Sri Lanka Tamil Rebels Face Turmoil Over Split

By Scott McDonald

COLOMBO (Reuters) - Sri Lanka's Tamil Tiger rebels sought Friday to contain an internal rift that could threaten moves to restart peace talks, after reports a renegade commander had demanded a separate cease-fire with the government.

The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) have waged a separatist war for 20 years until signing a truce two years ago.

The cease-fire has held but a split in the rebel leadership would further complicate peace efforts stalled by a row between President Chandrika Kumaratunga and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe that has led to a snap election on April 2.

"Rebel Karuna wants separate deal with government," said the headline in The Island newspaper.

But in a letter to LTTE chief Velupillai Prabhakaran in an LTTE-funded newspaper published in the east -- Karuna's base -- he said: "Let us function independently under your direct leadership. We are not leaving you, we are not opposed to you."

The rebels from the minority Tamil community have harshly criticized the political feud in the government, saying it shows the majority Sinhalese are not serious about negotiating peace.

A split would also be embarrassing for the rebels, who pride themselves on their code of loyalty and have assassinated commanders for straying from the party line.

Karuna's letter said: "I want to function directly under you, avoiding the divisional heads of Tamil Eelam."

Karuna is the military name for V. Muralitharan, a top Tiger leader who has differed with Prabhakaran in the past, but was one of the negotiators in peace talks that stalled last April.

Analysts said the dispute could be resolved with Karuna's expulsion from the movement.

"A lot of his cadres are leaving the east. My own feeling is the northern command will discipline Karuna and restore an interim command structure," said one analyst who did not want to be named.

Rebel spokesman Daya Master declined to comment ahead of a news conference at their headquarters in northern Sri Lanka on Saturday by their political wing leader S.P. Thamilselvan, who has conceded there is a dispute, but said it would be resolved "very soon."

Analysts speculated Karuna was upset over recent killings of Tamil politicians in the east who were opposed to the Tigers, allegedly ordered by a rebel intelligence unit in the north.

Others said Karuna was unhappy because he had no say in the list of candidates in the east for the Tamil National Alliance, a party the Tigers endorsed in the elections.

Renegotiating the cease-fire agreement would be difficult. It was signed between Prabhakaran and the Norwegian government -- which is brokering the peace effort -- and Wickremesinghe and the Norwegians.

Any changes require "the mutual agreement of both parties," further complicated by the fact Wickremesinghe no longer controls the defense ministry since Kumaratunga took it over last November.

"Since there is already a cease-fire agreement between the government of Sri Lanka and the LTTE, we cannot have an additional agreement. We cannot have two agreements," Defense Secretary Cyril Herath told Reuters. "The ground situation (in the east) is perfectly normal. There have been no problems," he added.

Trained in India, Karuna is one of the rebels' toughest fighters and won a battle to control the island's main north-south artery, dubbed the "Highway of Death" after 3,500 soldiers from both sides died fighting over it.