Malay mail
Prabhakaran’s fall... and his legacy
COMMENTARY: THE debate over whether Tamil Tigers 001 Velupillai Prabhakaran, one of the most ruthless and audacious guerrilla commanders in modern history, is alive or dead will probably never end. Variously known as the Sun God, and Thambi (little brother), Prabhakaran, 54, will live on in the hearts of a new generation of Tigers who may now emerge.
PROOF?: A picture released by the Sri Lankan Army yesterday is said to be the body of Tamil Tiger leader Velupillai Prabhakaran in Puthukkudirruppu, Sri Lanka — AFPpic
To them, Prabhakaran was the embodiment of the tactical dexterity of Afghanistan’s Ahmad Shah Masoud, the cruelty of Osama bin Laden and the passion of Latin American revolutionary Che Guevara. A lifelong devotee of Hollywood, he once cited Clint Eastwood as his role model. He watched action movies for inspiration, often using them as a training tool in Tiger camps.
His bloodstained efforts embraced every form of warfare, ranging from large scale battles to the ambushes of classic insurgency tactics, to urban terrorism, complete with suicide bombings. He terrorised the island and even neighbouring powerhouse India, perfecting the recruitment and use of suicide bomber units before al-Qaeda existed.
The first LTTE suicide bombing came in 1987. Prabhakaran had formed the “Black Tigers”, a group of male and female suicide bombers whose explosives-laden belts would later be copied by Palestinian, Chechen and Iraqi groups. In 1996, they drove a lorry packed with explosives into Sri Lanka’s central bank, killing at least 90 people.
He was held responsible for ordering the 1991 assassination of former Indian premier Rajiv Gandhi, who in 1987 sent Indian troops to disarm the Tamil Tigers but ended up withdrawing his troops after years of jungle combat. Prabhakaran’s killing apparatus also claimed the lives of Sri Lankan president Ranasinghe Premadasa in 1993, foreign minister Lakshman Kadirgamar in 2005 and countless mayors, police officials and army officers.
Prabhakaran’s Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) had their own army, navy and air force, built up by an illicit international fundraising network and the use of sanctions-busting smugglers on ships and speedboats. Clearly, he was the only man in Sri Lanka who could decide if there should be war or peace.
Despite earning international terrorist status in the corridors of Washington and Europe and being wanted in India, he was sought out by diplomats wanting to bring an end to Asia’s longest running civil war. It was war for him all the way and he presided over a war that has left at least 70,000 dead — roughly a third of whom were his own fighters.
In three decades of savage ethnic conflict aimed at carving out a separate Tamil homeland in the north and east Sri Lanka, Prabhakaran managed to consolidate a de facto State and — until now — outsmart successive government offensives. The youngest of four children from a middle-class family from a fishing village, he went underground in 1972 as the head of a rag-tag band of brigands.
Their grouses were centred on a Sinhalese-dominated government that began to pass laws that benefitted the majority Sinhalese population. Sri Lanka’s minority Tamils were favoured under British rule, but after independence the Sinhalese majority tried to limit Tamil access to universities and civil service jobs.
Tamil youths grew disillusioned with the government and turned to militancy. Prabhakaran went on to attract thousands of young men and women to his army. Like the master himself, all LTTE cadres carried a cyanide capsule to commit suicide rather than be captured alive. At the height of his power in the 1990s, Prabhakaran’s guerrillas had seized almost a third of Sri Lanka’s territory.
Most rebel armies rely on a State sponsor. Prabhakaran, however, had no such ally. Many wealthy Tamils fled to the west and their contributions, not always voluntary, played a large part in funding the Tigers’ arsenal. The LTTE maintained a fleet known as “Sea Tigers” and carried out air raids, including the bombing of Colombo, using Czech-built propeller-engined trainers.
In the end, however, the Tamil Tigers proved unable to withstand the full might of Sri Lanka’s army, freshly equipped with Chinese weaponry. Prabhakaran, a master terrorist who had hoped to found a new country, died in control of nothing but a few yards of beach.
Comments
Submitted by Ilakkuvanar Thiruvalluvan on Wednesday, May 20th, 2009.
Submitted by Malcolm G on Thursday, May 21st, 2009.