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From The Times
May 18, 2009
Tamil Tigers admit defeat after battle reaches 'bitter end'

(Lakruwan Wanniarachchi/AFP/Getty Images)
Street celebrations in Colombo after the Government declared victory in the 26-year war with the rebel movement
Robert Bosleigh in Colombo and Jeremy Page, South Asia Correspondent
The Tamil Tigers admitted defeat yesterday in their separatist struggle as hundreds of Sri Lankan government troops closed in on a diminishing patch of coconut grove where the last of the rebels - and possibly their elusive leader - were surrounded.

Selvarasa Pathmanathan, the Tigers' chief of international relations, announced that the rebels were laying down their weapons after 26 years of fighting for an ethnic Tamil homeland. "This battle has reached its bitter end," Mr Pathmanathan, who is in hiding, said in a statement published on the pro-rebel Tamilnet website.

The statement came one day after President Rajapaksa had declared victory over the Tigers, ending what has been Asia's longest-running civil war.

Mr Pathmanathan said: "We have decided to silence our guns. Our only regrets are for the lives lost and that we could not hold out for longer." He added that there were fewer than 2,000 Tigers in the conflict zone - reduced to a few hundred square metres on the northeastern coast - and that more than 3,000 people had died there in the previous 24 hours. The Government denied the claim.

He also said that Velupillai Prabhakaran, the Tamil Tigers' leader, was still on the front line and wanted the international community to help to broker a ceasefire. The Government appeared determined, however, to finish off the Tigers, despite repeated international appeals for a ceasefire and threats of war crimes investigations and other sanctions.

The army said that its troops had found the bodies of 70 Tigers, including two senior leaders. It said it had yet to find Prabhakaran, who has vowed not to be taken alive and is said to carry a vial of cyanide around his neck. There were rumours that he and his son, Charles Anthony, had blown themselves up.

In Sri Lanka there were muted celebrations over the apparent death of the Tigers as a fighting force, but fears that a military victory would not mark the end of the violence. Mano Ganesan, a prominent Tamil MP and human rights activist, said: "The war is won but the political conditions [underpinning] Tamil militancy remain undefeated."

Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara, a military spokesman, told The Times last night that the army had avoided a civilian bloodbath by rescuing 62,000 people held by the Tigers as human shields.

A few hundred troops were conducting a "mop-up operation" for the final handful of rebels in an area of just 800 square metres after surrounding them and cutting them off from the sea for the first time on Saturday, he added.

A satellite image of the area released by the military showed the mangled wreckage of several vehicles on fire, billowing thick black smoke and a row of tents. "They were actually defeated some time ago, but they have formally accepted defeat only now," said Brigadier Nanayakkara.

"They fought for an Eelam [separate state] that they could never win. It was only a waste of lives. They have caused massive death and destruction over the years. Finally they themselves have realised that it is all over."

Across the country there were sharply contrasting reactions to the bloody climax of a conflict that has cost at least 70,000 lives and crippled Sri Lanka's economy since 1983.

Among some Sinhalese in Colombo, the capital, where government workers had spent the morning decking the streets in bunting and national flags, the mood was jubilant.

"It is a great day for our President," said W. S. C. Bandula, 40, a driver. "The war is over. We can look forward to better lives, better security, a better economy."

Others were less sure. "Some of my friends believe the suffering is worth it to beat the terrorists. But I can't feel any happiness when there has been so much bloodshed," said Marisa, 27, a Sinhalese office worker.

Even in subdued Tamil areas in the north, government troops cajoled people into setting off firecrackers to celebrate.

Many Sri Lankans are anxious, however, that Tiger terrorist cells are waiting to unleash suicide bombing attacks - a tactic pioneered by the group - in the south of the country. Some also fear that the violence of the past few days has driven a new wedge between the Sinhalese majority and Tamil minority.

