Tamil Tigers work on political revival

Last week, statements and reports surfaced on pro-rebel websites that some LTTE leaders abroad announced during the last stages of the battle with government forces the revival of the rebel group as a non-militant unit with a political agenda.
These leaders, two weeks ago, also announced plans to form a transnational government in exile backed by the powerful Tamil diaspora that has been largely responsible for the spate of protests in world capitals and attacks on some Sri Lankan missions abroad, including Norway and London just before the war ended.
On Saturday, local newspapers carried an interview on the TamilNet website with the LTTE’s new chief, Selvaraja Padmanathan, better known by his nom de guerre “KP”, saying the group was giving up “violence and adopting a non-violent agenda to secure the political rights of Tamils in Sri Lanka”.
He was quoted as saying that one of their priorities would be to get the international ban on the group revoked. The group is considered a terrorist organisation by more than 30 countries.

However, the following day, Sri Lankan military spokesman Brig Udaya Nanayakkara told reporters that the rebels would not be allowed to regroup. “The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam would not be given any room by the authorities to regroup in order to revert to their campaign for a separate state,” he said.

Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu, the director of the Centre for Policy Alternatives in Colombo, said reviving the LTTE locally would be difficult. “They are unlikely to get local support and internationally, it depends on the support of the Tamil diaspora.”
The LTTE’s role internationally, Mr Saravanamuttu continued, depends on two things – resettlement of about 300,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) and a political settlement to appease the Tamil community.

Tamil residents in Colombo and the northern city of Jaffna are also wary of Tiger plans to regroup.
“I don’t know … I hope it doesn’t cause more problems for us,” said a resident who declined to be named in the Tamil-majority Colombo suburb of Wellawatte.
A Jaffna resident, who did not want to be named, agreed. “If it creates more trouble for us, then it’s better they don’t re-emerge,” he said.