Sri Lanka’s Tamil tiger leader Velupillai Prabhakaran is preparing for war despite a truce with government forces, a renegade rebel commander said. Regional commander V. Muralitharan, known as Karuna, said he broke away as Prabhakaran was preparing for war.‘‘We were asked for soldiers,’’ said Karuna, adding: ‘‘The Wanni administration asked for soldiers at a time of peace. That made me conclude he was getting ready for war.’’ He said the demand for 1,000 fighters raised suspicion that the leadership was preparing for a possible resumption of hostilities against the government — depending on the outcome of the April polls.‘‘I can come to only two conclusions from their demand,’’ Karuna told the BBC, ‘‘firstly they may have a plan for resuming the war. The second is that they just wanted to be guarded by our fighters.’’ ‘‘I am responsible and answerable to people here,’’ he said, ‘‘so thinking on those lines I took up the issue of the grievances of my people with the leadership.’’He also vowed not to return Sri Lanka to war. ‘‘Lives sacrificed should be meaningful,’’ he said. ‘‘If one has to make it meaningful it means going away from war.”
