LTTE ADVISOR AND LEADER OF NEGOTIATIONS ANTON BALASINGHAM IS DYING OF CANCER

By Walter Jayawardhana

Anton Balasingham,(68) advisor to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam is dying of cancer at his London home, LTTE sources revealed.

Balasingham’s cancer, diagnosed as duct cancer, (cholangia carcinoma) of the billiard system is in an advanced stage and it has spread to his liver , lungs , abdomen and bones pro-LTTE website the Tamil Net revealed.

Balasingham started his life as a proof reader in a Colombo newspaper and later rose to be the most trusted advisor to one of the most ruthless men in the world, Velupillai Prabhakaran. Acting as the leader of the LTTE negotiating teams at various peace negotiations Balasingham cleverly manipulated the negotiations to do propaganda and buy time for the terrorist group to strengthen them militarily.

He never believed in peace, independent observers said. He loved to call himself as Dr. Anton Balasingham, though he never possessed a medical degree or a Phd from any university.
He was instrumental in working out with the most controversial Ceasefire Agreement with the former Ranil Wickremesinghe government of Sri Lanka that gave most of its achievements to the terrorist group in its history.

He publicly threatened Tamil opponents of his terrorist group , the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam and once said that they could not wait until they garland Douglas Devananda, the Sri Lankan Tamil Minister and leader of EPDP, who chose a democratic way of life giving up his former career as a guerilla leader. In fact the LTTE assassins several times tried to kill him.

Married to a white Australian woman named Adele both of them worked to spread and promote Tamil terrorism all over the world.

The reference to garlanding Douglas Devananda was in reference to the garlanding Rajiv Gandhi, by the LTTE suicide bomber called Bhanu in Tamil Nadu in South India.

A cunning man , when he saw that the Indian government would never pardon the LTTE for the assassination he apologized for the killing over a TV program broadcast by a private TV channel called NDTV.

But hours after he regretted the killing the LTTE denied the terrorist group had admitted the killing.
Fluent in English that elevated him to be the advisor of the terrorist leader Velupillai Prabhakaran, who is a school drop out and a Tamil only man, he lied and promised to the world on behalf of the LTTE.

He told Olara Otunu of the United Nations special envoy that the terrorist group would never recruit child soldiers and disband the existing ones. But regardless he encouraged the terrorist group to continue to use them as cannon fodder.

In a statement to the pro-LTTE Tamil Net he called his terminal illness a personal tragedy and regretted that he could not serve the terrorist group any further.