COLOMBO: The detained LTTE arms smuggler and international funds manager, Kumaran Pathmanathan alias KP, has appealed to Tamil Nadu politicians to “refrain from idle rhetoric and instead help Tamils in Sri Lanka to live in harmony and prosperity with others.”
In a phone interview to D.B.S.Jeyaraj published in Daily Mirror on Saturday, KP said: “ We need reconciliation and cooperation, not confrontation and friction.”
And KP has set an example. Even though he is in detention, he is running an NGO called North-East Rehabilitation and Development Organisation (NERDO) with Lankan government support, using the telephone, e-mail and fax.
“What our people need now is not politicians but humantarians,” he asserted.
Helping ex-LTTE cadre
KP said that his immediate concern was to help former LTTE combatants who were undergoing reorientation and rehabilitation in special detention camps.There are more than a thousand in this category. Lankan Defence Secretary, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, is extending all facilities to enable him to help the detainees, KP said.
It was at KP’s instance that Jaffna university undergraduates who were in detention were released.Gotabaya has assured KP that all the non-hard core (or “soft”) LTTE cadre would be released in six to nine months.
On the reluctance to release the hard core now, KP said that it was important to take into account the concerns of the government. Apart from genuine security concerns there was political pressure from the opposition to be cautious in this regard. He himself was being kept in detention for this reason, he explained.
Nerdo's role
Detailing NERDO’s role,KP said that it began in July his year by giving financial aid to schools for the war refugees. It is planning to set up an Anbu Illam (Abode of Love) in Vavuniya for children orphaned by war and for those who had lost their sight or limbs in the fighting.A Tamil Catholic nun from Colombo, along with Sinhalese sisters, is running a home for 40 people.A village near Vavuniya with a large number of war wounded and destitutes will be developed as a model village.
A model farm spread over 200 acres is being planned to settle LTTE detainees.The site could either be in Kilinochchi or Vavuniya. NERDO is working on a SLRs.605 million project to help 3,300 fishermen.Tamil academics settled abroad are doing consultancy and studies for the economic development of the North and the East. NERDO is planning to set up a unit in the Colombo airport to help Tamil exapts wanting to visit the North for constructive work.
Prabhakaran wanted KP to do this
KP claimed that LTTE supremo Velupillai Prabhakaran wanted him to look after the people if and when the LTTE was defeated in war.
“ KP is there.He will look after the people and cadre,” Prabhakaran reportedly said in May 2009 when someone in the leadership asked what lay in store for the people and cadre in view of an imminent defeat.
“This (Prabhakaran’s assertion) has strengthened my resolve,” KP said.
CPI (M) MLA wrongly named
D.B.S.Jeyaraj said that in the last instalment of his interview with KP, it was erroneously stated that the Tamil Nadu MLA whom LTTE poliical commissar B.Nadesan had contacted in regard to the Indian ceasefire proposal was K.Mahendran of CPI(M). Actually it was C.Mahendran, Tamil Nadu Deputy Secretary of CPI, the interviewer said.
He also said that the cost of the planned sea and airborne operation to rescue Prabhakaran was to cost US$ 3.5 million and not US$ 1.5 million as stated.
