LTTE chief's speech eagerly awaited

By Nirupama Subramanian

COLOMBO, NOV. 26. The leader of one of the most-dreaded guerrilla groups in the world turned 46 today amid hopes in the country from which he wants to carve out a Tamil kingdom that age and other circumstances might have forced him into accepting the impossibility of his goal.

Sri Lanka expects that Mr. Velupillai Prabhakaran will bare his intentions on Monday when he is scheduled to make his customary address on the occasion of the LTTE's ``Heroes' Day'', observed every year by the group on November 27 in memory of cadres killed in fighting.

This year, the speech, which is usually first broadcast over the LTTE's clandestine Voice of Tigers and distributed from its London headquarters immediately afterwards, has acquired added significance in the light of the Norwegian attempts to bring the group to the negotiating table.

Meanwhile, in an interview published in the Sunday Times today, the LTTE political wing leader, Mr. S.P. Tamilchelvam, has said that peace efforts in Sri Lanka will succeed only when hostilities ceased and when the ``military occupation'' of Jaffna ended.

``It is only when the hostilities cease, the economic embargo on a nation of people is removed and when the people have peace of mind can lasting peace efforts succeed,'' he said in an interview published in the Sunday Times today.

The newspaper did not say, nor could it be immediately confirmed, whether the interview was conducted before or after the Prabhakaran-Solheim meeting.

Captives freed

PTI reports:

Mr. Prabhakaran marked his 46th birthday today freeing 15 people held captive by the rebel group amid mounting foreign pressure to resume peace talks.

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