"I started the movement with the firm resolve that I will never be caught alive by the enemy. That has spread down the ranks."

May 19, 2009 4:56 PM

Velupillai Prabhakaran, the elusive and ruthless leader (timeline, short bio) of the violent separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) has been reportedly killed in battle by the Sri Lankan Army (self-loading video)

(Previously)

So far, most news organizations are reporting this as fact (guardian obituary) and calling a definite end to the war, but the LTTE are denying all claims as to the death of their leader and state that this is simply government propaganda to dissuade their movement. Sri Lanka has been subject to a heavy media blockade since hostilities resumed in December 2005 in the ongoing conflict.

Whether or not the claims are true, the army has completely surrounded and routed the Tigers from their strongholds in Northern Sri Lanka and the Prime Minister has declared victory. It is unclear what will happen from now as many in the Tamil minority are wary of the government. However, one thing is clear: This is a definite turning point in the history of this young, post-colonial nation torn apart by civil war and internal strife for decades.

posted by shoebox (57 comments total)

The War Nerd: Tamil Tigers Shouda listened to Yo' Mao-Mao
posted by The Whelk at 4:59 PM on May 19 [1 favorite has favorites]

I am amazed this took so long to get to the blue.
posted by caddis at 5:12 PM on May 19

The government of Sri Lanka has released pictures of his corpse. (NSFW and not safe just before meals.)

It's natural that whatever remnants of the LTTE that still exist would want to deny this report. Movements which are centered on a single charismatic leader always face a crisis when that leader dies. It took years for the Scientologists to admit that LRH had died, for example.

But that doesn't mean we have to take their denials seriously, and I don't.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 6:50 PM on May 19

To put the length of the civil war into persepctive: when it started, the number 1 song in America was "Flashdance... What a Feeling".
posted by Joe Beese at 7:05 PM on May 19 [1 favorite has favorites]

The challenges of solidarity. The urgent need in Sri Lanka is a resolution to the humanitarian crisis and strong pressure to stop government attacks on minorities, argues Ahilan Kadirgamar. But solidarity has to be pluralist, he emphasises, recognising the brutality of the Tamil Tigers and avoiding the polarisation or marginalisation of the country’s diverse communities.

I'm also surprised this wasn't posted sooner. The reports on the ground make its sound like a serious ass blood bath.
posted by chunking express at 7:20 PM on May 19

The Day I Met Prabhakaran. Yes he was a maniac, but he was a maniac who stood up against Sinhala chauvinism. He never compromised on the Tamil cause. He stood for the right principle, maybe his method and attitude were wrong, but his stand was right and he stood up against a powerful enemy.
posted by chunking express at 7:22 PM on May 19

The fight for survival goes on in Sri Lanka amid reports of 15,000 killed.
posted by chunking express at 7:26 PM on May 19

I'm sure Sri Lanka's northern Tamils look forward to their peaceful and oppression-free reintegration in to a now equal society, with no retaliation whatsoever.
posted by regicide is good for you at 7:57 PM on May 19

I'm sure Sri Lanka's northern Tamils look forward to their peaceful and oppression-free reintegration in to a now equal society, with no retaliation whatsoever.
Posted by Regicide is good for you

Epony-depressing.
posted by schyler523 at 9:48 PM on May 19

Well, Sri Lanka's president (and his Americanised brother/Secretary of Defense) fought this war an order of magnitude more effectively than their predecessors. Let's hope they bring the same effectiveness to prosecuting peace. The sudden fall of Prabhakaran -- who by all accounts ruthlessly oppressed dissenting Tamils, and used tens of thousands of civilians as human shields at gunpoint -- might well create a window for real change.

Any word from M.I.A.?
posted by msalt at 10:27 PM on May 19

Interesting that this news emerged just days after the IMF made threatening noises about pulling out on a much needed loan if the "war" wasn't stopped
posted by infini at 11:53 PM on May 19 [1 favorite has favorites]

Well, Sri Lanka's president (and his Americanised brother/Secretary of Defense) fought this war an order of magnitude more effectively than their predecessors. Let's hope they bring the same effectiveness to prosecuting peace. The sudden fall of Prabhakaran -- who by all accounts ruthlessly oppressed dissenting Tamils, and used tens of thousands of civilians as human shields at gunpoint -- might well create a window for real change.

