Prabhakaran is a good friend of mine and I’m not a terrorist. I don’t see Prabhakaran as a terrorist, TN CM Karunanidhi says.
“Prabhakaran is a good friend of mine and I’m not a terrorist. I don’t see Prabhakaran as a terrorist, unfortunately terrorism has crept into his group and it is not his fault,” Tamil Nadu chief minister and DMK president M Karunanidhi told a private TV channel in Chennai on Sunday.
Assisted by his daughter and Rajya Sabha MP Kanimozhi, Karunanidhi said, “Prabhakaran’s goals of creating a separate Tamil Eelam (state) are legitimate and genuine, but his methods may not be correct as terrorism has crept into the group without his knowledge. I would deeply regret and would be very sad if Prabhakaran was killed in the ongoing war as his dream of a separate Tamil state will remain unfilled because of the lack of unity among the Tamil groups.”
“I only have one great difference of opinion with him, which I have openly expressed. When interviewed by a magazine of a leading English daily, he was asked if he would ensure democratic rule after creating Tamil Eelam, he said ‘no, it would be dictatorial’. I don’t agree with him there.”
Though Karunanidhi initially didn’t want to make the Sri Lankan Tamil issue a poll plank, at the behest of the Congress, he is known to be a sympathiser of the LTTE movement and found himself getting isolated as the opposition AIADMK alliance was riding high on the Lankan Tamil cause. With MDMK and PMK raising decibel levels on the Lanka Tamil issue and vociferous in their support for the Tamil Eelam, it was expected that the AIADMK coalition would be at an advantage.
Karunanidhi’s statement is seen as an effort to neutralise the possible advantage that the opposition coalition may have gained by going to town on the issue.
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