Mr. Vinayagamoorthy Muralidharan MP, the former Deputy Leader of the LTTE whose nom-de-guerre was Karuna Amman, joined the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) Monday (9), with a large following of Tamils from the East, and was later to be sworn in as the Minister of National Integration and Reconciliation.

More than 2000 Tamils from the East, both men and women, including a large number of former LTTE cadres who left the leadership of Prabhakaran with Karuna's defection from the terrorist organization a few years ago, and many others who had remained loyal to the LTTE even after, joined the SLFP, at a special event at Temple Trees on Monday evening.

Mr. Muralitharan and 12 others obtained their membership from President Mahinda Rajapaksa, who is also the President of the SLFP.

President Rajapaksa told the large gathering at Temple Trees that the talented leader from the East, Mr. Vinayagamoorthy Muralidharan, who joins the SLFP with a strong following from the East, will be appointed a minister.

He said the people of the East already knew of the development taking place there, and that most of the development work of the government was now taking place in the East.

When development goes ahead, the arms will fall off the hands of people, the President said, adding that the time when the Tamil people of the north would also be liberated like those of the East was very near. There would be a Spring of New Development in the North just like the New Dawn in the East after liberation from terror.

President Rajapaksa said that the provision large scale irrigation, water supply, electricity supply, roads, bridges and other necessary infra-structure facilities for the people of the East was already under way, and the progress of development there was moving faster than the flow of electricity. He also said that 300 Tamil speaking persons from the East had been recruited to the Police in the past three years, and more would be taken. The Police Training facility at Thallady was being renovated and modernized for the training of new recruits.

He also assured that the Tamils of the East could have transactions with the Government in Tamil, and that the civil administration there as very much in place.

Mr. Muralidharan said they had decided to join the SLFP as they saw the need to be members of a national political party that embraced all communities and people, and did not believe in political parties that were like social clubs, only meant to boost the ego of their leaders.

They did not want to continue with the name TMVP, which included the words "liberation tigers" because they were often mistaken both in Sri Lanka and abroad for the terrorism of the LTTE, which they had abandoned.

He added that Prabhakaran had not utilized several opportunities for peace and ensuring the rights of the Tamil people, but had misled them with the supposed strength of the LTTE.

He said the anti-Tamil communal riots of July 1983, which led youth like him to take to arms for the liberation of the Tamils, would not have taken place if there had been a leader of the calibre of President Mahinda Rajapaksa as the national leader at that time.

Mr. Muralidharan said the need of the hour was unity under good leadership, which is being provided to the entire country by President Mahinda Rajapaksa.