Yeah, Rajapaksa is a fucking saviour. I'm glad the war is over and everything, but I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for peace to descend over the country. In my mind, he's just as bad as Prabhakaran and Sri Lanka would be a better place without them both.

One terrorist leader down, another still left.
posted by liquorice at 1:09 AM on May 20

With no proper hospitals inside the no-fire zone, doctors put patients on ­mattresses under the trees, he said.

"One day in April it rained really hard. It started to flood. Those patients who were lying on the ground and who had limited mobility could not get up fast enough. Ten people died of drowning that night," he said.

posted by Civil_Disobedient at 4:34 AM on May 20

Sri Lanka's president (and his Americanised brother/Secretary of Defense) fought this war an order of magnitude more effectively than their predecessors

It's true. Apparently the trick was to not worry about the Tamil civilians you end up killing. And if you're ultimate aim is to displace or kill Sri Lanka's Tamils in order to appeal to your Sinhalese Nationalist voters, then it's a doubly good plan. I wouldn't wait with baited breath for Rajapaksa to bring about real peace. People are partying in Colombo while people are dying up in the North. That's not going to foster any reconciliation.

Also, if you're looking for MIA's take on things check her twitter stream. She's not impressed. "the've used the 70, 000 number for 26 years , it was 70, 000 dead when i left in the 80s"
posted by chunking express at 4:56 AM on May 20

Apparently the trick was to not worry about the Tamil civilians you end up killing

Perhaps, but it was being given F7 planes and millions of dollars worth of other equipment and support by the Chinese that really made the difference, wasn't it?
posted by Phanx at 5:08 AM on May 20

Velupillai Prabhakaran, the elusive and ruthless leader

Ooh! I wanna be an elusive and ruthless leader!

of the violent separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam

Okay, maybe not.

has been reportedly killed in battle

Okay, definitely not.
posted by grubi at 6:06 AM on May 20 [1 favorite has favorites]

Phanx, true, but you can't really use any of that stuff unless you have no qualms about shooting your own civilians. Also it sounds like this time they actually trained their military properly. These dudes look like they're ready to fuck some shit up.

The rumors are that China's support comes from their interest in Trincomalee harbour in the East, which is the worlds biggest natural harbour.
posted by chunking express at 6:30 AM on May 20

Apparently the trick was to not worry about the Tamil civilians you end up killing

There's a real ethical issue here with no easy answer that I see. If you can end a 25 year-old war that has killed 100,000 civilians, with agressive attacks that will definitely kill some civilians in the process, when is it worth it? OK if 100,000 civilians die? -- clearly not. OK if 10 die? Might well be. Where's the cutoff, and what's the alternative? Never fight the armed insurrection to make sure no one ever dies?

Prabhakaran invented modern suicide bombings, had thousands of civilians and moderate Tamils killed, and assassinated Rajiv Ghandi, so letting him run rampant is not without a human toll either.
posted by msalt at 10:16 AM on May 20

Prabhakaran invented modern suicide bombings, had thousands of civilians and moderate Tamils killed, and assassinated Rajiv Ghandi, so letting him run rampant is not without a human toll either.

True, but if the Sri Lankan government had made real attempts to redress the wrongs against the Tamil minority, I wonder if the LTTE might have started to lose a lot of its support. The LTTE have exploited a situation of inequality, it's true - but it seems (from half a world away, admittedly) like the Sri Lankan government exploited the Tamils to entrench that inequality, while also drawing attention away from it.
posted by regicide is good for you at 10:55 AM on May 20

I don't know that much about this conflict, but many articles I've read said that the beginning of the end was the new Sinhalese government convincing a large fraction of the LTTE to break away and join the government side. Maybe I'm a reckless optimist, but that -- and the opportunity of the sudden disappearance of the LTTE's governing members who punished dissenters - seems to create some possibility of a middle way forward.

