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LTTE top man here for health check and vacation
A top runger of the Political Wing of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) is in Colombo again, this time both for medical treatment and vacation. He has not only found accommodation at a super luxury complex but also received a high-powered security team to guard him.

Commenting on the latest visit and the VVIP treatment the man is receiving, one wag in the defence establishment remarked that local market prices of apples might go up.
The reason? Like the bungling bureaucrat (others have now dubbed him Iskola Mahattaya) who carried a bagful when the top Tiger man was in hospital, many are waiting to visit him with apples. The new moral - an apple a day keeps a guerrilla away or so it seems !!

From Prabhakaran's portraits to cricketers
One time Deputy Inspector General in the Sri Lanka Police, R. Sunderalingam is now in Tamil Nadu on a lecture programme with the Police, Customs, Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the Coast Guard.

Retired from Interpol after a long stint where he specialised in the global drug trade, Sunda, as his friends call him, lectured last week to the Rotary Club of Chennai on his favourite subject. He says there were only two questions posed to him from the audience on global drug trafficking. The rest were all on Sri Lankan cricketers and the ongoing World Cup series in Africa.

Sunda says a Police driver later told him he had photographs of Sanath Jayasuriya and Muttiah Muralitharan hung on the walls of his home. According to him, there were many others in Tamil Nadu who had portraits of leading Sri Lankan cricketers instead of the earlier habit of displaying Tiger guerrilla leader, Velupillai Prabhakaran. A change indeed!

A new device for suicide attacks?
Are Tiger guerrillas experimenting with a new device for suicide attacks?
Their archrival, the EPDP (Eelam People's Democratic Party) thinks they are.
This is what a brief note posted in their website had to say:

"In Mullaitivu, Krishnabhavan Sasikumar alias Kathiroli of the Black Tigers was killed while he and two other LTTE members were experimenting with a new device for suicide attacks on political personalities in Colombo. The other two had their limbs blown off. The dead body of Kathiroli was taken on 24. 02. 2003 to Alavetty in Jaffna and handed over to his relatives by the LTTE. The body was later buried in Kopay. Kathiroli had joined the LTTE in 1990 when he was 12 years old."

Move to build "warships" locally
The UNF Government is exploring the possibility of manufacturing "warships" (battle craft) in Sri Lanka. A three-member team led by retired Admiral Asoka de Silva, a former Commander of the Navy, has been given the task of studying the matter and forwarding a report. The team has already paid visits to Naval harbours in Trincomalee and Kankesanthurai.

From blue to white in no time
A lady big boss ticked off a Navy officer who turned up in blue uniform for a Seva Vanitha ceremony at an establishment near Colombo. She held up the ceremony until the officer, badly shaken, beat a hasty retreat to his chalet, changed into white clothes and turned up.

Old cronies clash
One retired top soldier made the charge to another who had quit many moons early that some of the reforms in the defence establishment were being engineered or doctored. "What bloody c…k," retorted the older soldier only to apologise later. There were ladies in the audience too.

Army man will be in the team
Major General Shantha Kottegoda will return to the Government delegation that will take part in talks with the LTTE in the Tokyo suburb of Hakone next week.

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