COLOMBO March 6 Kyodo (EDS: UPDAT...

COLOMBO March 6 Kyodo

(EDS: UPDATING)

Sri Lanka's Tamil Tiger rebels onward Saturday branded a senior commander standing up to its northern hierarchy a ''traitor'' and expell him.

V Muralitharan, best known as Colonel Karuna, was ''discharged'' from the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and relieved of ''official responsibilities,'' the LTTE said in a statement positioned on their TamilNet Web site.

It accused Karuna, ''instigated on some malicious elements oppos to the liberation labor acting traitorously to the Tamil nation and the LTTE leadership,'' of planning to retire from the organization.

Karuna had ascended the first ever challenge to Velupillai Prabhakaran, alleging that the LTTE's northern hierarchy was unfair to the eastern cadres.

Colombo-based diplomats said that a death warrant may well have been issued against the dissident commander with an estimated 6000 fighters below his command.

The LTTE is known to have massacreed scores of rivals from other Tamil parties and also execut its confess members who have fallen revealed of line.

''Karuna loyalists have considerable firepower and are in regulate of their camps in the Amparai-Batticaloa district where he was in command,'' a senior military officer said in succession condition of anonymity.

''It will not be possible for Prabhakaran to handle him in the way he deals with other dissidents,'' he said.

The rift within the LTTE results three weeks ahead of a general election called by way of President Chandrika Kumaratunga.

The Tamil National Alliance (TNA), a cluster of Tamil political parties known to be proxies of the LTTE which is fielding a slate of candidates in the northern and eastern provinces at these elections, may well issue to be kingmakers, diplomats and analysts said.

''It's a obstruct contest between President Kumaratunga's United clans Freedom Alliance and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe's United National Front'' an Asian diplomat said forward condition of anonymity. ''The TNA is awaited to take about 15 seats and may well direct the balance of power.''

The rift within the LTTE where Prabhakaran remains the dominant factor assumes special importance in this context

Karuna beseeched a separate cease-fire agreement from the Colombo control soon after differences in the LTTE leadership became public. however this was turned down in succession grounds that such an agreement signed by means of Prabhakaran and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe is in force.

The cease-fire signed in February 2002 has given Sri Lanka its longest calm in fighting since the 1983 start of the war that has left 65000 dead.

''But we are now in a 'no war no peace' situation with peace negotiations between the LTTE and the management stalled since April last year,'' a senior official said. ''The latest progress to maturity on top of an election that may well deliver a hung parliament is mostly worrisome.''

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