said the group's fighters were poised against the breakaway faction of V. Muralitharan.

The renegade leader, better known as Karuna, has said he commands about 5,000 fighters, which accounts for about a third of the original force of the LTTE which has fought for three decades to set up a separate Tamil homeland.

"Both sides have their cadres camping on the two banks of the Verugal river that marks the district border," Thilak told reporters here Friday after talks with a visiting Norwegian peace envoy, Erik Solheim.

But Thilak said there had been no fighting between the two groups, who according to the military were within small-arms range of each other.

Both sides have sought to play down fears of an internecine war, but government forces have been placed on alert to avoid getting dragged into a fresh conflict.

The military in Trincomalee, 260 kilometres (160 miles) northeast of Colombo, said it was concerned after hearing explosions overnight from an area held by the Tigers, but that the blasts turned out to be a rebel exercise.

The main LTTE's northern-based political leader S.P. Thamilselvan said the rebels were taking "careful steps" to bring the eastern districts of Batticaloa and Ampara back under their control "without any bloodshed or danger to our cadres."

"Karuna not only has been relieved of his responsibilities, he has been removed from the movement," Thamilselvan was quoted as saying by the pro-rebel Tamilnet.com website.

"By rejecting to abide by the movement's ruling he is pushing himself into a dangerous corner."

The LTTE leadership acknowledged for the first time that Karuna, its former eastern commander, had a fighting force but said his support was dwindling.

"Cadres under Karuna's command are distancing (themselves) and deserting him gradually," Thamilselvan said.

"Karuna is increasingly facing danger from among his own group of cadres."

Karuna told AFP in an interview Tuesday he led the unprecedented split because the main Tiger leadership was preparing for war despite a February 2002 ceasefire and had ignored the interests of Tamils in eastern Sri Lanka.

Solheim was in Sri Lanka as part of a previously arranged visit to review the Norwegian-arranged ceasefire, but had no plans to travel to the Batticaloa district where Karuna holds sway.

Solheim said Norway was keeping out of the internal rift in the LTTE, which in September 2002 opened Oslo-brokered talks with the Colombo government to end the civil war which has claimed more than 60,000 lives.

The Norwegians suspended their brokering role in November after President Chandrika Kumaratunga accused rival Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe of conceding too much in talks with the Tigers.

Kumaratunga assumed the portfolios of defence and interior and the Norwegians said they would "return home and wait" until there was "clarity as to who was really in charge in Colombo."

The rivalry between the president and the prime minister has led to snap elections to be held April 2.


Thanks yahoo.com..AFP news