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Chandrika blames LTTE for assassination bid

COLOMBO: Sri Lanka's president Chandrika Kumaratunga, as her right eye closed from an assassination attempt last month, has appeared on television to publicly accuse the Tamil Tiger rebels for the first time for trying to kill, then discredit, her.

Chandrika, 54, suffered a serious eye injury in a suicide bombing on December 21 that killed 23 people just two days before presidential elections. Doctors have said she may lose the sight in the injured eye.

"After they failed to kill me on December 21, they went village to village with hailers telling people I have suffered brain damage," she said in a televised address to the nation on Monday.

With one eye shut, she looked assertive on the broadcast. Wearing spectacles, she often thumped her desk to emphasise a point.

The Liberation Tamil Tigers of Eelam "wanted to kill me, but it was God who saved me," the president said.

This is the first time the Sri Lankan government has publicly blamed the Tamil rebels for the assassination attempt. A three-member team of investigators is seeking to establish who was behind the blast and how a suicide bomber manage to get close to Chandrika.

The rebels are fighting for an independent homeland for Sri Lanka's 3.2 million minority Tamils, saying they can only prosper away from the domination of Sinhalese majority who make up 14 million of the country's 18.6 million people.

She also accused her top rival, Ranil Wickremesinghe of the United National Party, of joining hands with the Tamil rebels to defeather in the elections.

"We have proof that the LTTE campaigned for the UNP," she said. "LTTE cadres went from village to village telling people that they should vote for UNP. The also told people that if they are found to be voting for her, they may get killed," she said.

Chandrika won re-election with 51 percent of the vote. Since coming to power in 1994, she has kept military pressure on the rebels, except for a brief period, in April 1995 when she held peace talks to end the 17-year-old civil war.