TRAPPED BY the Sri Lankan army in a tiny enclave in the island’s northeast, Tamil Tiger rebels have admitted defeat and declared a ceasefire, signalling the end of one of the world’s longest-running civil wars that has claimed over 70,000 lives.
“This battle has reached its bitter end,” declared the rebels’ chief of international relations, Selvarasa Pathmanathan, on a pro-Tamil Tiger rebel internet site.
“We have decided to silence our guns. Our only regrets are for the lives lost and that we could not hold out for longer,” conceded the statement by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), fighting for an independent Tamil homeland for over 25 years on the Sinhalese-majority island republic.
The LTTE’s capitulation comes a day after the Sri Lankan president Mahinda Rajapakse declared that the rebels had finally been vanquished.
“I am proud to announce that my government with the total commitment of our armed forces has in an unprecedented humanitarian operation finally defeated the LTTE militarily,” Rajapakse said at the G11 summit in Jordan on Saturday.
The admission of defeat came as the island’s defence ministry said thousands of civilians, mostly Tamils held by the LTTE for weeks, had escaped the war zone with the last few rebel fighters boxed into a 2.4 sq km patch of jungle in the country’s northeast.
“They (the LTTE) were actually defeated some time ago, but they have formally accepted defeat only now,” military spokesman Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara said.
“They fought for an Eelam (separate Tamil state) that they could never win.
“It was only a waste of lives. They have caused massive death and destruction over the years. Finally, they themselves have realised that it is all over,” he said.
Until two years ago the LTTE was considered to be amongst the world’s most formidable, disciplined and indestructible rebel groups.
It controlled large swathes of territory in the north and east of the island, with all the paraphernalia of an independent State such as a judicial and educational system, a police force and an administrative and revenue collection service.
Formed by the fiery Velupillai Prabhakaran (55) to fight for the rights of the minority Tamil community, the LTTE spent decades confounding expectations of their military defeat. But a sustained offensive by government troops over the past year has finally brought it about.
In their civil war Prabhakaran refined the use of suicide bombers, raised a formidable naval force and even a fledgling air force – all of which systematically and boldly carried out deadly attacks against high-profile targets, including spectacular strikes against economic installations.
In one of their most audacious attacks, the rebels blew up more than a dozen fighter aircraft at a military base just north of Colombo in 2001.
They also destroyed six passenger airliners parked at the country’s international airport, delivering a severe economic blow to the tourism-dependent island.
The LTTE was also condemned for deploying child soldiers, but they had the backing of the international community following the Oslo-backed ceasefire in 2002.
This collapsed in January 2008 and President Rajapakse launched a determined offensive against the Tigers, vowing to finish them off.
Analysts, however, believed the LTTE’s military setback would not usher in peace in Sri Lanka, as its cadres would revert to guerrilla hit-and-run tactics that they had previously employed with devastating effect across the island.