Fireworks explode as Sri Lankans in Colombo celebrate what the government says is the defeat of the Tamil Tiger rebels in the north of the country, May 17, 2009.
The Tamil Tigers admitted defeat yesterday in their fierce quarter-century war for a separate homeland as Sri Lankan government forces raced to clear the last pockets of rebel resistance from the war zone in the north.
Fireworks explode as Sri Lankans in Colombo celebrate what the government says is the defeat of the Tamil Tiger rebels in the north of the country, May 17, 2009.
By Ravi Nessman , Bharatha Mallwarachi ASSOCIATED PRESS
COLOMBO – The Tamil Tigers admitted defeat yesterday in their fierce quarter-century war for a separate homeland as Sri Lankan government forces raced to clear the last pockets of rebel resistance from the war zone in the north.
The fate of the Tiger chief, Velupillai Prabhakaran, was unknown, but Sri Lanka’s military said today his eldest son – Charles Anthony – was killed in the fighting.
Several rebel fighters committed suicide when they were surrounded, but it wasn’t clear if Prabhakaran – who has been called “Sri Lanka’s Osama bin Laden” – was among them.
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Far from the battlefield, thousands of Sri Lankans danced in the streets of Colombo, celebrating the stunning collapse of one of the world’s most sophisticated insurgencies.
“This battle has reached its bitter end,” Tamil Tiger official Selvarasa Pathmanathan said in a statement emailed to Associated Press.
The Tigers once controlled a shadow state complete with a law school, courts, police and a tax system across a wide swath of the north. By yesterday, government troops had surrounded the remaining rebels in a tiny patch of land and were fighting off suicide bombs and other attacks, the military said.
Huge clouds of black smoke rose over the battlefield as soldiers inspected the charred remains of rebel trucks and heavy artillery pieces, according to footage broadcast on state television. Civilians carrying backpacks and rolling suitcases were escorted from the area.
Military spokesman Brig. Udaya Nanayakkara said the civilians who had been trapped in the war zone – 63,000 in all – fled to safety during the past 72 hours. But Pathmanathan said the bodies of thousands of wounded and slain civilians lay strewn across the battle zone.
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“It is our people who are dying now from bombs, shells, illness and hunger,” he said. “We cannot permit any more harm to befall them. 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.”
The military spokesman denied the rebels had laid down their arms. “Fighting is still going on in small pockets,” Nanayakkara said.
Sri Lanka’s government said troops were engaged in “final brushing up” and that rebel fighters have been penned in a 1.5-square-kilometre patch of jungle.
Rights groups have accused the rebels of holding civilians as human shields, and blamed the government for shelling the area in which they took refuge. Both sides denied the accusations.
With most journalists and aid workers barred from the war zone, it was not possible to verify the accounts of either side. Health officials said thousands of civilians were killed in shelling this year.
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The rebels have been fighting since 1983 for a separate state for Sri Lanka’s ethnic Tamil minority after years of marginalization at the hands of the Sinhalese majority. More than 70,000 people have been killed in the fighting.
President Mahinda Rajapaksa has said that after defeating the rebels, his government will begin talks toward power sharing. But many Tamils are skeptical that the victorious government will be willing to make real concessions.
At their height, the rebels controlled 14,000 square kilometres, nearly one-fifth of this Indian Ocean island country.
They had a conventional army, a large navy and even a nascent air force, funded by an estimated $300 million (U.S.) a year they made from smuggling, fraud and appeals to Tamil expatriates. The Tigers also carried out hundreds of suicide attacks – including the 1991 assassination of former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi – and were listed as a terror group by India, Canada and others.
Last night, a senior military official said an attack killed three top rebels: political wing leader Balasingham Nadesan, head of rebels’ peace secretariat Seevaratnam Puleedevan and a top military leader known as Ramesh.
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Military spokesman Brig. Udaya Nanayakkara said he is still verifying the reports.
In an interview with Britain’s Channel 4 news, Pathmanathan said he had spoken with Prabhakaran and the rebel leader remained inside the war zone. Prabhakaran has led the Tigers for more than three decades, transforming it from little more than a street gang into a feared guerrilla group. He has three children but Charles Anthony, named after a rebel leader who died earlier in the war, was the only one thought to be fighting along with his father.
