SUMMARY

The basis of the LTTE versus LTTE-Karuna non-state conflict is the creation of the LTTE-Karuna faction itself. In early March 2004 Colonel Karuna, commander of the LTTE forces in the East, split from the main LTTE movement, allegedly to struggle for the rights of the Eastern Tamils, who he felt were being overlooked in the LTTE hierarchy and were disproportionately used in combat to protect the interests of the Jaffna Tamils of the North. The main LTTE in turn accused Karuna of embezzling funds and of working in collaboration with “chauvinist Sinhalese elements” in the government and the Sri Lankan Army (SLA) to crush the Tamil cause.

The main faction of the LTTE accepts no other armed groups attempting to represent the Tamil people, and a conflict of interests was thereby created, with the LTTE stating that Karuna was a traitor that had to be removed from “our soil”. The situation was similar to the LTTE's conflicts with other Tamil organizations in the 1980s, when the group eradicated Tamil groups that did not accept the hegemony of the LTTE.

Karuna seceded from the main LTTE movement and consolidated his positions in the eastern provinces of Batticaloa and Ampara, attempting to create both a military and a political base of power in these areas. Parliamentary elections were coming up, and Karuna tried to secure parliamentary support through building a support base among Tamil National Alliance (TNA) legislators. In response to these challenges against the main LTTE’s supremacy battles broke out in April 2004, and Karuna’s group was soon ousted from its urban strongholds and retreated to the jungles of the East. Karuna later formed a political party to act as the political arm of his movement, the ‘Tamil People’s Liberation Tigers’, or TMVP.

After the initial high-intensity battles, low-level guerrilla warfare, abductions, ambushes and targeted killings became the defining characteristics of the conflict between the two groups. Pistol gangs and groups of armed cadres clash both in government-held territory in the East and in Colombo, as well as in LTTE-held territory primarily in the eastern areas around Batticaloa, Trincomalee and Ampara. The bulk of activity takes place in these three eastern areas, where the Karuna faction was first created. Fighting is found in rural as well as urban settings.

A great deal of battle-related non-state deaths also occur without there being a possibility to ascertain the identities of the combatants, blurring the exact number of deaths in this dyad.

The non-state conflict between the two parties did not cross the 25 battle-related deaths threshold during 2007. This was presumably due to the LTTE's presence being removed from the Batticaloa and Ampara areas following the government's successful campaigns against the group during that year.

The non-state conflict between LTTE and LTTE-Karuna faction is first included in UCDP data in 2004. In May of that year clashes between the two groups had resulted in more than 25 battle-related deaths.