The Rajapaksas knew that Ranil was the one who split Karuna and Prabhakaran and destroyed the LTTE.
by Upul Joseph Fernando
Prabhakaran decided on an election boycott in the 2005 presidential election to defeat Ranil, knowing that Ranil was responsible for breaking Karuna Amman, who was a significant ally for Prabhakaran. The biggest mistake Prabhakaran made was sending Karuna Amman to the negotiation table in 2002. When Karuna went to Thailand for peace talks, Ranil used two people to trap him: Gamini Abeyratne, the then-director of Katunayake Airport, and Ali Zahir Moulana, a state minister in Ranil’s government. Ali Zahir Moulana was Karuna’s neighbor, and he recently stated that at Karuna’s request during the peace talks, he arranged for Karuna’s children to be enrolled in schools in Colombo. He also mentioned that during the peace talks, he informed Ranil, who was Prime Minister at the time, about the growing problems and conflicts between Prabhakaran and Karuna Amman.
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| President Wickremesinghe |
Gamini Abeyratne took Karuna Amman to nightclubs in Thailand and became friends with him. When Karuna left the country for peace talks and returned to Sri Lanka through the airport, Abeyratne continued this friendship. Later, he went to Thailand and got into the habit of taking Karuna to nightclubs and partying late into the night. When the conflict between Karuna and Prabhakaran became public, Karuna fled from the east to Colombo in Ali Zahir Moulana’s vehicle. Prabhakaran was aware of all this. Disregarding international pressure, he decided to defeat Ranil out of revenge for the betrayal of his closest ally.
The Rajapaksas knew that Ranil was the one who split Karuna and Prabhakaran and destroyed the LTTE. One reason they wanted to make Ranil president was that they believed he would split and destroy the ‘aragalaya.’ Ranil accomplished this. Additionally, out of fear that the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) would turn against him in the next presidential election, he created problems within the TNA using liquor licenses. It has been revealed that several TNA leaders, including ITAK leader Sritharan, were granted bar licenses. These TNA and ITAK leaders, who received liquor licenses, are now supporting the independent candidate to prevent TNA votes from going to Ranil’s rival, Sajith.
Ranil’s breaking of Karuna Amman caused significant damage. Otherwise, Ranil would have become president in 2005. Ranil’s recent attempts to rectify this mistake are also flawed. Whether liquor licenses can win Tamil votes will be seen in the upcoming presidential election.
Upul Joseph Fernando is a senior journalist and political analyst based in Colombo. He is a contributing editor of Mawrata News, a Sinhala-language daily online newspaper.
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