6th Lead (adds new details)

Dissent within Karuna loyalists?

[TamilNet, Monday, 15 March 2004, 09:58 GMT]
The website run from Batticaloa under the direction of renegade commander, Mr. Vinayagamoorthy Muraleetharan (Karuna), which was disabled for several hours after posting a message that apologized to the viewers for carrying messages against LTTE leader V.Pirapaharan, has now become operational. TamilNet is unable to confirm whether it was the work of outside cracker.

Sources close to Karuna say that their site was cracked but refused to give further details about how they lost control of their site or how they managed to recover the site.

However, when TamilNet contacted the service provider for the "paadumeen," readyhosting.com, located in Wisconsin, USA, the service provider said that they have no log of any "intruder" activity and they were not aware of any site of theirs having been cracked.

Internal Link:

Dissenting Message in Tamil

The locally captured version of the dissenting message can be viewed via this internal link. This message labels Mr.Karuna as a "traitor."

Excerpts from the translation of the new message posted in the above website follows:

We ask for pardon from our viewers of "Paadumeen" (Singing Fish)

"Keeping the memory of our brothers and sisters lying in the heroes cemetaries with dreams of Tamil Eelam, I ask thousands of pardons from our viewers for carrying messages against our National leader Hon.Pirapaharan and against the Liberation Tigers' leadership in the last few days.

"Traitor Karuna is attempting to tighten the rope against Mother Tamil to strangle her vocal chords; I, the writer for Paadumeen, was forced into a hell having to write in support of the traitor. I am typing the letters now, with tears piercing my keyboard, fearing that my life should remain at least until I complete this message for the viewers of Paadumeen."

The message further says that Karuna has used the current peace climate to promote his self interest but that the writer hopes that the LTTE leadership will find a solution to this crisis soon. The message added that the Tamil soil will not pardon Karuna.