COLOMBO: With the European Union poised to blacklist the breakaway LTTE faction led by dissident Tamil Tiger militant Karuna, analysts say a ban on the Tiger renegade group would pressure the government which is considered its main protector.

“The EU member states have requested the investigation and preparation of a dossier on the Karuna faction. It seems inevitable that this former part of the LTTE, now known as the Karuna group and practicing similar terror tactics as the LTTE mainstream, will be proscribed as well,” a diplomat said without elaborating on when the ban would likely be inked.

The LTTE was listed as a terrorist organisation by the EU on May 31 after a travel ban to EU countries imposed on the rebels last September failed to stop the guerillas from their killing rampage.

The EU ban froze the LTTE’s funds and assets in member states and prohibited the provision of financial services to them.

“The ban on the LTTE came 23 years after the LTTE began practicing terrorism but it is never too late,” head of the government peace secretariat, Dr Palitha Kohona, said but did not comment on the likely ban on the Karuna faction.

“The Karuna group has registered itself as a political party. It is our hope that they would join the mainstream,” Kohona declared.

The Karuna group unlike the LTTE does not have significant assets abroad. Thus such a ban does not have any direct effect on the operations of the Karuna group itself but rather on the government and its military who the Nordic truce monitors claim have links with the rebels, analysts point out.

“We have strong reason to believe that the Karuna faction operates in close proximity to areas where government troops are based. Any government would take advantage of such a break up in a guerilla group it is fighting. It would be stupid not to,” Major-General (Retd) Ulf Henriccson, who heads the 65-member Nordic truce monitoring team, told Dawn in an interview.

However Dr Palitha Kohona refuted the allegations, claiming that the monitors had not provided ‘proof’ to the effect that the military had links with the Tiger dissidents.

“We have repeatedly asked the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission to provide us proof of such links between the Karuna group and the army so we can take action against the relevant soldiers. But so far they have not responded,” Dr Kohona said.

Muraleetharan alias Karuna, who broke away from the LTTE leadership in March 2004, has since then been a virtual thorn in the side of the LTTE, responsible for eliminating key rebel members.

At least five major battles have taken place between the LTTE main wing and the dissident Tiger guerilla group with an overall death toll of nearly 500 cadres from the two sides.

Karuna, who was once the confidant of the LTTE leader, Vellpillai Prabhakaran, is reputed to have won several battles for the LTTE leader in the long war with the government.

He now stands as the main reason why the LTTE has intensified hostilities against the government, with the Tiger guerilla leadership accusing the Mahinda Rajapakse administration of directly aiding and abetting its former war maestro.