Raj, 24, a Tamil law student in the northern region of Jaffna, previously a Tiger stronghold, said: "Among young Tamils, views have become much more polarised and radicalised. We will see how this plays out in the next few months."

Mangala Samaraweera, a former Foreign Minister, now an opposition MP, said: "The carnage of the past few days has fostered calls among formerly moderate Tamils to calls for a separate state. I fear hundreds of Prabhakarans have been created."

Aid organisations said last night that the humanitarian situation was set to deteriorate, despite the army's boast that it had conducted the "world's largest hostage rescue". A UN spokesman said that the organisation was scrambling to supply aid for an estimated 300,000 civilians displaced in recent weeks.

Citing the poor physical condition of 130,000 people who escaped the conflict zone in mid-April, UN officials said that many of those who fled at the weekend would require urgent medical attention for battlefield injuries and malnutrition. The army says that only a few need hospital care.

The United Nations has not heard from the conflict zone since the end of last week, except for government statements. The International Committee of the Red Cross has a handful of workers still in the battle area but was unable to give any update on their condition.

Journalists are not being allowed close to the conflict to report first-hand. No medical supplies or food have reached the region for more than a week.

Mahinda Samarasinghe, the Sri Lankan Human Rights Minister, dismissed international warnings of a humanitarian catastrophe. "There was no bloodbath as some people feared," he told reporters. "Everybody has come out safely and they are being looked after by the Government."

However, the UN and Britain have called for an investigation into allegations that Sri Lankan forces committed war crimes by shelling civilian targets, including hospitals.

Washington has said that it is blocking Sri Lanka's application for a $1.9 billion emergency International Monetary Fund loan because of its conduct of the war.

President Rajapaksa has dismissed appeals and threats as Western hypocrisy. He was apparently emboldened by support from China, which has provided him with crucial arms, aid and diplomatic support since the war began again in 2006.

Beijing's support appears to be linked to a $1 billion port that China is building on Sri Lanka's southern coast as a commercial venture and a potential refuelling and docking station for the Chinese Navy as it protects oil supplies from Saudi Arabia.

History of violence

1972 Velupillai Prabhakaran founds the Tamil New Tigers, later to become the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), to fight for a separate Tamil state in reaction to alleged widespread anti-Tamil discrimination

1983 A Tamil Tiger attack in northern Sri Lanka kills 13 soldiers, triggering anti-Tamil riots in the capital, Colombo, in which hundreds die. This, in effect, marks the start of the civil war

1987 India brokers truce and sends troops to enforce it but the Tigers renege and begin three years of fighting in which 1,000 Indian soldiers are killed. In 1990 India withdraws, leaving the Tigers in control of Jaffna, in the north

1991 A female suicide bomber, believed to have been sent by the Tamil Tigers, kills Rajiv Gandhi, the former Indian Prime Minister, along with 14 others at a rally in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. A year later the LTTE is outlawed in India

1993 A suspected Tiger suicide bomber kills Ranasinghe Premadasa, the Sri Lankan President, at a rally. The following year Chandrika Kumaratunga comes to power and starts peace talks but heavy fighting continues over the next six years

2002 Norway negotiates a ceasefire and peace talks begin. The Government lifts its ban on the Tigers and the rebels drop demands for an independent state

2004 Colonel Karuna, eastern commander of the Tigers, defects to the Government

2005 State of emergency declared after Lakshman Kadirgamar, the Foreign Minister, is killed by a suspected Tiger assassin in August. In November Mahinda Rajapaksa, the Prime Minister, wins presidential elections on a vow to reject demands for Tamil autonomy. Most Tamils in Tiger-controlled areas do not vote, helping him to win. New peace talks fail in Geneva

2007-09 Government forces begin to drive the Tigers from eastern Sri Lanka. A year later they launch an offensive. In 2009 they seize the Tiger's de facto capital, Kilinochchi Source: Times archive

Tyyr wrote:800 square meter area? My house lot is bigger than that.