UCPN-Maoist Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal has revealed that his party had ties with Sri Lanka’s Liberation Tigers of Tamil Ealam (LTTE), also known as Tamil Tigers, during the decade-long armed conflict in Nepal.

 

In the startling revelation made on Friday, the Maoist leader, who later became the country’s prime minister in 2008, admitted that the Nepali Maoists had sought the Sri Lankan rebel groups.

 

Dahal, also called Prachanda in the party, was speaking at a training programme for the officer bearers of Maoist party’s ethnic and regional organisations, in Jorpati of Kathmandu yesterday, the Annapurna Post reported on Saturday.

 

On the occasion, Maoist leaders Dr. Baburam Bhattarai and Narayan Kaji Shrestha were also present. They imparted training on the party cadres including CC members.

 

According to him, it was the first time that he was making public the ties between the LTTE and his party.

 

Saying that the LTTE was also fighting for ethnic liberation, Dahal tried to justify the relationship with the Tamil Tigers. The insurgency in Nepal was a “movement for national liberation”, he added.

 

He further revealed that LTTE had also sought help from the Maoist side.

 

He was all-praise of the separatist movement in Sri Lanka, and called the LTTE, now defunct, an “organisation of the brave.” According to him, the LTTE was revolting against the atrocity.

 

Though he did not elaborate what sort of help the then CPN-Maoist received from the Tamil Tigers and how the relation was established, Dahal hinted that the LTTE’s support helped a lot to fight against the then regime.

 

He, however, lamented the Chinese assistance in the suppression of LTTE in Sri Lanka, the Himalayan Times reports.