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<span style='font-size:25pt;line-height:100%'>LTTE REITERATES ITS CHARGES THAT RENEGADE LEADER KARUNA IS SHELTERED BY ARMY AND WARNS OF SERIOUS REPERCUSSIONS </span>

By Walter Jayawardhana reporting from Los Angeles

June 20, 02.45 AM:The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) reiterated its charge that the Sri Lanka Army was sheltering their renegade former military commander Col. Karuna Amman to use him against the Tamil separatist group.

The LTTE operated news website the Tamil Net quoting their Ampara-Batticaloa Special commander Ramesh at a press conference at Thenagam in Kokkadicholai in the internecine war torn Eastern Province between the Wanni forces of Prabhakaran and LTTE renegade forces of Eastern Province led by Karuna reportedly said, "If the Sri Lanka government tries to wage war against us making use of Karuna, there will be serious repercussions and we will not hesitate to take appropriate action,"

But sources other than LTTE in the Eastern Province said, that the news item was a plant by the LTTE to confuse the general public and Ramesh was in the custody of the Karuna Amman forces and he possibly could not hold a press conference.

The website , who generally publishes photo of all their press conferences somehow published only a file photo of the of Ramesh.

The Sri Lanka Army has repeatedly denied that they were involved with the renegade Tamil leader Karuna and the government's cabinet spokesman Mangala Samaraweera recently said they treated the troubles between Karuna and Prabhakaran as internal conflict of the Tamil separatist group.

Meanwhile, the Jathika Hela Urumaya who are acting as a partner of the united opposition group that includes United National Party and the proxy party of the Tamil Tigers, the Tamil National Alliance has accused the Sri Lanka government of not supporting Col. Karuna in this internal conflict.

Ramesh, the Eastern commander of the LTTE allegedly promised to provide what he claimed as incriminating evidence through four senior women cadres who were allegedly with Karuna and now re-joined the Wanni forces of Prabhakaran, according to the LTTE website..

Ramesh, accordingly, did not reveal the names of the alleged former cadres of Karuna and there was no possibility for the journalists to independently check whether they belonged to the Karuna faction or not.

He reportedly accused journalists and foreign news agencies of spreading falsehoods about the internecine war between their forces and the forces of Karuna according to the news report.

Ramesh, at the press conference also allegedly promised to bring the killings of the LTTE cadres to a halt very soon, claiming that they occurred outside the LTTE controlled areas. This was an admission on behalf of the LTTE that cadres had been killed by Karuna forces. But LTTE armed military cadres are not allowed outside the LTTE controlled areas under the ceasefire agreement signed between Sri Lanka and the LTTE.

The LTTE website quoted UNP spokesman G.L. Peiris in a separate items as saying that the LTTE was losing its confidence in the Sri Lanka government headed by President Chandrika Kumaratunga in the peace process

http://www.go2lanka.com/stories/200604.html