Tamil Tigers confirm leader's death

Link

Tamil Tigers confirm leader's death

Sri Lankan group says Prabhakaran's "final request" was for Tamil struggle to continue.

The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) has confirmed its leader, Velupillai Prabhakaran, is dead.

"We announce today, with inexpressible sadness and heavy hearts that our incomparable leader and supreme commander ... attained martyrdom fighting the military oppression," said Selvarasa Pathmanathan, the LTTE's head of international relations, in a statement on Sunday.

The LTTE said Prabhakaran had been killed on Tuesday during its fight the Sri Lankan military, and declared a week of mourning.

The military had previously announced Prabhakaran, 54, was shot on Monday while travelling in a small convoy of vehicles in a bid to escape the final battle between the two sides.

'Final request'

The LTTE statement read: "For over three decades, our leader was the heart and soul and the symbol of hope, pride and determination for the whole nation of people of Tamil Eelam.


"Since the failure of the peace process and the escalation of the war forced upon the Tamil people, the LTTE was faced [sic] to confront the Sri Lankan military that was supported by the world powers.

"This deliberate bias and position taken by the international community severely weakened the military position of the LTTE.

"Our leader confronted this threat without any hesitation. He would not waver in his desire to be with his people and fight for his people til the end.

"His final request was for the struggle to continue until we achieved the freedom for his people.

"His legend and the historical status as the Greatest Tamil Leader ever are indestructible."

Body 'cremated'

The Sri Lankan authorities have not published a post mortem examination report or officially confirmed how or when Prabhakaran died.

A government spokesman said on Tuesday that the body would be given to an undertaker, but General Sarath Fonseka, Sri Lanka's army chief, told the privately-run Sunday Rivira newspaper that it had been cremated and the ashes thrown in the sea.

Fonseka said Pottu Amman, the LTTE intelligence chief, and Prabhakaran's wife, Mathiwadini, were among the dead, but have yet to be officially identified.

The government released footage of Prabhakaran's body for the first time on Tuesday after Tamilnet, a pro-LTTE website, denied the government's announcement that he had been killed.

Sri Lanka said on Sunday it would not allow aid workers complete access to civilians who remain held in camps after the conflict, saying LTTE remnants still remained among the refugees.

Aid restrictions

Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary-general, on a visit to a camp housing 200,000 Tamils, had called for his staff to be given "unhindered access" to those displaced in the decades-long war that ended last week.

The government said that "as conditions improved, especially with regard to security, there would be no objections to such assistance".

Ban, who toured the Menik Farm facility on Saturday, described the conditions as overcrowded and the detained civilians as "badly in need of food, water and sanitation".

The government has described the camps as "welfare villages" and says it wants to resettle all displaced civilians as soon as possible.

But Tamil activists say they are "concentration camps" with inmates penned in behind barbed wire.

During his visit, Ban urged Rajapakse to probe alleged human rights violations committed during the defeat of the Tamil separatists, a joint statement on Sunday said.

The UN estimates that up to 7,000 civilians have been killed in fighting since the beginning of the year.

Sri Lanka declares 'final victory'

Link

Sri Lanka declares 'final victory'

Sri Lanka's army says it has ended its war with the Tamil Tigers after killing 250 separatist fighters, including the group's leader, his son and three senior officials.

Lieutenant-General Sarath Fonseka, the head of the Sri Lankan army, said in a statement on Monday that troops had overrun the last sliver of territory held by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

"Over 250 dead bodies of terrorists are scattered over the last ditch," he said.

"All military operations have come to a stop. Now the entire country is declared rid of terrorism."

Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara, the Sri Lankan military spokesman, told Al Jazeera:  "The capability of the LTTE [is] now being completely destroyed."

Tiger leader killed

Earlier, military sources said the body of Velupillai Prabhakan, the leader and founder of the LTTE, often called the Tamil Tigers, was found in an ambulance destroyed by troops as it sped out of the war zone.

Minelle Fernandez, reporting from the Sri Lankan capital, Colombo, said that reports on how Prabhakan died remained unclear.

"There are stories that the army fired an RPG at a vehicle carrying Prabhakaran and two other senior leaders and there are reports that he was shot while fleeing."

If he is confirmed to have been killed it would "spell the end of the organisation that has been built almost around the cult Prabhakaran", she said.

"It is a surprise that it has fallen and literally brought to its knees and been defeated this quickly."

Leaders found dead

The news came hours after the military said it had found the bodies of four other senior Tamil Tigers, including Prabhakaran's 24-year-old son Charles Anthony.

The senior LTTE officials found dead include Balasingham Nadesan, the head of the political wing, Seevaratnam Puleedevan, and S Ramesh, the separatists' eastern leader, said Nanayakkara.

A spokesman for Mahinda Rajapakse, the Sri Lankan president, said a formal announcement on Prabhakan's death would be made at 6pm (12:30 GMT).

The defence ministry said troops also killed Prabhakaran's deputies - Soosai, the leader of the Sea Tigers, and Pottu Amman, the LTTE's intelligence chief.

There has been no comment from the LTTE on the claims.
Winning the peace

Al Jazeera's Tony Birtley said: "The conventional guerrilla fighting forces of the Tamil Tigers is probably now finished.

"Depending on what happens in the peace process, the fear is that this may develop into guerrilla war again ... but what about the peace? There are not many left to talk to.
"A lot of mistrust has developed over the years; I think that's the reason why this conflict began. Now it's a problem that both sides have to make themselves understood."