Douglas Devananda, a former Tiger who is now a Sri Lankan goverment minister, said in the NYT today that the government must now live up to terms of the 1987 Indian-Sri Lankan peace accord (which the Tigers rejected and in fact assassinated Rajiv Ghandi for). That = power sharing and some autonomy for the Tamils.
posted by msalt at 1:42 PM on May 20

msalt, you might want to read about how awesome the East of the Island is now. It's not like the Karuna group were the happy-go-lucky dudes in the LTTE. East offers glimpse of post-war Sri Lanka: Many residents of the Eastern Province would not recognize this description of their homeland. Their daily lives remain wracked with fears of violence, abductions, rape, illegal taxation and ongoing oppression by government security forces and government-supported paramilitary groups, such as the Tamil Makkal Viduthalai Pulikal (TMVP).

Also, the government plans to keep people in internment camps for 2 years. (And I'm pretty sure that contradicts what they had been saying recently.) I don't think that's a good way to start your middle way forward.
posted by chunking express at 6:19 PM on May 20

I was reading up on LTTE and Sri Lanka and all that, and I don't remember coming across any descriptions of "the wrongs against the Tamil minority," other than their land is now part of a larger country.

What are these wrongs that you say need to be addressed?
posted by five fresh fish at 6:35 PM on May 20

When Britain granted the island independence near the end of the 40s, the government outlawed Tamil as an official language. It wasn't long before Sinhalese settlements became more frequent in traditional Tamil areas, which many Tamils felt would further reduce what representation they had in government. That in itself might not be sinister but for happening in a context of growing racial violence against Tamils, which eventually led to the burning of Jaffna library and the pogroms of 1983. Mostly nonviolent resistance had already started to give way to acts of violence against the Sri Lankan state by this point - the death of 13 soldiers is what started the '83 riots - but so-called "Black July" is seen as the starting point of the civil war.

The Sri Lankan government has since been accused of numerous war crimes, including brutal conditions at ostensible refugee camps for civilians fleeing the warzone. From what I've heard, some members of the Tamil diaspora think there's reason to fear for your safety even if you're in state-controlled areas.

None of this is to defend the LTTE; the Tigers by most accounts are pretty savage themselves, and stand accused of war crimes themselves. Killing former Indian PM Rajiv Gandhi probably didn't help their cause much either. But from what I understand they were also, in the minds of many Tamils - at least at the beginning - the only body willing to look out for them. (I read somewhere that the diaspora is now their only real support base; I have no idea whether that's true).

Nothing in recent news suggests the Sri Lankan government is going to fill that role now that the Tigers are officially gone. Maybe I'm wrong. There might be others here who would know better.
posted by regicide is good for you at 7:16 PM on May 20 [1 favorite has favorites]

Thanks for the backgrounder.

Almost always goes back to the Brits and their asinine empire, doesn't it.
posted by five fresh fish at 7:26 PM on May 20 [1 favorite has favorites]

Thanks for the backgrounder.

No worries. It's a pittance, but it's what I know.

And while I haven't had the time to give a full read to most of their stuff lately, Voices in Exile seems like a fairly objective (and far more up-to-date) source of insight.
posted by regicide is good for you at 7:47 PM on May 20

Going back a bit further, again this is just from articles I've read in the last week, but the British favored the Tamils and privileged them during colonial rule. I imagine Sinhalese may have regarded them as traitors and British lackeys. The British also imported thousands of Tamil workers for plantations, creating a class issue among Tamils.

So the actions described were apparently not out of the blue, let's all attack Tamils why don't we?
posted by msalt at 8:31 PM on May 20

I was reading up on LTTE and Sri Lanka and all that, and I don't remember coming across any descriptions of "the wrongs against the Tamil minority," other than their land is now part of a larger country.

As far as I know land was never separate to begin with nor were Tigers initially calling for a completely independent nation. That pretty much only came about after the government refused to give the Tamil people the same rights as the Sinhalese. There was also a lot of resentment that had been built up because of Tamils being unable to enter university because of the policy that had been set up to ensure they did not take up too many university spots:

After Bandaranaike won the parliamentary elections of 1956, the SLFP approved the change of language, and established quotas limiting Tamil entry into government service and higher education, particularly in the fields of medicine and the sciences. The number of Tamil students admitted to medical school and engineering schools fell by 50 percent and 67 percent, respectively.
posted by liquorice at 5:20 AM on May 21

So the actions described were apparently not out of the blue, let's all attack Tamils why don't we?

I'm not sure what you're point is here. Tamil's got what they deserved for working in the civil service?

