Karuna

Colombo, March 8 (Reuters): The renegade rebel whose split from the Tamil Tigers threatens Sri Lanka’s peace process was a close aide to the rebels’ top leader who has been accused of carrying out some of the worst atrocities in the civil war.

Karuna, who said last week he had split from the LTTE, has transformed himself since the island’s ceasefire from a jungle warrior into a peace negotiator who put on a suit to represent the rebels in world capitals. “Karuna is highly disciplined, a very good military leader,” said one official in Colombo who dealt with him often.

“I always found him very polite and he was always smiling. He’s broken the sound barrier, he speaks English more when he is on those trips,” he said.

There is still confusion surrounding why V. Muralitharan — who is more widely known by his military name, Karuna — broke with Velupillai Prabhakaran.

The smiling Karuna, who took part in several rounds of peace talks with the government and even joined in a friendly snowball fight at one session in Oslo, was the public face of one of the LTTE’s top military strategists. Karuna was one of a number of Tiger cadres trained in secret camps in India. He led seven counter-attacks to take control of the island’s main north-south artery, dubbed the “Highway of Death” after 3,500 soldiers died fighting over it.