Prabhakaran Regular Visitor to LTTE Training Camps: ex-Tigers

LTTE SUPREMO PRABHAKARAN was quite regular in attending the training camps of the Tamil Tigers and used to personally supervise their programmes, a surrendered activists of the banned organisation has said. Arumugam (named changed) told a team of visiting journalists at a fortified building in Jaffna that houses the former LTTE cadres that the LTTE chief was quite regular in attending training camps and used to personally supervise their programmes.

"I worked for the LTTE for almost six years and was classified as a Black Sea Tiger," Arumugam told the journalists. The former rebel said he is still petrified by prospects of an attack on him by the LTTE for having deserted the organisation.

"I have already lost a portion of my leg," Arumugam said, displaying the injury he suffered during a confrontation with the Sri Lankan security forces. The camp, to which the visiting journalists were taken around earlier this week, had 54 surrendered men, many of them former supporters and sympathisers of the outfit.

A top military official said the camp was well protected and there were layers of cordon that one had to go through to enter the area.

When asked whether he had seen Prabhakaran, Arumugam hesitatingly said he had watched him from close distance though never got an opportunity to talk to the LTTE leader. "He (Prabhkaran) generally does not discuss with individual LTTE fighters and prefers to address the activists jointly," the former LTTE cadre said.
The Island