A renegade Sri Lankan rebel commander has accused the Tamil Tigers of preparing to break a two-year ceasefire in an escalating war of words that is testing the island's peace process.
Government military officials and international monitors overseeing the truce said there were no signs of war preparations, but the accusation by the commander, called Karuna, adds to a tense environment ahead of general elections on April 2nd.
Karuna, the nom de guerre of the rebels' eastern chief, V. Muralitharan, said he broke away from the Tigers' leadership because they wanted 1,000 of his troops sent to the north - a request he said he believed indicated they were preparing to resume the 20-year civil war.
"Firstly, they may have a plan for resuming the war. The second thing is that they just wanted to be guarded by our fighters," Karuna told the BBC last night from his jungle base in the east.
The Tigers, who began their war for a separate state for minority Tamil people in the island's north and east in 1983, could not be reached for comment.
Both the Tigers and Karuna's faction have said they are committed to the Norwegian-brokered truce over a war that has killed 64,000.
But truce monitors said they were temporarily suspending patrols in areas in the east controlled by Karuna because the ceasefire agreement was signed with Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam leader Velupillai Prabhakaran.
The Tigers expelled Karuna on Saturday for "acting traitorously to the Tamil people" after he said Tamils in the east were being discriminated against by northern Tamils.