PRABHAKARAN SHOT DEAD

Posted by Lasantha Janaka on Monday, May 18, 2009 Comments: (0)

(LTTE leader V. Prabakaran's son Charles Anthony.)
The leader of Sri Lanka's Tamil Tiger rebels, Velupillai Prabhakaran, was shot dead while trying to flee government troops, a senior defence official has reportedly told a news agency.

Prabhakaran tried to flee the area in an ambulance along with two close aides, but was ambushed and killed, the senior Defence Ministry official said on condition he not be named.

"He was killed with two others inside the vehicle. There will be a formal announcement later," the official said.

The report came minutes after the Sri Lankan Army claimed that Liberation of Tamil Ealam (LTTE) chief Prabhakaran is alive and surrounded by government troops.

A BBC report had quoted a military spokesman as saying that Prabhakaran was guarded by about 200 rebels in a small patch of jungle.

Earlier in the day, four senior rebel leaders were killed in fighting.

They included the head of the Tigers’ political wing, Balasingham Nadesan, the head of rebels’ peace secretariat Seevaratnam Puleedevan, and a military leader known as Ramesh.

The Army also says it has found the body of Prabhakaran’s son, Charles Anthony.

The latest claims cannot be verified as reporters are barred from the war zone.

Meanwhile, injured civilians continue to leave Sri Lanka’s war zone to get medical care.

The movement of civilians out of the war zone comes as the LTTE conceded defeat after sending out suicide attackers as part of a last-ditch attempt to keep the military’s final assault at bay on the square kilometre they control.

“This battle has reached its bitter end. We have decided to silence our guns,” the LTTE’s diplomatic chief, Selvarajah Pathmanathan, said in a statement posted on the pro-rebel web site www.TamilNet.com on Sunday

A day before, Sri Lanka’s President Mahinda Rajapaksa had declared victory after troops seized the entire coast for the first time since the war erupted in 1983.

Rajapaksa is due to formally make a victory announcement in Parliament on Tuesday morning.

The final battle picked up speed after the last of 72,000 civilians who have fled over four days were freed, the military said.

Injured civilians were put on to trucks by soldiers and seen driving away from the makeshift tents.

The United Nations and others say the Tigers had been holding them as human shields, and warned that they were at grave risk.

Sri Lanka says senior Tigers 'dead'

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The whereabouts of Prabhakaran, left, are unclear, while Nadesan, right, is said to have died [AFP]

Sri Lanka's defence ministry says the son of the Tamil Tigers' leader has been found dead.

Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara, a military spokesman, said on Monday that security forces found the body of Charles Anthony as well as three other senior separatist leaders.

Charles Anthony is the 24-year-old son of Velupillai Prabhakaran, the Tamil Tigers chief whose whereabouts are not known.

Also among the dead were Balasingham Nadesan, the head of the political wing of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), commonly known as the Tamil Tigers, Nanayakkara said.

Seevaratnam Puleedevan and S Ramesh, the separatists' eastern leader, were also killed, the military said.

The statement comes as the military refused to accept a ceasefire from the Tamil Tigers group, which a day earlier laid down its arms and declared that its 26-year battle with the government had come to a "bitter end".

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Sri Lankans celebrate end of war
Selvarasa Pathmanathan, the Tigers' international spokesman, said: "We have decided to silence our guns."

However, the military says it will continue its offensive and described Monday's activities as "mopping up" operations.

Keheliya Rambukwella, a defence ministry spokesman, told Al Jazeera on Monday that the government had "had enough of ceasefires".

"As usual they [Tamil Tigers] are going to strengthen and rearm themselves," he said.

The government will accept a ceasefire only if it helps civilians, he said.

The government maintains that the tens of thousands of civilians who had been trapped in the small area of conflict had finally been able to leave on Sunday.

Sri Lanka says it will now kill or capture remnants of the LTTE army, with an intensive search under way for Prabhakaran.

Nanayakkara said Prabhakaran's fate was unknown, adding "we have not found him dead or alive yet, but we know what we will do when we get him".

There has been no comment from the LTTE on the latest claims over casualties.

'Conflict not resolved'

Far from the battlefield, thousands of Sri Lankans hugged soldiers, waved flags, set off firecrackers and danced to the beat of traditional drums in the streets of the capital, Colombo, celebrating the end of more than 25 years of conflict.