An easy way to win elections is to appeal to base emotions and nationalism, especially in a system of government like Sri Lanka. And that's what successive governments have done in that country. The war is a direct result of pretty much everything outlined quite neatly in regicide is good for you's comment above.
posted by chunking express at 6:07 AM on May 21

Eyewitness account of Sri Lankan detention camps

A 37-year-old woman was being held at one school with her two children. “We were forced to flee to the army-controlled area due to the intolerable shelling and hunger. We were kept in a school before being brought here.

“[Before we left the no-fire zone], there was a huge blast while an aircraft was flying overhead. A lot of people were wounded or killed, including my husband. My husband was a teacher. Since his death, my children do not talk much. I ask myself why we were left alive. Since we left our home about three months ago we have not had a proper meal.”

She explained that she was afraid the army would drag her way like other young women.

Things were fucked up when the LTTE were blowing shit up. So far I have very little reason to think they'll be less fucked up now that they are not.
posted by chunking express at 8:29 AM on May 21

I'm not sure what you're point is here. Tamil's got what they deserved for working in the civil service?

My point is, if a foreign invader takes over your country, and your group works closely with them and gains a position of privilege as a result, you shouldn't be shocked if the rest of the country is mad at you after the invader lives.

So you lose your privilege, and are discriminated against -- then start the world's most vicious guerilla war, inventing suicide bombing, because the evil Buddhists are mean to you? Seems like a huge overreaction, and frankly I don't have a ton of sympathy given the facts as presented.

It's also completely unclear what the man in the street Tamil feels about all of this. Prabharkaran's first military attack was murdering the rival Tamil mayor of Jaffna, and murdering his moderate opponents was a consistent pattern of his career.
posted by msalt at 8:40 AM on May 21

It's also completely unclear what the man in the street Tamil feels about all of this.

What man on the street Tamil? The ones in the camps? The article I linked above is about people in the camps. Here is a SKY News report about rapes and killings in the camps. I guess they aren't on the street though. There is lots of writing online about Tamil reaction in Colombo. Also about other things. Here is one about a human rights lawyer that was abducted by the military. My uncle had recently retired to Colombo, but left because he felt it was only a matter of time before there were riots again. Well, that and all the abductions.

... then start the world's most vicious guerilla war ...

You missed about 20-30 years of non-violent resistance. I'm guessing if you lived and grew up in Jaffna you wouldn't see it as an overreaction. The government displaced lots of people before the war broke out with their policies. My dad and many people in his generation left the Island in the 60s and 70s, before any of the fighting, because there was nothing for them in Sri Lanka. What do you think happens to the people who don't have the chance to leave?

... frankly I don't have a ton of sympathy given the facts as presented.

Sri Lanka won it's WAR ON TERROR amirite? What's a few thousand dead, and a few hundred thousand imprisoned.
posted by chunking express at 9:09 AM on May 21

And to be clear, I fucking hated the LTTE. They killed everyone else that could have been working towards a solution to the problems in Sri Lanka. And you can see how well that worked out right now. That said, pretending like the government is doing its people a service by dropping bombs on them and liberating them by sending them to internment camps is more than a little bit stupid.
posted by chunking express at 9:20 AM on May 21

you shouldn't be shocked if the rest of the country is mad at you after the invader lives.

Actually I'm reasonably certain that shock is always the appropriate response to brutal racism.

But by your logic, msalt, the Tigers are then also completely justified in what they've been doing.
posted by regicide is good for you at 10:22 AM on May 21

pretending like the government is doing its people a service by dropping bombs on them and liberating them by sending them to internment camps

I'm sorry for your family's troubles but this is nothing that I or anyone else have said.

That Sky news report was very thin on facts and big on alarm. They based their report on written statements off the record that describe "the terrible overcrowding there [in the refugee camps], the poor hygiene and the atrocities they've witnessed by both sides." (which sounds like a pretty standard war refugee camp.)

The one woman they quote has her voice distorted and edited strangely. It sounds like she says "I believe that the [audible edit] day sexual assault and harassment in the camps. I believe that these children and the young ones are going to get disappeared, but we don't know what is going to happen to them, because there is no information, there is no transparency, we just don't know what is happening."

