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Vellupillai Prabhakaran	Vellupillai Prabhakaran	Tamil Tiger	Southeast Asia	Tamil	At Large	Supremo	20021205
		"Reclusive leader of the Liberation Tigers..."

Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka snares new Tamil Tiger head overseas

2009-08-07

Follow-up and more info on the post Ed made earlier. COLOMBO, Aug 7 (Reuters) - Sri Lanka on Friday said it had captured and was interrogating the new head of the Tamil Tigers, their most-wanted target since crushing the separatist rebels and their 25-year insurrection in May. But mystery remained over exactly where Selvarajah Pathmanathan, who ran the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam's (LTTE) lucrative arms and smuggling operations for decades, was arrested. Pathmanathan is the public face of the LTTE's post-war remnants and the highest-ranking Tiger still alive, after troops killed LTTE founder Vellupillai Prabhakaran in the war's cataclysmic final battle on the northeastern coast on May 18. The fact that Pathmanathan was in Sri Lankan custody helped push the Colombo Stock Exchange .CSE to its highest level in more than 14 months, gaining 0.7 percent in the first 90 minutes of trade. Sri Lanka declined to say where he was arrested, after initially saying Pathmanathan -- better known by his nickname KP -- had been picked up in Thailand. Thailand's prime minister on Friday denied Pathmanathan had been arrested there. The LTTE, in an emailed statement, said he had been arrested by Malaysian intelligence officers on Wednesday, but Malaysian authorities denied that. Sri Lankan officials said diplomatic necessities precluded naming the exact location where he was arrested. "It is a sensitive issue and the government wants to respect the wishes of all parties involved," a senior Sri Lankan official told Reuters on condition of anonymity. Thai authorities arrested Pathmanathan in 2007 and were ready to hand him over on condition their involvement was not known. But he escaped after Sri Lanka publicised his arrest there, and Thailand denied he was ever in custody, diplomats with knowledge of the incident say. Earlier this year, Sri Lanka was infuriated when a European diplomat met KP in Kuala Lumpur. After a brief feud with other LTTE officials overseas, which analysts say was over control of the hundreds of millions in hidden Tiger assets, Pathmanathan emerged as the new leader. He pledged to create a government-in-exile to push the LTTE's vision a separate nation for Sri Lanka's minority Tamils in a non-violent and democratic way. One of the original Tigers, Pathmanathan dodged authorities for nearly three decades and built the LTTE's smuggling, weapons procurement and fundraising capacity into a multi-million dollar enterprise known as the "KP Department". At the height of his powers, KP operated a fleet of freighters for smuggling, dealt in arms bazaars in Eritrea, to Afghanistan and Ukraine and raised millions from fundraising appeals and outright extortion from expatriate Tamils. Long believed to be in hiding in bases from Myanmar, Malaysia and Thailand, he had dozens of passports and more than enough money to buy his way out of trouble -- security experts say the LTTE was earning between $200-300 million annually. However, the LTTE's presence on U.S., EU, Indian and Canadian terrorist lists sharply curtailed his operations, and KP re-emerged earlier this year when Prabhakaran named his old friend the LTTE's head of international relations.

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Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka: EU demands war crimes inquiry --of both sides

2009-05-19

European Union foreign ministers have called for an independent inquiry into alleged war crimes committed by Tamil Tiger militants and the Sri Lankan military during the fierce conflict in the country's north. Oh, how even-handed. At a meeting in Brussels on Monday, ministers from the 27 member states said they were appalled by the high number of civilian casualties. Did they mention any feelings they may have had on Lanka's restoration of its territorial integrity, on Porky's ejection from the gene pool, and on the suppression of terrorism within an entire nation? The ministers called for an independent inquiry into alleged war crimes committed not just by the Tamil Tigers, who have long been on the EU's list of banned terrorist groups, but also by the government. Busybodies. Don't they have an economic crisis to deal with? "There have been very grave allegations on all sides and the British position is always that whenever serious and credible allegations are made they should be properly investigated," British foreign secretary David Miliband said. "Secondly, there's obviously a crying need for an inclusive political settlement - the tens of thousands of innocent Tamil civilians want to be Sri Lankan citizens of equal rights and equal value." Yes, and so they already are, I think, although perhaps I'm wrong. The Tamil Tigers wanted extra-special privileges, and were willing to kill for it. The Tigers wanted approximately half the country for their very own, where they could oppress the Sinhalese, who've had the impertinance to occupy the country for the past 3000 years or so. So the political settlement's been reached, in spite of the Norwegian-brokered ceasefires. The EU is pushing for the UN Human Rights Council to convene a special session on Sri Lanka next week, as it did in Burma, That worked well... Darfur Sheer brilliance... and the Palestinian territories. It's all about the process -- who cares that nothing has come from our special sessions except some fabulous dinners... and a very few fabulous working breakfasts (for a given value of working, of course). Another gathering of "veteran peacemakers"... The European action came as Sri Lankan security forces claimed to have killed Tamil Tiger leader and founder Vellupillai Prabhakaran as he tried to flee the war zone on the northeast of the island. State television announced the death of the 54-year-old on Monday. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, as the Tamil Tigers are commonly known, are trained to commit suicide rather than surrender. The guerrilla leader reportedly wore a cyanide capsule around his neck, like many other Tamil Tigers. The EU urged the Sri Lankan government to allow United Nations aid workers access to the war zone to ease the humanitarian crisis. Busybodies running to get in front of the parade. The Indian medical corps are already on their way.

