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Sri Lanka govt banks on defectors to beat Tigers
Trincomalee, Sri Lanka—K. Nanthakopan is a marked
man, being roughly the political equivalent of a top Al-Qaeda member
who has defected to Washington. The 38-year-old is part of a group
of Tamil Tiger rebels who in 2004 split away from the movement to
set up a splinter group, helping the ethnic Sinhalese-dominated
government win control over the island’s east last year.
On Saturday he is standing in provincial council elections as an
ally of Colombo’s hawkish government, almost certainly viewed by his
former comrades as a traitor who should die. “I’m not scared. If I
was, I wouldn’t be in politics,” Nanthakopan told AFP in his heavily
guarded office in Trincomalee, a strategic harbour surrounded by
pristine beaches and one of the biggest towns in the east.
“The magnitude of the threat against us is enormous,” he said with a
smile, providing some clue as to why the rebel who led the
defection, Colonel Karuna, fled to Britain. Nanthakopan and his
fellow ex-rebels have now rebranded themselves as the Tamil Makkal
Viduthalai Pullikal (TMVP), or Tamil People’s Liberation Tigers, and
are hoping to win the polls—the first in the eastern province for 20
years. The government of President Mahinda Rajapakse is banking on a
TMVP victory as a way of putting in place a Tamil loyalist as a
provincial chief and proving it is willing to allow some limited
devolution for Tamil areas.
This, in theory, would ideologically undercut the rebel Liberation
Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE)—who want nothing less than a separate
state—and provide a boost for the escalating military campaign to
kick the guerrillas out of the north as well.
Rajapakse pulled out of a Norwegian-brokered ceasefire with the LTTE
in January, and has promised to defeat the rebels before the year is
out.“If we win this election, there will be a Tamil chief minister
in the east. It is a good starting point for the Tamil people,”
Nanthakopan said. “We have to trust the government.”
But the TMVP and its new leader, another defector who goes by the
nom de guerre of Pillaiyan, still appear to have a long way to go to
prove they have truly embraced the mainstream democratic process.
Many of its cadre in the tense eastern region still openly carry
guns—even though they live under army protection as well—and human
rights activists accuse them of kidnapping children to use as
fighters. Rights groups are also demanding that Colonel Karuna, who
was arrested and jailed on immigration charges after trying to enter
Britain using a false name, be put on trial there for war crimes
committed during Sri Lanka’s decades-old ethnic war.—AFP
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