India must help defeat Prabhakaran: Tamil leader

A leading Tamil leader of Sri Lanka has urged India to intervene and help the island nation to defeat LTTE chief V Prabhakaran 'who will never agree' for any solution to the ethnic problem.

"Prabhakaran will never agree for anything and not a single country in the world will support his demand for a separate homeland for Tamils in Sri Lanka," V Anandasangaree, former lawmaker and president of Tamil United Liberation Front told media persons in London on Sunday night.

Claiming that he had held discussions with Indian leaders and National Security Advisor M K Narayanan recently, Anandasangaree said he was agitating for a solution to the Tamil issue based on the federal concept as being followed in India.

The 74-year old leader said India is also aware that Prabhakaran's demand for a separate homeland would not materialise.

"Prabhakaran is digging his own grave," he said.

Anandasangaree urged India to intervene and help Sri Lanka defeat the LTTE.

He said very soon the international community would understand the risk of supporting the demand of LTTE.
 
"I have told Indian leaders that if you support LTTE, you will have Jaffna in India itself."

The moderate Tamil leader said he supported the implementation of the 13th amendment to the Sri Lanka Constitution guaranteeing autonomy to the Tamil-majority area in Jaffna. The LTTE treated the Tamilians in Jaffna like 'slaves', he said.

The TULF leader said the entire Tamilian diaspora spread all over the world is 'under the control of LTTE either through fear or through the foolish believe' that they could win their battle for their motherland in Jaffna.

"LTTE has become a real terror to the entire world," he said, alleging that some Indian leaders, including Vaiko, general secretary of Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam and Pazha Nedumaran, leader of Tamil National Movement, were 'committing the mistake of promoting them'.

He said before former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi's assassination, the LTTE had a lot of support in India, but the situation changed after he was killed.

"I am very much committed to a united Sri Lanka, but unfortunately in Sri Lanka, the word federalism is allergic to many," he said.

Anandasangaree said 'the meaningless war in Sri Lanka has cost the country a fabulous amount of money. Over 70,000 had been killed and over 30,000 had been widowed and many orphaned.'

He held Prabhakaran responsible for the deaths of so many people.

"All world leaders want the Sri Lankan government to start talks with the LTTE without realising the consequences. Talks with them, still armed and keeping all people living in their areas under their subjugation, will never help to solve the problem."

Anandasangaree, who won the UNESCO's Madanjeet Singh Prize for the Promotion of Tolerance and Non-violence in 2006, said he had written to Prabhakaran to give up his demand for separation and accept a federal solution within a united Sri Lanka, but he did not receive any response.