MAN MOHAN SINGH IN WHAT IS DESCRIBED AS A PATH-BREAKING MEETING MEETS PROXY PARTY OF THE LTTE THAT KILLED RAJIV GANDHI

By Walter Jayawardhana

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in what is described as a path-breaking meeting met Sri Lankan parliamentarians who are widely accepted as the proxy party of the Tamil Tigers accused as the murderers of the former Indian Prime minister Rajiv Gandhi.

Three months ago the proxy party, the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) tried to meet the Prime Minister but they were snubbed, and a meeting has been denied to them on the instructions of expert government officials.

But a long time friend and campaigner for the banned Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) P. Nedunmaran, a Tamil Nadu politician before the meeting predicted that India’s policy would be changed and the Prime minister would meet the proxy party of the Tamil Tigers.

"This visit will mark an important change for India’s policy towards Sri Lanka," Nedumaran, one of the most loyal supporters in India of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), told IANS, an Indian News Agency.

Nedunmaran was one of the first Indian politicians to praise LTTE leader Velupillai Prabhakaran, who is the first accused in the Rajiv Gandhi Assasination case, while Indian courts have issued an arrest warrant against the LTTE leader.

Former Indian Prime minister Rajiv Gandhi, and husband of Sonia Gandhi, the present leader of the ruling Congress Party was assassinated by an LTTE suicide bomber, at Siriperumbudur on May 21 1991 ending a short honeymoon between the Tamil Tigers with India’s RAW, the intelligence wing run by the Indian Prime minister’s office.

It was under the auspicious of the RAW LTTE leaderVelupillai Prabhakaran and others of the guerilla group were given a military training in various training camps in India.

Immediately after the assassination Nedunmaran , who hails the meeting between the LTTE proxy party and Manmohan Singh now, as a new epoch in India’s policy, praised Prabhakaran publicly at the fifth state conference of the Tamil National movement of which he is the President. He has openly campaigned against death sentences awarded by the Supreme Court to LTTE members Nalini, Murugan, Chinna Santhan and G.Parivalan.

The proxy party of the LTTE also wanted to meet Sonia Gandhi but they were told that she was not available for discussions with them. Nedunmaran thinks eventually Sonia Gandhi will pardon her husband’s killers.

The five MPs of the LTTE proxy party who met the Indian Prime Minister are R. Sampanthan, Mavai S. Senathirajah, Selvam Adailakanathan, K. Premachandan and Gajendrakumar Ponnambalam.

The Indian Prime Ministers office did not make a statement after the 45 minutes long meeting but R. Sampanthan told Indian journalists that the Indian Prime Minister was very concerned about the denial of human rights of the Tamils. He was not specific of any particular violations.

Sampanthan said the TNA, the proxy party of the LTTE was looking forward for India to take appropriate actions to protect Tamils in Sri Lanka.

He said, “"We impressed upon the prime minister that the aggressive military attitude of the Sri Lankan government had killed and grievously injured innocent people.”

He did not mention anything about the belligerent attitude of the group he is supporting that started the military clashes by blowing up a civilian bus and killing 65 unarmed passengers. Analysts said the TNA delegation has presented an extremely pro-LTTE report about the present crisis in Sri Lanka to the Indian Prime Minister and Colombo’s Indian High Commission is certainly having more accurate information .