Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa declared his country “liberated from separatist terror” yesterday as the military said it recovered the body of Tamil Tiger rebel leader Velupillai Prabhakaran from the battlefield on which he was slain.
TV footage showed a bloated body resembling the rebel leader, still dressed in a dark green camouflage uniform, laid out on a stretcher on the grass. A blue cloth rested on top of his head, apparently to cover a bullet wound.
“A few hours ago, the body of terrorist leader Prabhakaran, who ruined this country, was found on the battleground,” army chief General Sarath Fonseka told state television.
PHOTO: AFP
The death of Prabhakaran, the unquestioned leader of the Tamil Tigers, would make it far more difficult for the rebel movement to reform and continue its war.
Speaking before the announcement, a rebel official abroad, Selvarasa Pathmanathan, denied that Prabhakaran was dead.
“Our beloved leader Velupillai Prabhakaran is alive and safe. He will continue to lead the quest for dignity and freedom for the Tamil people,” Pathmanathan said in a statement posted yesterday on the rebel-affiliated TamilNet Web site.
He offered no further details or evidence to support the claim.
With the war on the northern battlefields over, Rajapaksa delivered a victory address to parliament early yesterday.
Recounting how the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) once controlled a wide swath of the north and east, Rajapaksa said that for the first time in 30 years, the country was unified under its elected government.
“Our motherland has been completely liberated from separatist terrorism,” he said, declaring today a national holiday.
Briefly addressing parliament in the Tamil language, Rajapaksa said the war was not waged against the Tamil people.
“Our intention was to save the Tamil people from the cruel grip of the LTTE. We all must now live as equals in this free country,” he said.
Rajapaksa has said in the past he would negotiate some form of power-sharing with the Tamil community following the war and he alluded yesterday to the need for an agreement.
“We must find a homegrown solution to this conflict. That solution should be acceptable to all the communities,” he said. “That solution, which would be based on the philosophy of Buddhism, will be an example to the whole world.”
Meanwhile, a protest outside Britain’s parliament turned violent early yesterday.
Three police officers and five protesters were in hospital and 10 protesters under arrest in London.
The clashes broke out when police moved to disperse 2,500 Tamils who staged a sit-in outside parliament, with Scotland Yard claiming another 21 officers received minor injuries.
Protesters among a crowd of about 1,500 in Geneva on Monday tried to get into UN buildings with hundreds of Tamils also converging outside the White House.
In related developments, the International Committee of the Red Cross said the military’s final assault had halted its access to civilians in desperate straits.
“No humanitarian aid has reached those who need it for over a week,” director Pierre Kraehenbuehl said.
“Under international humanitarian law, the lives of all those who are not or are no longer fighting must be spared,” he said.
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