Friday, May 22, 2009
Sri Lanka's long war reaches climax, Tigers concede
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COLOMBO (Reuters) - The Tamil Tigers conceded defeat in Sri Lanka's 25-year civil war on Sunday, after launching waves of suicide attacks to repel a final assault by troops determined to annihilate them.
President Mahinda Rajapaksa had declared victory over the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) the day before, even as combat raged in the island's northeast and the military said it was freeing the last of thousands of trapped civilians.
By midday Sunday, the military said troops had freed all the civilians being held by the LTTE inside an area that was less than a single square km. A total of 72,000 had fled since Thursday, it said.
LTTE founder-leader Vellupillai Prabhakaran's fate remained a mystery, although military sources said a body believed to be his was recovered and its identity was being confirmed.
The LTTE, founded on a culture of suicide before surrender, had shown no sign of giving up. Suicide fighters blew themselves up on the frontline on Sunday morning, and more than 70 were killed trying to flee overnight, the military said.
But by afternoon the military said fighting had slowed, and the pro-rebel web site www.TamilNet.com released a statement from the LTTE's head of international relations saying: "This battle has reached its bitter end."
"We remain with one last choice -- to remove the last weak excuse of the enemy for killing our people. We have decided to silence our guns," Selvarajah Pathmanathan's statement said.
The military had no immediate comment.
Pathmanathan, who is wanted by Interpol and was for years the LTTE's chief weapons smuggler, said 3,000 people lay dead and 25,000 more were wounded.
Getting an independent picture of events in the war zone is normally a difficult task, given both sides have repeatedly distorted accounts to suit their side of the story and outside observers are generally barred from it.
PRABHAKARAN DEAD?
Government forces on Saturday took control of the entire island's coast for the first time since war broke out in 1983, cutting off any chance of escape for a militant group whose conventional defeat has been a foregone conclusion for months.
The military has in less than three years captured 15,000 square km the Tigers had controlled as a quasi-state for Sri Lanka's minority Tamils.
There was still no confirmed word on the fate of Prabhakaran, who built the LTTE into one of the world's most violent insurgent groups through hundreds of suicide bombings and assassinations that earned it a terrorist designation in more than 30 countries.
Military sources told Reuters a body believed to be his was found. Prabhakaran had vowed never to be taken alive.
"They are taking the body for checks to confirm it is the real Prabhakaran," one military official told Reuters on conditions of anonymity. Four other military sources confirmed the recovery and said identity checks were under way.
Military spokesman Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara denied that.
The cataclysmic end to the war came after the government rejected calls for a new truce to protect civilians, and the Tigers refused to surrender and free 50,000-100,000 the United Nations and others said they were holding as human shields.
Each side accuses the other of killing civilians, and diplomats say there is evidence both have done so. The U.N. rights chief on Friday said she backed an inquiry into potential war crimes and humanitarian violations by both sides.
A wave of diplomatic pressure from the United States, Britain, France and the United Nations last week, including threats to delay a $1.9 billion International Monetary Fund (IMF) loan, appeared to come too late to stop the final fight.
POST-WAR BOOM?
Sri Lanka's $40 billion economy is struggling with depleted foreign exchange reserves, shrinking export revenues for tea and garments, rising import costs, a declining rupee currency and a balance of payments crisis.
Rajapaksa's government is counting on victory in the war to help boost the economy and renew economic growth that for years had been among the highest in south Asia.
The Tigers have warned that their conventional defeat will usher in a new phase of guerrilla conflict targeting Sri Lanka's economically valuable targets, an indirect threat to a tourism sector the government hopes can be boosted after the war.
Nonetheless, people set off fireworks and celebrated in the streets of the capital Colombo on Sunday, a day on which the government asked people to fly the national flag in celebration.
Rajapaksa, who was in Jordan on an official visit, kissed the ground after he returned home early on Sunday, state TV showed.
The government said he would address parliament on Tuesday about the military victory.
The Tigers have answered earlier battlefield losses with suicide bombings in the capital, Colombo. Their widespread use of assassinations and suicide blasts has prompted the United States, European Union and India to class them as terrorists.
Prabhakaran began his fight for a separate state for Sri Lanka's minority Tamils in the early 1970s, and it erupted into full-scale civil war in 1983.
Tamils complain of marginalisation at the hands of successive governments led by the Sinhalese majority, which came to power at independence in 1948 and took the favoured position the Tamils had enjoyed under the British colonial government.
