Sri Lanka wins Civil War

In an article published by Reuters reporters C.Bryson Hull and Ranga Sirilal published on May 18, 2009 from the capital of Sri Lanka, Colombo; the Sri Lanka military declared total victory of the Tamil Tigers today after a huge gunbattle that ended with the death of LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) leader Vellupillai Prabhakaran.

Vellupillai Prabhakaran, 54 years old, and the founder of the LTTE, was killed in an ambulance as he tried to flee the battlefield.

Sri Lanka Army commander Lieutenant General Sarath Fonseka told reporters that army troops had crushed the last of the Tigers. Quoting from the Reuters article, "We have liberated the entire country by completely liberating the north from the terrorists.  We have gained full control of the LTTE-held areas."

President Mahinda Rajapaksa had already declared victory this past Saturday even as the last final battle was underway.  The LTTE conceded defeat on Sunday.  But it ahs long warned it would intensify guerrilla attacks on economically valuable targets if defeated on the battlefield.  This threat has held in check Sri Lanka's business growth in the tourism sector.  

News of Prabhakaran's death shot the country's currency and stock markets to a one-month and seven-month high respectively. 

The final battle was played out on a sandy patch of ground near the Indian Ocean island's northeastern coast where the Tigers had set up bunkers guarded by land mines and booby traps.  More than 250 LTTE corpes were recovered, and Fonseka said that checks were underway to see if Prabhakaran's body was among them.  Prabhakaran's son and heir-apparent, Charles Anthony and his two top lieutenants, Pottu Amman who was the intelligence chief. and the naval wing leader Soosai.  Their bodies were recovered and even shown on TV. 

India, which in the beginning was a supporter of the LTTE until the mid-1990s when the Tigers bit the hand that fed them; have now come out urging Rajapaksa to let ethnic Tamils to have political power in the country.

Rajapaksa has indeed pledged to allow elections in the former LTTE areas as swiftly as possible.  

The Sri Lanka military has long viewed the death of Prabhakaran as an essential element to defeating the Tigers in the long lasting civil war.  

For additional details, please refer to that original article.  Link below. 

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Ref. May 18, 2009 (http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSTRE54D1GR20090518).