The military had refused to accept a ceasefire from the Tamil Tigers, which had offered to lay down its arms on Sunday, declaring that its 26-year battle with the government had come to a "bitter end".

The army, having declared victory on Saturday, described Monday's activities as "mopping up" operations.

Keheliya Rambukwella, a defence ministry spokesman, told Al Jazeera that the government had "had enough of ceasefires" and that any cessation of hostilities would happen only if it protected civilians.

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

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

'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.

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.

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

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

The Sri Lankan ministry of disaster management had said it was continuing to process civilians rescued from the fighting and being held in camps for the internally displaced.

The government and the Tigers alike have been criticised for not allowing civilians to leave the conflict zone.

'Struggle to continue'

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.

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.

However, the struggle for a homeland for ethnic Tamils who say they are marginalised by the ruling majority Sinhalese government will 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."

Sri Lanka's humanitarian crisis

Link

Sri Lanka's humanitarian crisis

The government has called for international assistance as refugee camps struggle to cope.

After 26 years, the Tamil Tigers, who had previously managed their own army, police, courts, and even taxation system, effectively surrendered to Sri Lanka's army.

No one knows how the struggle for an independent Tamil homeland will turn out now, but one thing is for certain: the country is facing a massive humanitarian crisis.

More than 200,000 people are living in squalid refugee camps, after fleeing the intense fighting of the past few months.

Photos allege Sri Lanka massacre

Link

Photos allege Sri Lanka massacre

Photographs obtained by Al Jazeera appear to show massacre of Tamils during final stages of Sri Lanka's civil war.

Al Jazeera has obtained photographs that appear to show Sri Lankan army soldiers abusing Tamil civilians in the final days of the Sri Lankan civil war.

The pictures show various graphic scenes, with dead bodies blindfolded and hands bound, shot through the head and mounds of bodies on the back of a farmer's trailer.

It is claimed that the photos were taken in the closing months of the country’s long-running conflict that ended 18 months ago.

One of the photos shows a line of bodies, including what is believed to be the body of the son of Velupillai Prabhakaran, the leader of the rebel group, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, or Tamil Tigers, that was defeated in the civil war.

Another photo shows the naked body of a young woman and the body of a boy, perhaps in his early teens.

Authenticity unverified

It is not possible to verify the authenticity of the images that were obtained by Al Jazeera from Tamil contacts who said the photos were handed over by someone from the Sri Lankan military. It is unclear why it has taken so long from them to surface.

The photos come to light as Gamini Lakshman Peiris, the Sri Lankan minister of external affairs, is in London to deliver as speech at the International Institute of Strategic Studies. Ethnic Tamil groups have vowed to protest outside the venue.

The Sri Lankan government has always denied allegations of war crimes and promised to take action if it finds evidence of atrocities.

Rajiva Wijesinha, a Sri Lankan MP who is also a former secretary of the country's human rights ministry, told Al Jazeera that the country has launched an "independent" inquiry into the photos of the alleged massacre.

"We have always said that any allegation will be investigated. We believe that our inquiry going on is perfectly independent."

But Dr. Sam Pari, a spokeswoman for the Australian Tamil Congress, says there has to foreign pressure on the Sri Lankan government to allow an international independent investigation into the atrocity.

"The responsibility of pressuring Sri Lanka to allow an international independent investigation falls upon the international governments that currently deal with Sri Lanka in the form of trade, tourism etc," she told Al Jazeera in an interview.

"So if these governments start placing trade sanctions and travel bans on Sri Lanka, then Sri Lanka will be forced to allow an international investigation into war crimes."

In May, Mahinda Rajapaksa, the Sri Lankan president, said that his government will not punish the Sri Lankan army for "defeating terrorism".

"[…] If the international community wants to punish Sri Lanka for defeating terrorism, I'm not for that," Rajapaksa said.

Sri Lanka has repeatedly rejected international calls for an independent inquiry into the war against the Tamil Tigers, in which the UN estimates at least 7,000 Tamil civilians were killed.

Other estimates suggest the figure could be as high as 20,000 and the inference is that many were killed by government shelling.

'Whitewash'

Sri Lanka has instead set up its own inquiry called the "Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission" (LLRC), which critics say is a whitewash.

Both Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have refused to participate in the inquiry, stating that it does not meet international standards for independent and impartial inquiries.

The human rights organisations say that the new photographic evidence warrants an independent investigation.

Some of the scenery in the photos is similar to that in video material leaked to the international media which seems to show the execution of Tamil Tiger fighters by Sri Lankan soldiers.

Again the Sri Lankan government denied the military carried out the executions, however, after detailed examination, professor Philip Alston, the UN’s former special rapporteur to Sri Lanka, said he believes the video is genuine.

Since the end of the war in May last year, no one from the military has been charged with any offence and no evidence has emerged from the government inquiries. Critics say the Sri Lankan government is writing its own history.

For more than 25 years, the Tamil Tigers waged a secessionist campaign in Sri Lanka that led to it being designated a terrorist organisation by 32 countries.

At one stage in the conflict 300,000 displaced Tamil civilians languished in makeshift camps.

According to the latest figures there are some 35,000 Tamils left on the island. Emergency powers are still in force; there is a heavy military presence in Tamil areas and more and more Tamils are leaving the country.