Obituary: Velupillai Prabhakaran
Velupillai Prabhakaran was wanted by Interpol on charges of terrorism, murder and organised crime
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Monday, 18, May 2009 11:37
Since carrying out his first political assassination three decades ago, Velupillai Prabhakaran has been the driving force behind the violent campaign for Tamil nationhood in Sri Lanka.
According to reports from Sri Lankan state television, the 54-year-old is dead; killed fleeing the Tamil Tigers' last stand in an ambulance.
The self-styled president and prime minister of Tamil Eelam's raid upon a Sri Lankan army patrol on July 23rd 1983 killed 13 soldiers, and led to the deaths of 70,000 people in the country's 26-year civil war, which on Monday appeared to be over.
Prabhakaran had been wanted by Interpol for years on charges of terrorism, murder and organised crime, but in the 34 years since he shot the mayor of Jaffna at point blank range as he entered a Hindu temple, he has been in the custody of the authorities just once.
Born in Velvettithurai on Jaffna peninsula on November 26th 1954 into a middle class family, Prabhakaran spent the early years of the insurgency he created in Tamil Nadu in neighbouring India.
During this time the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) pioneered many of the acts of terrorism that now seem commonplace; female suicide bombers using explosive belts.
Prabhakaran reportedly forcibly recruited young men and women into the armed wing of the Tigers as he led a guerrilla campaign against the Sinhalese majority government for an independent homeland for ethnic Tamils in the north and east of the country.
In the fledging days of his rebellion the Tigers' supreme commander idolised Indian independent fighters who rejected the peaceful attempts of Mahatma Gandhi to secure self-rule.
But the decision by the Indian government to support an end to Sri Lankan separatism led to the assassination of prime minister Rajiv Gandhi and attacks upon an Indian peacekeeping force that later withdrew.
As with his early life, little is known about the personal actions of Prabhakaran during the insurgency, despite the personality cult he fostered.
In April 2002 he attended his first and only press conference where he was introduced as "president and prime minister of Tamil Eelam", where he claimed a commitment to peace talks.
But after the Norwegian-brokered peace deal unravelled and the third Eelam war began at the turn of the century, the Sri Lankan army has been committed to eradicating the Tamil Tigers.
In January his political headquarters and de factor capital Kilinochchi fell, with troops surging through to occupy previously Tiger-held land.
In the months that followed the unrelenting government advance continued, with both sides accusing each other of war crimes.
It was previously thought that Prabhakaran may have fled from the final strip of jungle the Tigers held to Thailand or Malaysia, but hours after the army announced the death of his eldest son Charles Anthony and the rest of the LTTE leadership, officials confirmed a body found in an ambulance leaving the conflict zone was that of the Tamil Tiger leader.
His death marks the end of the armed conflict that he began 26 years ago, but the issues he violently pressed for, representation, self-rule, an independent homeland, remain unresolved.