After leading his people into a tragic and desperate last stand, and vowing to never surrender, Prabhakaran, the leader of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, has today been killed along with several of his top deputies. The war is over - what does the future hold for Sri Lanka's people?
I wrote in a previous diary that we were witnessing the final stages of the war in Sri Lanka.
Is this the end for the LTTE and the end of conflict in Sri Lanka? I'd give a qualified "yes" to the former and a "no" to the latter. The LTTE has been grievously damaged by its inability to raise funds abroad because of the strict currency controls imposed after 9/11 - this has crippled its ability to buy arms and buy-off enemies. Its previous bases of support in India are now closed to it because of its own actions. Ruthless human rights violations and dictatorial rule by the LTTE have led to splits within the movement, cleverly exploited by the Sri Lankan government.
On the other hand the problems in Sri Lanka will never go away until a just and lasting peace accounting for the legitimate demands of the Tamil people and other minorities is met. Military victory is easy to achieve - lasting change and peace much more difficult. Let's all hope the end is near for Sri Lanka's long agony.
Well, the end came today:
Officials said Prabhakaran was shot along with two of his top commanders, known as Soosai and Pottu Amman, as they tried to flee the war zone in an armored van accompanied by a bus filled with rebels. On Sunday, the Tigers had vowed to lay down their arms after government forces cornered them in an area of jungle about the size of a football field.
Prabhakaran's group was approaching Sri Lankan forces when a gun battle erupted, officials said. The military then launched a rocket at the van. Troops pulled Prabhakaran's body from the wreckage, the officials said.
The end came for Prabhakaran, cornered in a jungle by the Sri Lankan army and by a combination of grievous tactical and strategic error on his part. Far from serving a liberator of his people he served as the ringmaster of their oppression, holding tens of thousands of Tamils as human shields as LTTE territory shrank and shrank in the face of a determined campaign to destroy the Tigers by the Sri Lankan government.
But his death comes too late for the tens of thousands of innocent victims of this war - both those killed by the Sri Lankan government and those murdered by the Tamil Tigers. People like the following:
Rajiv Gandhi - murdered by a suicide bomber sent from the Tamil Tigers.
The suicide bomber who killed Gandhi and who gave her life in pursuit of Prabhakaran's dreams - an act which may have sealed the fate the LTTE as it led to their banning in India - which previously served as a base of support for the group.
A Tamil youth, stripped naked before being set on fire by a Sinhalese mob during communal violence against the Tamil minority in Sri Lanka:
Lakshman Kadirgamar - the Tamil foreign minister of Sri Lanka, killed by an LTTE sniper in 2005
Tamil children gang-pressed into service for the LTTE. The LTTE had one of the world's worst records for using child soldiers.
Tamil civilians used as human shields by the LTTE and fired upon by the Sri Lankan armed forces.
The war long ago lost any meaning in the legitimate campaign for equal rights for the Tamil people of Sri Lanka. The war became, as one commenter aptly states:
the war turned into a war for Prabhakaran's survival. It had nothing to do with the Tamil people.
Well said. But his death comes too late for many. And in the end what have the Tamil people gained?
"A quarter-century after it all began, the Tamil community has been left begging for food and water from the same community which was supposed to be liberating them," said Swamy, the author. "The Tigers could have transformed itself into a democratic organization. That never happened."
Where do we go from here? How can we work to nurture civil society in Sri Lanka and support the just demands of the Tamil people for equality while also ensuring an end to any violent campaign for Tamil rights?
In the eyes of the Sri Lankan government the West has lost any credibility by refusing for so long to halt the support of the Tamil diaspora in funding and arming the LTTE - which is why the Sri Lankan government ignored the calls of the EU and the US to halt their military campaign against the LTTE knowing that when it had previously done so the LTTE had used the lull in fighting to rearm.
I hope that this ending is a new beginning for Sri Lanka and for all the Sri Lankan people, Sinhalese, Tamil and Muslim, to live together in peace and justice and to forge a new path forward towards a more equitable Sri Lanka for all of its citizens.
From Commenter WIds(below):
It is all but certain that a large number of civilians, mixed in with Tiger troops, have lost their lives in the last weeks of battle. The final count is unlikely to be known for some time, and may not be particularly accurate even then. However, both sides may take some satisfaction in seeing an end to fighting, even if it is a peace born of a wholly one-sided victory. We hope that President Rajapaksa will prove as successful a builder of peace as he has been a wager of war; and particularly, that he and his government will succeed in creating structures that will allow Sinhalese, Tamils, and the other peoples of Sri Lanka to live side-by-side with full rights and mutual respect.