Mahinda-Devananda plan was intended to boot Karuna out

"Devananda knows Pillayan as a better military leader but not a political leader. He can easily dispose of Pillayn politically.' Devananda with President Mahinda.

(October,10, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardain) Minister Douglas Devananda has been the force behind the conflict within the Tamil Makkal Viduthalip Pillighal (TMVP) better known as the Karuna faction reliable sources told the Sri Lanka Guardian.

Vinyagamurthi Muralidaran alias Karuna Amman was a former military leader of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in the East. He also led the LTTE's powerful ground forces regiment the Jayanthan regiment. However Karuna Amman broke away from the LTTE with more than five thousand cadres including child soldiers in 2004 March. After that he commanded children involved in the Tamil struggle as cadres to home and start their education and enjoy normal life.

Following this Karuna came to Colombo and met Minister Devananda at his Dickmans Road residence in Colombo. Both leaders discussed their future plans there.

After the meeting Karuna decided go abroad with his few close associates. Bur Devananda rejected this plan and urged Karuna must stay in the country. This was the first indication of the differences between the two, the source told us.

Few months later Karuna and his personal associates returned to the country and re-structuralized the TMVP. Karuna spoke freely with some journalists who were his personal friends. Little by little TMVP became politically involved in the east even more than the other Tamil political parties. They were also strongly aligned with the Sri Lanka Forces and were planning military operations.

A Sinhala cadre in the TMVP said, "I was asked to attend with the main operations in liberating the east including Wakare, Thoppgala, etc…".
He is now with Pradeep who is the former political wing head of the TMVP, also a former top level LTTE cadre.

'The re-structurizing of the TMVP was the main point that crated the conflict within the movement. Lot of top level TMVP cadres were unhappy because of Karuna's new program', te source told the Sri Lanka Guardian.

The was used by the EPDP and military intelligence to advantage. EPDP thought it was a good time to manipulate their plans much better than in the past. The military intelligence thought the same way their operations against the LTTE in the east.

"The Sri Lankan Government used Karuna on the basis of, 'Enemy's enemy is your Friend." The government wouldn't support Karuna politically. They wanted to only use him for military operations," the sources added.

According to them, "Time had gone past with old plans and there was now a new phenomenon in the east. It was the conflict between the EPDP and the TMVP. Some EPDP supporters were killed by the TMVP also some TMVP were killed and wounded because of EPDP attacks.

Meanwhile top level TMVP military cadre Sindujan was killed by TMVP cadres due to internal conflict, Sidujan was colleague of Karuna from LTTE time.

The situation has been watched and analysed by Devananda who is also a good friend of President Mahinda Rajapaksa. The President accepted Devananda's ideas and plans more than that of the other Tamil politicians.

"Once Devananda arranged a special meeting with some of the Tamil political activists who live in Switzerland. One of the activists gave him a political proposal for a solution to the ethnic problem in Sri Lanka. But he turned out to be an LTTE mole", the sources added.

Devananda's actions are not clear to the Tamil Diaspora and many are unhapy about his role in the government.

We can now see the implementation of Devananda-Mahida plans for the east. There will be no more place for the other Tamil political party in the east, said one of the Central Committee members of the TMVP.

"The action plan also seems to indicate that Karuna will be wiped politically," he stated.

Karuna was golden opportunity for the government to wipe out terrorism from the east and find a sustainable solution for the Tamils and the Tamil-speaking people in that province.

"But the government booted him and after that Devanada became the new liberation leader without any struggle for the eastern leadership," he said.

Devananda knows Pillayan as a better military leader but not a political leader. He can easily dispose of Pillayn politically.

"But the government continues to propagate its selfish plans and stupor their racist political allies. They want to wipe out the Tamils in the east and establish Sinhala-Buddhist domination there," concluded our source from the east.