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Sri Lanka

Tamil Tigers trapped in a square kilometre

2009-05-17

COLOMBO: Sri Lankan troops on Saturday seized the country’s entire coastline for the first time in a 25-year war with the Tamil Tigers, the military said, cutting off escape for separatist rebels now facing annihilation. The Lankan military keeps saying that it's the end for the Tigers. One of these days real soon now that's going to be true ... Two divisions marching from north and south sealed the coast, while a third completed the encirclement of the Tigers and their leaders, now trapped in barely a square kilometre of land without their umbilical access to the sea. “Now we have linked up on the coastline and the Sea Tigers’ activities are no more,” military spokesman Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara said, referring to the Tigers’ naval wing. Troops were still closing in on the rebels, he said. Another 4,500 people fled the sandy spit of land controlled by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), bringing the total to nearly 20,000 since Thursday, Nanayakkara said. Intelligence reports indicated that LTTE founder-leader Vellupillai Prabhakaran and other senior Tigers were in the remaining LTTE territory, Nanayakkara said. I thought by now he'd be hob-nobbing and fund-raising with the ex-pat community in, say, Quebec City ... The Red Cross called the civilians’ plight an “unimaginable humanitarian catastrophe” because of the lack of food, water and medical care in the battlezone, where the United Nations estimates 30,000-80,000 innocent people remain trapped. “My government, with the total commitment of our armed forces, has in an unprecedented humanitarian operation finally defeated the LTTE militarily,” Sri Lanka’s President Mahinda Rajapaksa said late on Saturday. “I will be going back to a country that has been totally freed from the barbaric acts of the LTTE,” he said in a speech at an international gathering in Jordan.

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Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka military kills 32 rebels in heavy combat

2009-03-15

COLOMBO, March 13 (Reuters) - Sri Lankan troops killed 32 Tamil Tiger separatists in intense fighting in what the government says are the final battles of Asia's longest-running civil war, the military said on Friday. Sri Lanka's military has surrounded the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in a 37 sq km (15 sq miles) of the island nation's northeastern coast and is fighting to deal a death blow to a civil war that has raged off and on since 1983. This is how you solve a long-running civil war. Norway take note ... "Fighting continued in Puthukudyiruppu. Troops killed 32 LTTE terrorists from yesterday's fighting and recovered 15 dead bodies," military Spokesman Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara said. Combat operations now are concentrated on the last town the separatist LTTE holds and commanders say nearly all of the Tamil Tigers' top guerrillas including leader Vellupillai Prabhakaran are in that area, with some personally commanding the battles. Troops are inside the town and have just a few kilometres to go before they reach a lagoon on its eastern edge, across from which is a 12-km coastal strip set up as a no-fire zone. Tens of thousands of civilians are inside the area.

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Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka tightens snare on Tigers, rebel chief

2009-01-14

Sri Lanka is tightening the snare around the Tamil Tigers and their elusive leader with air raids and a sea blockade in an offensive that is fast taking the separatist rebels' last territory, the military said on Tuesday. Air force jets hit a jungle hideout often used by Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) founder Vellupillai Prabhakaran on Monday night, the air force said. The air force said the target had been hit, but it was not clear if Prabhakaran was there. The Tigers could not be reached for comment. But a pro-rebel website reported that the military was targeting civilians with artillery attacks, which the military denies. The military in the last two weeks has seized two major strategic targets, the rebels' self-proclaimed capital of Kilinochchi and Elephant Pass, which puts the entire Jaffna Peninsula under their control for the first time since 2000. After those two decisive blows, the army has turned all of its units toward the eastern port of Mullaitivu and is surging through a wedge of jungle surrounding it that measures no more than 330 square kilometres. Many experts foresee a rapid end to a ground war that has turned into one of Asia's longest-running, with combat raging off and on since 1983. Analysts expect that the Tigers will go back underground as the army closes in on Mullaittivu. The Tigers, according to former rebels and military officials, lost most of their surface-to-air missiles in the 2005 tsunami, but keep the few they have along with anti-aircraft guns to protect Prabhakaran.

