(5 Mar 2004)
1. Rebel holding a gun
2. Various rebel putting a mortar into a gun
3. Tilt up over rebel holding gun
4. Close up gun
5. Mid shot Rebel's Breakaway Commander, Vinayagamoorthi Muralitharan, also known as Karuna chatting to reporter
6. SOUNDBITE: (Tamil dialect) Vinayagamoorthi Muralitharan, also known as Karuna, Rebel Breakaway Commander:
"As you have asked us, this means that we will not receive normal commands or instructions, directly from the Wanni administration or Mr Prabhakaran."
7. Tilt up over Muralitharan
8. Cutaway rebel
9. SOUNDBITE: (Tamil dialect) Vinayagamoorthi Muralitharan, also known as Karuna, Rebel Breakaway Commander:
"It is one of our important messages is that we will keep on maintaining our fighting force. Because when there is a force in Wanni we are forced to have, we are forced to maintain a good army here."
10. Mid shot rebels
11. Close up rebels
12. Wide shot rebels
STORLYINE
The Sri Lankan government on Friday rejected a call for a separate truce with a new Tamil Tiger faction that broke away from the main guerrilla group, giving the island's fragile peace process one of its toughest challenge since a 2002 cease-fire.
The Tigers' eastern commander pulled his 6,000 fighters away from the 15,000-strong army in a unprecedented dispute with the northern-based top leader over his demands that the eastern region send recruits to the north.
The head of the breakaway group, Vinayagamoorthi Muralitharan on Wednesday said that his group was breaking away from the main rebel faction, headed by Velupillai Prabhakaran, who runs affairs from the Wanni region of the island's north.
The division - a month before parliamentary elections - deals a serious blow to the rebels, who until now have been largely united in their 19-year war for a separate homeland.
In an exclusive interview with APTN on Thursday Muralitharan said there was no question of a reconciliation with the main rebel group and that they would no longer be taking direct orders from Prabhakaran.
Muralitharan, a former bodyguard of Prabhakaran, was the rebel commander for the island's east.
He told APTN that the breakaway faction would continue to maintain a strong fighting force in the region.
Explaining reasons for the split, Muralitharan said he disagreed with Prabhakaran's request to recruit more fighters and deploy them in the north.
He also said that eastern cadres are discriminated against in receiving positions in the group's administration wing, which favours northern cadres.
Muralitharan approached the government on Thursday for a separate truce than the one the Tigers signed with the government two years ago.
But a top Defence Ministry official said on Friday the government rejected the idea.
Norway-brokered peace talks between the government and the rebels have remained stalled since last April, and any hopes of a revival have been thrown into limbo with this unprecedented split in the rebel organisation.
Prabhakaran signed the February 2002 cease-fire with Prime Minister Wickremesinghe, halting a 19-year civil war that killed nearly 65,000 people.
Any move to sign a separate pact with a breakaway group is likely to anger the main rebel movement and threaten the island's fragile cease-fire.
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