COLOMBO: The Tamil Tigers conceded defeat in Sri Lanka’s 25-year civil war yesterday, with some staging suicide attacks to try to repel a final assault by troops determined to annihilate them.
President Mahinda Rajapaksa had already declared victory over the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) the day before, and the military said the bulk of the fighting was over by the time the rebels said they had been beaten.
Even though there was little doubt about the final outcome of Asia’s longest modern war, sporadic battles were still being fought late yesterday and no one was willing to predict when the last bullet would be fired.
“We are doing the mopping-up operations,” military spokesman Brig. Udaya Nanayakkara said. “Suicide cadres are coming in front of troops in the front line and exploding themselves.”
Rajapaksa is due to make a formal victory announcement in Parliament tomorrow morning, but already flags were flying, people were dancing and lighting off fireworks in celebration.
The last act was playing out in what the military said was less than 1 sq. km, where the LTTE carried out suicide attacks yesterday before troops freed the last of 72,000 civilians who have fled over four days.
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.
Prabhakaran built the LTTE into one of the world’s most violent armed groups through hundreds of suicide bombings and assassinations, which earned it a terrorist designation in more than 30 nations.
“They are taking the body for checks to confirm it is the real Prabhakaran,” a military official told Reuters on condition of anonymity. Four other military sources confirmed that account. Nanayakkara denied Prabhakaran’s body had been found, and that checks on a corpse were being carried out.
The LTTE issued a statement from its diplomatic chief 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,” said Selvarajah Pathmanathan’s statement, posted on the TamilNet website.
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.
Media Minister Anura Yapa said government forces had rescued all the civilians. “We are looking after those people. We want to free this country from the terrorist LTTE,” he said.