The reporter concludes -- with no quotes or facts -- "The Tamils believe this is just the start of a specific plan which has government support to persecute and intimidate them." The Tamils?? Every one of them?
posted by msalt at 10:40 AM on May 21

This article in the NYT gives what appears to be a more nuanced take on the Tamil "man in the street" perspective.

I mean, clearly the government has been very heavy-handed in prosecuting this war. I hate to see the exclusion of journalists and severe limits on aid organizations. There is a huge humanitarian problem right now.

It looks like the government saw reporters and NGOs as either actively sympathizing with the Tamil opposition -- which frankly, seems true in the case of that Sky reporter -- or at least felt that they were being used by the Tigers to buy time and prevent defeat. They were determined to finish this thing off and weren't going to let any foreigners get in their way. Now they are saying they want to go through all the refugees to make sure there aren't escaped Tigers and suicide bombers among them.

None of that is unreasonable, really. Of course, the government will be sorely tempted to keep all of this undemocratic power it has grabbed and use it to either maintain power or retaliate against Tamils for the war. It could clearly go either way. Govt. actions may be the stern medicine needed to bring peace, or the beginning of a horrible period of repression. I'm hoping for statesmanship.
posted by msalt at 10:57 AM on May 21

From liquorice's link:

Under British rule the Tamil minority received a disproportionate share of university and government positions. Higher earnings among Sri Lankan Tamils plus the income sent home by overseas Tamils generated greater economic prosperity in the Tamil regions than in the rest of the country.

... [After the 1956 elections,] Tamils organized to protect their interests, and extremist factions of all parties and nationalities employed violence to bring national attention to their concerns. The violence temporarily ended in 1959, when [Sinhalese nationalist] Prime Minister Bandaranaike was assassinated.

So it looks a bit more complicated than "20-30 years of non-violent resistance."
posted by msalt at 11:13 AM on May 21

Maybe the country will become known for something other than tea, child porn, and civil war. Maybe you're right, and we're now ushering in an age of awesome in Sri Lanka.
posted by chunking express at 11:26 AM on May 21

I'm making no predictions. But it looks like one of those historical hinges, where it could swing either way. A few key choices and personalities in the next year will probably determine decades of Sri Lankan history.
posted by msalt at 11:46 AM on May 21

Maybe you're right, and we're now ushering in an age of awesome in Sri Lanka.

Or now the hotel chains and tourism industry can extend northward the pattern of exploitation they started with the blank slate beachfronts mercifully cleared of pesky fisherpeople by the tsunami.

I don't think anything that happens in Sri Lanka, in any direction, good or bad, will be unmitigated by its opposite. At least the world is paying attention, for now.
posted by regicide is good for you at 12:12 PM on May 21

End of war could boost tourism. Seems a bit tasteless.

I saw From Dust at Hot Docs here in Toronto a few years back. It is a documentary about the government's response to the Tsunami. Basically, they told fisherman they couldn't live near the water anymore, and then sold their land to multinationals so they could build resorts where Europeans can come and sun bathe and have sex with little Sinhalese girls. The Sri Lankan government rocks.

And yeah, msalt, you're right in that this is a very important time in its history now. I think things are going to be horrible, based on what we're seeing so far. More so, I just can't imagine why a hardcore nationalist government that just totally trounced one of the worlds most bad-ass para-military groups would suddenly decide to set aside nationalism for some reconciliation.
posted by chunking express at 12:30 PM on May 21

To go down in history as one of the great leaders of our day, and greatest ever in Sri Lankan history? And actually help his nation immensely? Just spitballin' here. I have no idea if those goals would even appeal to him, but at least he made the effort to speak in Tamil as well as Sinhala at the U.N. Interesting profile in the Times of India notes both his ruthlessness and shift to nationalism, and an earlier reputation as a human rights defender.
posted by msalt at 3:01 PM on May 21

I'm having a hard time believing their government has said "come have sex with little girls."
posted by five fresh fish at 5:04 PM on May 21

five fresh fish, maybe you should actually go to Sri Lanka and see what's up.
posted by chunking express at 7:50 PM on May 21

There was a better article on child prostitutes and pornography in Sri Lanka, but you'll have to settle for statistics right now. And I don't think the problem is a secret, but the government feels they have more pressing things to deal with.
posted by chunking express at 4:52 AM on May 22

30,000 child prostitutes in Sri Lanka is pretty terrible, though those statistics are all from the 1990s which makes it hard to single out the current government for "encouraging" the trade. (No sign of that in that statistics, but not sure they would show that.)