By C. Bryson Hull and Ranga Sirilal C. Bryson Hull And Ranga Sirilal
President Mahinda Rajapaksa had declared victory over the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) the day before, even as combat raged in the island's northeast and the military said it was freeing the last of thousands of trapped civilians.
By midday Sunday, the military said troops had freed all the civilians being held by the LTTE inside an area that was less than a single square km. A total of 72,000 had fled since Thursday, it said.
LTTE founder-leader Vellupillai Prabhakaran's fate remained a mystery, although military sources said a body believed to be his was recovered and its identity was being confirmed.
The LTTE, founded on a culture of suicide before surrender, had shown no sign of giving up. Suicide fighters blew themselves up on the frontline on Sunday morning, and more than 70 were killed trying to flee overnight, the military said.
But by afternoon the military said fighting had slowed, and the pro-rebel web site www.TamilNet.com released a statement from the LTTE's head of international relations saying: "This battle has reached its bitter end."
"We remain with one last choice -- to remove the last weak excuse of the enemy for killing our people. We have decided to silence our guns," Selvarajah Pathmanathan's statement said.
The military had no immediate comment.
Pathmanathan, who is wanted by Interpol and was for years the LTTE's chief weapons smuggler, said 3,000 people lay dead and 25,000 more were wounded.
Getting an independent picture of events in the war zone is normally a difficult task, given both sides have repeatedly distorted accounts to suit their side of the story and outside observers are generally barred from it.
PRABHAKARAN DEAD?
Government forces on Saturday took control of the entire island's coast for the first time since war broke out in 1983, cutting off any chance of escape for a militant group whose conventional defeat has been a foregone conclusion for months.
The military has in less than three years captured 15,000 square km the Tigers had controlled as a quasi-state for Sri Lanka's minority Tamils.
There was still no confirmed word on the fate of Prabhakaran, who built the LTTE into one of the world's most violent insurgent groups through hundreds of suicide bombings and assassinations that earned it a terrorist designation in more than 30 countries.
Military sources told Reuters a body believed to be his was found. Prabhakaran had vowed never to be taken alive.
"They are taking the body for checks to confirm it is the real Prabhakaran," one military official told Reuters on conditions of anonymity. Four other military sources confirmed the recovery and said identity checks were under way.
Military spokesman Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara denied that.
The cataclysmic end to the war came after the government rejected calls for a new truce to protect civilians, and the Tigers refused to surrender and free 50,000-100,000 the United Nations and others said they were holding as human shields.
Each side accuses the other of killing civilians, and diplomats say there is evidence both have done so. The U.N. rights chief on Friday said she backed an inquiry into potential war crimes and humanitarian violations by both sides.
A wave of diplomatic pressure from the United States, Britain, France and the United Nations last week, including threats to delay a $1.9 billion International Monetary Fund (IMF) loan, appeared to come too late to stop the final fight.
POST-WAR BOOM?
Sri Lanka's $40 billion economy is struggling with depleted foreign exchange reserves, shrinking export revenues for tea and garments, rising import costs, a declining rupee currency and a balance of payments crisis.
Rajapaksa's government is counting on victory in the war to help boost the economy and renew economic growth that for years had been among the highest in south Asia.
The Tigers have warned that their conventional defeat will usher in a new phase of guerrilla conflict targeting Sri Lanka's economically valuable targets, an indirect threat to a tourism sector the government hopes can be boosted after the war.
Nonetheless, people set off fireworks and celebrated in the streets of the capital Colombo on Sunday, a day on which the government asked people to fly the national flag in celebration.
Rajapaksa, who was in Jordan on an official visit, kissed the ground after he returned home early on Sunday, state TV showed.
The government said he would address parliament on Tuesday about the military victory.
The Tigers have answered earlier battlefield losses with suicide bombings in the capital, Colombo. Their widespread use of assassinations and suicide blasts has prompted the United States, European Union and India to class them as terrorists.
Prabhakaran began his fight for a separate state for Sri Lanka's minority Tamils in the early 1970s, and it erupted into full-scale civil war in 1983.
Tamils complain of marginalisation at the hands of successive governments led by the Sinhalese majority, which came to power at independence in 1948 and took the favoured position the Tamils had enjoyed under the British colonial government.
By C. Bryson Hull and Ranga Sirilal C. Bryson Hull And Ranga Sirilal
Labels: hot trends 2009, Mahinda Rajapaksa, Sri Lanka, Tamil Tigers, trends newsletter, Vellupillai Prabhakaran
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