SO, the LTTE has, after one whole week of dithering and prevarication, admitted their leader Prabhakaran is dead. Some LTTE websites even published doctored pictures to mislead the world that he was still alive and kicking. One such photo had an amused Prabhakaran watching his own corpse being shown on television.
BBC has quoted a notorious arms smuggler turned LTTE leader Selvarasa Pathmanathan alias KP wanted by Interpol as having said the outfit would hereafter opt for non violence to achieve its goal. KP's statement was obviously timed for the UNHRC's special session on Sri Lanka. He has sought to make the LTTE less embarrassing to its allies and to regain international sympathy. The Tigers are trying to project themselves as the underdog once again!
KP says his leader has 'entered martyrdom'. What a way to be a martyr! You stop schooling at a tender age; cut your teeth on homicide by gunning down a fatherly politician in cold blood near a temple; commit fratricidal violence to your heart's content; grab leadership of your organisation; enforce celibacy on others while entering nuptial and fathering children yourself; betray trust others repose in you with no compunction; disport yourself in wanton destruction of life and property, live in clover together with your wife and children while forcing others to practise austerity; educate your children while abducting the progeny of others and turning them into cannon fodder; preach 'no retreat no surrender' to others; make the rank and file bite cyanide phials to avoid capture, sacrifice as many loyal members as possible to boost your ego, let paranoia get the better of your reason; physically eliminate contenders for leadership; terrorise and kill people promising to deliver them from their suffering; declare a war you cannot win; fight until all your cadres and assets are destroyed and then finally die an ignominious death at the hands of your enemy, having hidden in a mangrove swamp waist-deep overnight, unable to bring yourself to take cyanide or shoot yourself. And you become a martyr!
Some LTTE propagandists say Prabhakaran had even come out of hiding waving a white flag indicating his willingness to surrender, when he was shot by the army. What? Are they sure their Sun God stooped to the level of grovelling before the enemy to save his life? Was it for such a coward that so many youth laid down their lives?
Going by Prabhakaran's much advertised acts of heroism, one may have expected him to commit suicide after ordering that his body be destroyed. He had given an order to his cadres to that effect during the IPKF operations, we were told. But, lo and behold, Prabhakaran died just like any other ordinary criminal like Wambotta!
Prabhakaran must have kept calling KP from hiding throughout that fateful night perhaps until his death in the hope that the latter would do something to save him. Therefore, KP could not have been unaware of his boss's demise. He could not also have been so naïve as to think Prabhakaran's death could be kept under wraps forever. By not announcing it, KP only deprived LTTE backers of an opportunity to pay last respects to Prabhakaran at least from a safe distance before his unceremonious funeral.
It is rather doubtful whether the LTTE will ever embrace ahimsa, which is for the brave and not for the cowardly terrorists who destroy the weak and the meek. The LTTE's ideology has no place for non-violence. Tigers can never transform themselves into lambs!
An arms smuggler cum terrorist promising non-violence is not to be trusted, but would an LTTE leader have ever offered to eschew violence before Prabhakaran's death? Never! The elimination of Prabhakaran, Miliband, Kouchner et al should note, has thus helped create some space for freedom of expression within the outfit.
Meanwhile, an attempt is being made in some quarters to have the world believe that former constable of the Sri Lanka Police turned 'IGP of the LTTE' Nadesan and some others had surrendered to the army before being shot dead. The government denies this version of their killing and insists they were trying to flee in an ambulance when troops killed them in a bid to prevent their escape.
In a world where even investigations into the Kennedy assassination have left many questions unanswered, the manner in which terrorists like Prabhakaran, Nadesan et al perished on the battlefront will never be known.
Intriguingly, mum's the word on the part of the human rights bigwigs weeping buckets for the slain terrorists as to the mass murder of over 600 Sri Lankan policemen, who surrendered to the LTTE in 1990 on orders of a government which was desperately trying to salvage a fragile truce. They were all lined up and mowed down in the jungles of the East. Prabhakaran and his killers also gunned down LTTE deputy leader Mahattaya and 257 others as Adele Balasingham has said in a book.
Prabhakaran, Nadesan and other criminals were also responsible for over 200 civilian massacres, assassinations of President Ranasinghe Premadasa, Rajiv Gandhi, Lakshman Kadirgamar, Neelan Tiruchelvam, Rajini Thiranagama, A. Amirthalingam and dozens of other prominent leaders, academics, intellectuals and human rights activists.
Prabhakaran was also a convicted criminal wanted in India to stand trial over the Rajiv killing and in Sri Lanka to serve 200 years RI over the Central Bank bombing where more than 5o people died and hundreds of others injured.
There is no point in wasting tears on dead terrorists who deserved to be hanged anyway for their crimes against humanity such as genocidal violence and ethnic cleansing. The pressing need is for the war displaced to be resettled and the conflict zone developed as soon as possible.
That's what Sri Lanka needs assistance of the international community for. (Courtesy: The Island)
