JAFFNA, Nov 27: LTTE leader Vellupillai Prabhakaran on Sunday claimed that the distance between the newly elected President, Mahinda Rajapakse, and the LTTE was ‘vast in terms of policy’ and gave Mr Rajapakse time until next year to give way to a Tamil ‘homeland’ and ‘self-government, demands categorically rejected by the new President in his policy statement last Friday.

‘If the new government rejects our urgent appeal, opts for a hard-line position and adopts delaying tactics, we will, next year, in solidarity with our people, intensify our struggle for self-determination, our struggle for national liberation to establish self-government in our own homeland,’ the Tiger leader said in his much anticipated Heroes’ Day speech, which many believed would usher in war.

The LTTE leader further said that the rebels would ‘wait and observe’ the strategy of President Rajapakse and afford him a chance to offer a reasonable political solution to the ethnic conflict “Since President Rajapakse is considered to be a realist, committed to pragmatic politics we wish to find out, first of all, how he is going to handle the peace process and whether he will offer justice to our people.

Therefore we have decided to wait and observe, for some time, his political manoeuvres and actions,’ the Tiger leader commented. He said to date nearly 18000 LTTE cadres have died in what he called the Tiger’s ‘national liberation’ war claiming that he was ‘deeply disappointed’ that the international community has not understood the ‘spiritual’ significance of this ‘immense’ sacrifice.

The LTTE celebrates Nov 27 as its Heroes’ Day in a joint celebration that commemorates the Tiger leader’s birth date as well as the anniversary of the first Tiger activist killed in action.