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PLOTE cautions Muslims against LTTE

By V.S. Sambandan

COLOMBO APRIL 19. An ``internal issue'' of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) took a communal turn, resulting in the recent violence in an eastern Sri Lankan village, a Tamil political party opposed to the Tigers said today. The party urged Muslims to desist from creating ethnic discord.

Behind the recent Tamil-Muslim violence lies the less-known details of the LTTE's ``extortion'' in the east. According to the People's Liberation Organisation of Tamil Eelam (PLOTE), the flare-up began after two Muslim youth, both ``tax-collectors'' of the LTTE, were ``missing'' after they went to an LTTE office to face charges of misappropriation of funds.

The two, PLOTE said, were supporters of the LTTE for the last two years and were attached to its ``tax-collection'' mechanism for the last six months.

No details are known about their fate. The trouble began after the mother of a youth committed suicide, as she could not secure her son's release.

Against this backdrop, PLOTE has asked Muslims not to use this ``for political benefit and divide the two communities in the name of destructive ethnic clashes''. PLOTE also said that organisations led by those who had fallen out of security forces, such as the ``jehad group'', the ``Osama group'', had sprouted in the east. ``The Muslim leaders should not make this into a communal clash and create ethnic disharmony.''

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