Focus: Sri Lanka
Q&A: Sri Lanka's civil war
The history of the Tamil Tigers
Timeline: Conflict in Sri Lanka
Despite the government's apparent crushing military victory against the Tigers, Erik Solheim, a Norwegian minister and former negotiator in the conflict, warned on Sunday that "peace is long from being won".

"The Sri Lankan authorities must demonstrate generosity towards the Tamil population and grant Tamils autonomy and create a state that includes everyone," Solheim, who is Norway's international development and environment minister, said.

"The conflict is not resolved even if the battle has been won."

Norway helped broker a ceasefire in February 2002, which came to an end in October 2006 when peace negotiations broke down.

Pathmanathan, the Tigers' spokesman, said bodies of thousands of wounded and slain civilians remain in the war zone.

Refugee legacy

The Sri Lankan ministry of disaster management and human rights said on Sunday that it was continuing to process civilians rescued from the fighting.

Rajiva Wijesinha, a secretary at the ministry, told Al Jazeera from Colombo: "We heard that the last of them [civilians] had been saved. This was one of our great priorities in the last couple of weeks to make sure we got the civilians safely away."

The government and the Tigers alike have been criticised for not allowing civilians to safely leave the area and for precipitating a humanitarian disaster.

More than 70,000 people have been killed in the conflict that started in 1983 and the UN says 6,000 were killed and hundreds of thousands displaced in just the last four months.

'Struggle to continue'

The Tamil Tigers once controlled nearly a fifth of the Indian ocean island nation, running a shadow state that had courts, police and a tax system along with an army, navy and even nascent air force.

But by Sunday, government troops had surrounded the remaining fighters in a one sq km patch of land and were seeing suicide bomb attempts and plain suicides by fighters, the military said.

However, the struggle for a homeland for ethnic Tamils who say they are marginalised by the ruling majority Sinhalese government would continue, Rajavarothiam Sampanthan, the leader of the Tamil National Alliance, told Al Jazeera.

"The Tamil struggle started long before the Tigers were born and will continue after the end of the Tigers," he said from Chennai in India.

"The Tamils have always demanded self-determination, which would mean substantial self-rule in the areas of their historical habitation."

Sri Lankan army claims victory over LTTE

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18 May 2009, 0256 hrs IST,

NEW DELHI: It appears to be the end of the road for Tamil Eelam and curtains for one of the longest and bloodiest battles in recent times.
Reports from Colombo, quoting Lankan military sources, said that a body, believed to be that of LTTE chief V Prabahakaran, was found in the war zone. It came on a day Tamil Tigers said it was “time to silence the guns”.

The Sri Lankan government claimed victory, but did not shed any light on the fate of the LTTE chief. Unconfirmed reports from Sri Lanka said that around 300 LTTE cadres had committed mass suicide on Saturday night in the face of the advancing Lankan Army.

The Lankan defence ministry in a statement on Saturday had also said that LTTE leadership was preparing for a mass suicide as all the escape routes had been cut off. But there was little clarity on the fate of the LTTE chief, who is wanted in India for the assassination of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.

The military defeat of the LTTE in Lanka is a welcome development for India, which has been dealing with the fallout of the civil war in Sri Lanka for decades. With the defeat of the LTTE, India can now abandon its dual policy and engage Sri Lanka, which has been turning to China and Pakistan for support.

New Delhi’s plan is to help in the reconstruction and rehabilitation of the displaced Tamils and start infrastructure projects in the Tamil areas. New Delhi has also been stepping up pressure on the Lankan government to move towards the long-pending political solution.

The LTTE used TamilNet, a website used by the rebels, to send out its message on silencing the guns. “To save the lives of our people is the need of the hour. Mindful of this, we have already announced to the world our position to silence our guns to save our people,” said Selvarasa Pathmanathan, the LTTE’s head of international diplomatic relations. The LTTE further claimed that 3,000 people had been killed in the last 24 hours of fighting. TamilNet also did not shed any light on the fate of Prabhakaran.

But the Lankan government was also quick to announce the military defeat of the LTTE. Sri Lankan president Mahinda Rajapaksa, who was in Jordan, said he would return to an LTTE-free Sri Lanka. “I will be going back to a country that has been totally freed from the barbaric acts of the LTTE,” Mr Rajapaksa said before cutting short his visit to Jordan and rushing back to Colombo. Reports from Lanka said that the president would make an announcement in Lankan Parliament on Tuesday.