By comparison, the same source says there are 100,000 to 3 million child prostitutes in the U.S.
posted by msalt at 8:34 AM on May 22

BBC: new eyewitness account by a doctor. Also, the Sri Lankan president promised Indian envoys that they would (try to) return all refugees within 6 months.
posted by msalt at 2:12 PM on May 22

The last days of Thiruvenkadam Veluppillai Prabhakaran. This article is fascinating.
posted by chunking express at 8:15 PM on May 23

"How are Tamils reacting to the end of war? I’ve been watching the flag convoys thru town and them seem to be mostly Sinhala and Muslim. Which is fine, but I wondered how the Tamils feel. So I called a few friends and walked around the Tamil parts of town. Most people were scared to talk, certainly not on camera. On camera they say that if Mahinda does what he says and Tamils have rights it’ll be good. Off camera, they are hurting for their relatives in the north, believe that Prabhakaran may be alive and worry about the flag convoys running thru town."
posted by chunking express at 8:23 PM on May 23

(indi.ca, linked above, is written by a Canadian Sinhalese dude who moved back to Sri Lanka. It's usually well written and he posts all sorts of interesting stuff.)
posted by chunking express at 9:00 PM on May 23

Sinhala thugs destroy Tamil shops in Badulla. I wish other news agencies would step up and verify reports like these from TamilNet. (TamilNet is basically an LTTE mouth piece.) This seems like it would be easy enough to do, and would certainly provide some sense of what's happening in Sri Lanka now that people don't live in fear of being blown up by the LTTE. There are so many small reports like this on TamilNet: Sinhala thugs harass Tamil women in Ratnapura, Armed men shoot Tamil youth in Colombo, Tamil shop burnt down in Wattala, Tamil civilian reported missing in Colombo, etc. This is all recent news. And i'm skipping over all the "X number of Tamil Youths Arrested in XYZ" stories, of which there are plenty.
posted by chunking express at 8:48 AM on May 29

Tamil refugees beg to learn fate of relatives held as terrorists.
posted by chunking express at 8:51 AM on May 29

Tamil refugees beg to learn fate of relatives held as terrorists.

That's a bit of a misleading headline; the story notes that the Tigers forced at least one member of every Tamil family to fight with the Tigers. The relatives are the members who the govt. thinks fought with the LTTE; they're trying to separate the unwillingly conscripted from Tiger troops who might keep fighting, which is pretty reasonable really (depending obviously on how they do it.)

From the BBC: The Times of London estimates 20,000 civilians killed at the war's end; Sri Lanka's government says no, unconvincingly denying that they used artillery after April 27th:

Video evidence published by The Times suggests that the Tamil Tigers established mortar positions and military encampments within camps for displaced people, which were then shelled by the military.
posted by msalt at 5:43 PM on May 29

Tamil Tigers sound like they were utterly ruthless even against their own people.
posted by five fresh fish at 10:30 PM on May 29

Pretty much. They didn't fuck around, that's for sure.

The Struggle for Equality, Justice, and Democracy in Sri Lanka. "Could an organisation which destroyed the freedom of Tamils fight for their liberation from oppression? Clearly not. Could an entity which stood for an exclusively Tamil nation, in which Muslims and Sinhalese would be massacred or ethnically cleansed, pose an ideological challenge to exclusivist Sinhala nationalism? Hardly."
posted by chunking express at 7:53 PM on May 31

Wow. Thanks for that link. I'm kind of astounded at how much support there still is for the LTTE in the Tamil diaspora. Then again, it reminds me -- as an Irish-American -- of the blinders that allowed a lot of our crowd to blithely support the IRA for years. It's easier when you don't see the militant group up close.
posted by msalt at 12:47 PM on June 1

Another very thorough article on Prabakharan by DBS Jeyaraj. Kind of a life and times sort of thing.

Also interesting, Observations on the LTTE from a Kurdish Nationalist Comrade.
posted by chunking express at 11:12 AM on June 3

University Teachers for Human Rights, Jaffa: A Marred Victory and a Defeat Pregnant with Foreboding
posted by chunking express at 8:24 AM on June 11