New Delhi
27 June 2006
Making overtures to India at a time when Sri Lanka is tottering on
the brink of a civil war and patience of the international community in general and India
in particular is wearing thin, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) on Tuesday
expressed "deep regret" over the assassination of the late prime minister Rajiv Gandhi.
"A monumental historical tragedy" was how political advisor and chief negotiator for the
LTTE Anton Balasingham described the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi. He went on to
state that the banned terrorist outfit sought a new relationship with India provided the
"regional superpower in South Asia" made a positive gesture.
"As far as that event is concerned, I would say it is a great tragedy, a monumental
historical tragedy for which we deeply regret and we call upon the Government of India
and people of India to be magnanimous to put the past behind and to approach the ethnic
question in a different perspective," Balasingham told NDTV. The private television new
channel said the interview was conducted at an undisclosed location in Europe.
This is the first time anyone as senior in the LTTE as Balasingham, one of the oldest
confidants of Prabhakaran, has virtually admitted the Tigers' role in the killing of the late
prime minister Rajiv Gandhi. An LTTE woman suicide bomber killed Mr Gandhi on May
21, 1991 at Sriperumbudur near Chennai.
Asked if the LTTE can give any assurance to India that such acts will not happen again,
he said, "We have made pledges to the Government of India that under no
circumstances we will act against the interest of the Government of India and that ever
since the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi, India played a detached role. What we feel is
India should actively involve in the peace process."
"India," he said, "has been silent for the last 15 years and adopted a detached role. Now
(that) there is possibility of war emerging, so she can't keep quiet but she has to face
challenges ... and to adopt ... orientate a new foreign policy towards her neighbour for
which the relationship between the LTTE and India is crucial.
"I think we are prepared to build up a new understanding ... a new relationship with the
Government of India provided she makes a positive gesture and it is up to the
Government of India because we have already pledged that we will never to do anything
or act anything inimical to the geo-political interest of India.
"So if the past is put aside and if a new approach is made, then there is possibility of
India playing a positive active role in bringing a resolution to this conflict," he observed.
Delving into the past, Balasingham said India had trained LTTE cadres. "India helped the
Liberation Tigers at a particular historical time to train and arm our fighters, to protect our
people from state oppression but the intervention was not to create a separate state as
such but to help the Tamils to protect themselves and there was a period of Indian
intervention from 1983 upto 1987 during which the Sri Lankan Indian accord was written
and it was during that time India wanted to find a political solution to the conflict. It is a
very complicated history".
Asked about the 1987 India-Sri Lanka peace pact, which the LTTE rejected before taking
on the Indian troops deployed in the island's northeast, he said that agreement did not
satisfy the political aspirations of the Tamils. "If India had offered a federal solution as
she has in her own country, then we would have definitely responded positively but the
provincial administration suggested by India was totally inadequate to meet the
demands of the Tamil people. That's why we did not support the accord," he said.
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