“The defeat of the LTTE on the ground heralds a new era in Sri Lanka. It provides all Sri Lankans with a brand new opportunity for peace and development,” said Mr Rajapaksa. He added: “The liberation of regions hitherto controlled by the LTTE, which amounted to a fourth of Sri Lanka’s land mass, paves the way for democracy to root itself and development to march ahead after decades of conflict. Efforts are already underway to complement the humanitarian mission with a political solution.”

But he also articulated fears that the LTTE would continue to operate in Lanka. “Our timely action must ensure that the LTTE and other like-minded terrorist groups do not continue to circumvent the law by indulging in illegal operations, through various front organisations located overseas,” Mr Rajapaksa said.

Timeline of Sri Lanka's war against the Tamil Tigers

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1972: Armed with just a revolver, Velupillai Prabhakaran forms a Tamil militant group, which eventually morphs into the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

July 23, 1983: LTTE ambushes an army patrol, killing 13 soldiers in the Jaffna peninsula and sparking anti-Tamil riots elsewhere that leave about 600 people dead.

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July 8, 1985: Sri Lanka opens first direct talks with Tamil guerrillas. They fail.

July 29, 1987: India and Sri Lanka reach agreement on deployment of Indian peace-keeping force.

March 24, 1990: India loses 1,200 troops at the hands of the LTTE, and withdraws to leave the Tigers in control of large swathes of northern Sri Lanka.

May 21, 1991: Former Indian premier Rajiv Gandhi killed, allegedly by an LTTE suicide bomber.

May 1, 1993: Sri Lankan President Ranasinghe Premadasa killed by LTTE suicide bomber.

December 2, 1995: The Sri Lankan army captures the Jaffna peninsula.

July 18, 1996: The Tigers overrun an army camp in the northeastern town of Mullaittivu, killing 1,200 troops.

October 8, 1997: The United States declares the LTTE a foreign terrorist organisation.

January 25, 1998: An LTTE suicide bomb devastates Sri Lanka's holiest Buddhist shrine, the Temple of the Tooth, killing 17 people.

September 26, 1998: Tigers overrun Kilinochchi army camp, killing more than 1,000 government soldiers.

February 2001: Britain outlaws the LTTE as a terrorist organisation, followed swiftly by Canada and Australia.

July 2001: Suicide attack by Tamil Tigers on the international airport kills 14.

February 23, 2002: Government and Tamil Tiger rebels sign a Norwegian-brokered ceasefire agreement.

December 2002: At peace talks in Norway, the government and rebels agree to share power, with the minority Tamils enjoying autonomy in the mainly Tamil-speaking north and east.

March 3, 2004: Renegade Tamil Tiger commander, V. Muralitharan, known as Karuna, leads split from main rebel movement.

November 2, 2007: The head of the Tamil Tigers' political wing, S.P. Thamilselvan, is killed in a government air raid.

January 2, 2008: Sri Lanka withdraws from the ceasefire agreement and steps up attacks against the Tigers.

January 2, 2009: Sri Lankan forces capture Kilinochchi, leaving the Tigers only the jungle district of Mullaittivu.

January 25, 2009: Sri Lankan troops capture Mullaittivu town, confining the rebels to a stretch of jungle.

February 3, 2009: The Sri Lankan army says it has captured an elaborate underground bunker complex believed to have been the home of the leader of the Tamil Tigers, as well as the rebels' last jungle airstrip.

February 20, 2009: Tamil Tiger planes conduct suicide raids against the capital Colombo.

March 13, 2009: The United Nations' human rights chief says both sides could be guilty of war crimes.

April 14, 2009: The Tamil Tigers say they are ready to negotiate a ceasefire and restart peace talks. The government refuses, telling them to surrender.

April 20, 2009: Tens of thousands of trapped civilians manage to flee from the shrinking area under rebel control.

May 13, 2009: The United Nations Security Council for the first time asks warring parties to spare civilians as the world body describes fighting in the last remaining patch of Tiger territory as a "bloodbath" for civilians.

May 16, 2009: Sri Lanka President Mahinda Rajapakse says the rebels have been defeated.