Tamil Tigers Defeat Returns Sri Lankans To Peace

May 18, 2009 Comments Off Erik Wong

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka – Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa delivered a victory address to parliament Tuesday, declaring that his country had been “liberated” from terrorism after defeating the Tamil Tiger rebels on the battlefield.

Rajapaksa spoke to a rapt assembly of lawmakers a day after government forces killed the last of the rebels’ fighters on the battlefield in the north. The government said it had killed rebel leader Velupillai Prabhakaran in the final battle as well, but Rajapaksa never mentioned the rebel leader in his speech and a Tamil Tiger official abroad denied his death.

Recounting how the rebels, known formally as the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, once controlled a wide swath of the north and much of the east, Rajapaksa said that for the first time in 30 years, the country was unified under its elected government.

“We have liberated the whole country from LTTE terrorism,” he said, declaring Wednesday a national holiday to celebrate the armed forces.

The rebels, listed as terrorists by the U.S. and European Union, had been fighting for three decades for a homeland for the mainly Hindu Tamil minority after decades of marginalization at the hands of governments dominated by the mainly Buddhist Sinhalese majority.

Briefly addressing parliament in the Tamil language, Rajapaksa said the war was not waged against the Tamil people.

“Our intention was to save the Tamil people from the cruel grip of the LTTE. We all must now live as equals in this free country,” he said.

Rajapaksa has said in the past that he would negotiate some form of power-sharing with the Tamil community following the war and he alluded Tuesday to the need for an agreement.

“We must find a homegrown solution to this conflict. That solution should be acceptable to all the communities,” he said. “We have to find a solution based on the philosophy of Buddhism.”

He denied the country was riven by ethnic tension.

“There are no minority communities in this country. There are only two communities, one that loves this country and another that does not,” he said.

The war killed more than 70,000 people over the past quarter century. Another 265,000 ethnic Tamils were displaced in the recent offensive and many of them have been sent to overcrowded camps in the north.

State television on Monday broke into its programming to announce Prabhakaran’s death, and the government sent text messages to mobile phones across the country saying the rebel had been killed. The headline Tuesday in the state-owned Daily News read: “Megalomaniac terrorist Prabhakaran killed.”

Rajapaksa also confirmed the news of Prabhakaran’s death in a phone call to India’s External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee, Indian foreign affairs spokesman Vishnu Prakash said.

However, military officials said Tuesday that though they were confident the rebel leader was killed in the final battle, they were still searching for the rebel leader’s body among the reported 350 insurgents killed.

“It’s still not confirmed,” military spokesman Brig. Udaya Nanayakkara said. “Still the identification is going on.”

A rebel official overseas, Selvarasa Pathmanathan, denied Prabhakaran was killed.

“Our beloved leader Velupillai Prabhakaran is alive and safe. He will continue to lead the quest for dignity and freedom for the Tamil people,” he said in a statement posted Tuesday on the rebel-affiliated TamilNet Web site. He offered no further details or evidence to support the claim.

The chubby Prabhakaran turned what was little more than a street gang in the late 1970s into one of the world’s most feared insurgencies, fighting for independence for minority Tamils. At the height of his power, Prabhakaran controlled a virtual country in the north and a rebel army of thousands backed by artillery, a navy and a nascent air force.

He was also branded a terrorist abroad and his fighters waged hundreds of suicide attacks, including the 1991 assassination of former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, and forcibly recruited child soldiers.

With the rebels’ conventional forces eliminated, many in Sri Lanka were waiting to see what concessions Rajapaksa was willing to make.

“Now (there) is a historic opportunity, and hopefully things will change. But the demonstrable record so far is not particularly encouraging,” said Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu, a political analyst and executive director of the Colombo-based Center for Policy Alternatives.

Though Rajapaksa promised political compromise, the defeat of the rebels leaves a vacuum in the Tamil leadership.

Prabhakaran killed many community leaders seen as a challenge to his authority. Others moved abroad, while many of those who remained active in politics either allied themselves with the government or were linked to the rebels and effectively sidelined.

The bloody end to the war, which reportedly killed thousands of ethnic Tamil civilians, could also complicate peace efforts. (AP)