COLOMBO: Sri Lanka declared yesterday it had crushed the Tamil Tiger rebels, killing their chief Vellupillai Prabhakaran and ending his three-decade quest for an independent homeland for minority Tamils.
State television interrupted its regular programming to announce Prabhakaran’s death and the government information department sent a text message to cell phones across the country confirming he was killed along with top deputies, Soosai and Pottu Amman.
The announcement sparked mass celebrations around the country, and people poured into the streets of Colombo dancing and singing.
Prabhakaran’s death has been seen as crucial to bringing the civil war to an end. If he had escaped, he could have used his large international smuggling network and the support of Tamil expatriates to spark a new round of guerrilla warfare here.
Sri Lanka’s army chief, Lt. Gen. Sareth Fonseka, said on television that his troops routed the last rebels from the northern war zone yesterday morning.
President Mahinda Rajapaksa confirmed Prabhakaran’s death in a phone call to India’s External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee, Indian foreign affairs spokesman Vishnu Prakash said in a statement.
Senior military officials said troops closed in on Prabhakaran and his last band of fighters early yesterday. He and his top deputies then drove an armor-plated van accompanied by a bus filled with rebel fighters toward approaching Sri Lankan forces, sparking a two-hour firefight, the officials said.
Troops eventually fired a rocket at the van, ending the battle, they said. In addition to Prabhakaran, the attack also killed Soosai, the head of the rebels’ naval wing, and Pottu Amman, the group’s feared intelligence commander. One of Prabhakaran’s sons was also killed, the military said.
A health official, meanwhile, said three Sri Lankan doctors who treated hundreds of badly wounded civilians in understaffed, makeshift hospitals in the war zone were detained on accusations they gave false information about the casualties to the media.
With journalists and nearly all aid workers barred from the war zone, Thurairaja Varatharajah, Thangamuttu Sathyamurthi and V. Shanmugarajah became some of the few sources of information on the toll the war took on the tens of thousands of civilians trapped in the area.
The doctors fled the conflict last week as the government’s fight against the rebels neared its conclusion.
The European Union (EU) yesterday called for an independent investigation into alleged violations of human rights and a “fully inclusive” political settlement following the defeat of the Tigers.
EU foreign ministers meeting in Brussels said the 27-nation bloc was appalled by the loss of innocent lives.
