By Saroj Pathirana

Karuna rejects LTTE's accusation of being a "traitor"

Breakaway Tamil Tiger commander Karuna has accused rebel leaders of readying for possible war after April 2 general elections.

In an interview with the BBC, Colonel Karuna said he believed this was the reason why he was asked to send 1,000 troops from the east to the north.

But he said he was not overtly told of any war plan.

Peace efforts, which stalled last year, are on hold after a split between Sri Lanka's president and prime minister.

Interview  I can come to only two conclusions from their demand for sending so many soldiers to the north. Firstly they may have a plan for resuming the war. The second thing is that they just wanted to be guarded by our fighters Karuna

Colonel Karuna said his decision to split from the Tamil Tiger rebel leadership last week was in the interests of peace.

He said the demand for 1,000 of his fighters to be sent to the north raised suspicions in his mind that the Tiger leadership was preparing for a possible resumption of hostilities against the Sri Lankan government - depending on the outcome of the April general election.

Interview highlights

The BBC's correspondent in Colombo, Frances Harrison, spoke to Colonel Karuna - also known as Vinayagamoorthi Muralitharan - the regional commander of the breakaway Tamil Tiger faction, about his decision to split from the rebel army.

Actually it was not a deliberately planned move. I am responsible and answerable to the people here. So thinking on those lines I took up the issue of the grievances of my people with the leadership and I don't think they considered these issues a serious concern.

What exactly triggered this move - these are long standing grievances?

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For a long time we had war but this is peace time. And we don't want our troops there - in the north. During peace time it's natural that our soldiers want to lead a normal life with their families. It would be a betrayal of them to deploy them in the north now.

Do you have a problem with Tamil Tiger leader Velupillai Prabhakaran - if so, what is that?

He is the person who is responsible for appointing such heads for giving any orders to send the troops from the east. So without his knowledge or order nothing would happen in our organisation.

Why do you think he wanted so many soldiers from the east?

I can come to only two conclusions from their demand for sending so many soldiers to the north. Firstly they may have a plan for resuming the war. The second thing is that they just wanted to be guarded by our fighters.

Do you have any specific information that they had plans to start the war again?

I think that there's a probability that if the wrong person comes to power after this election. When they asked for more troops it raised my suspicions.

But if they were really preparing for war in the north, wouldn't you in the east as such a senior commander have been privy to the plans?

Overtly until now they haven't told us of any plan but it could have happened if I had agreed to send more troops from the east.

So are you trying to say you acted in the interests of peace?

You're exactly right. Looking at the past history of this country I have had enough bitter experiences because of this war. So I have concentrated all of my attentions towards the development of my people. But I have been telling my leader it's very important to maintain the fighting force to keep the balance of power.

If you acted in the interests of peace isn't it possible that your actions could actually spark fighting between your forces and those of Mr Prabhakaran. In fact you could make things much worse with your actions?

Whatever it is we don't want to have such a bad situation here. We didn't raise our weapons against the head of our leader or other people in the north. Actually we just demanded our rights but in case we are attacked or they don't have any long sighted views then we have to face that.