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Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka dreaming of victory, Prabhakaran sez

2008-11-28

The leader of the Tamil Tigers Thursday said Sri Lanka is "living in a dreamland of military victory," moments after government jets for a second year running destroyed a rebel radio station broadcasting his annual address. Even with a Sri Lankan military offensive besieging the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam's (LTTE) self-declared capital, leader Vellupillai Prabhakaran remained defiant in his yearly rallying cry. "The Sinhala state has, as never before, placed its trust on its military strength," he said, referring to Sri Lanka's government. "It is living in a dreamland of military victory. It is a dream from which it will awake. That is certain." Prabhakaran's speech, usually recorded beforehand at one of his jungle hideouts, went out worldwide via a Voice of the Tigers radio station broadcast on the Internet despite the air raid. Air force spokesman Wing Commander Janaka Nanayakkara said the strike completely destroyed a radio station close to Kilinochchi, the northern town the LTTE has declared as capital of the separate state it wants to create and calls Tamil Eelam. Troops are fighting on its outskirts and the military on Wednesday said its fall was imminent, but Thursday said torrential monsoon rains had slowed combat operations. Prabhakaran reiterated longstanding accusations that President Mahinda Rajapaksa's war was meant to wipe out Tamils. Rajapaksa has repeatedly said military operations are aimed at the LTTE, and not Tamil citizens in the northern war zone. Rajapaksa is from the Sinhalese ethnic majority, which has led all governments since independence from Britain in 1948. Many Tamils complain of marginalization since then. "No political transformation has taken place during the last 60 years in the Sinhala nation. Therefore, hoping it will happen in the future is futile," he said. 'INDIA IS OUR FRIEND' The war, one of Asia's longest modern insurgencies, began in earnest in 1983 when anti-Tamil riots broke out after the LTTE fatally ambushed 13 soldiers on the northern Jaffna Peninsula. Rajapaksa's government has made the most military progress of any in the 25-year war, capturing most of the turf held by the LTTE in August 2006, when a 2002 truce began unraveling. Prabhakaran's speech is usually aimed at galvanizing supporters, especially those in the global Tamil diaspora who for years have funded the LTTE but increasingly cannot because it is on a host of international lists of banned terrorist groups. "Cordially I invite those countries that have banned us... to remove their ban on us and to recognize our just struggle," he said. The LTTE has carried out hundreds of assassinations and suicide bombings against politicians including moderate Tamils and former Indian prime minister Rajiv Gandhi.

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Sri Lanka

Sri Lankan Rebel Base Left in Ruins

2005-01-01

Well, I guess there's some good come out of it... This town is no stranger to carnage, always bouncing back from the damages suffered during its periodic turns on the front lines of Sri Lanka's two-decade civil war. A government assault drove out ethnic Tamil rebels in 1990. After six years of siege, the guerrillas took it back in a ferocious, one-day battle that wiped out the army garrison of 1,200 and killed 800 rebels. The Tamils rebuilt, and the rebels' secretive chief, Vellupillai Prabhakaran, even made the town his home. But Mullaitivu met its match in Asia's tsunami catastrophe. Sitting on Sri Lanka's northeast coast, the town took the full force of Sunday's mammoth waves _ devastation in full evidence Friday when Associated Press journalists got one of the first glimpses by outsiders of the damage inside the rebel-controlled part of this island nation off the southern tip of India. Row upon row of houses were flattened, walls ripped from their foundations. At the Roman Catholic Church, only one wall with its icons and the bell tower still stand. Worrying about the spread of disease, Tamil soldiers shot dogs scrabbling through the debris and around rotting bodies.

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Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka Leader Leaves Tsunami Meeting

2004-12-31

Bodyguards whisked Sri Lanka's prime minister away from a meeting with ethnic-Tamil tsunami quake victims Thursday after some victims hit journalists and a soldier with wooden poles. Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapakse, four Cabinet ministers, military officials and a media contingent flew to the island's northern coast to inspect the devastation and speak to residents close to Valvedditturai, the home town of the leader of the Tamil rebels, Vellupillai Prabhakaran. The people were telling the prime minister their problems and what aid they needed when an announcement was made over a loudspeaker urging people not to interact with the prime minister, said an official with the group. After hearing the call, the public got agitated and shouted "Get out ... We don't want your help." Some members of the crowd then picked up wooden poles and bashed some journalists and a soldier. Rajapakse and the other ministers were rushed to a nearby military base, the official said.

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India-Pakistan

Tamil Tigers threaten to create breakaway state

2003-11-28

The leader of Sri Lanka’s Tamil Tiger rebels has threatened to form a breakaway state if Colombo does not give him self-governing rights in the country’s north-east. Vellupillai Prabhakaran, however, denied that he was rearming his group and said he was still open to a negotiated settlement of the civil war that has killed 65,000. But if the government continues to oppress Tamils and deny them their rights, he said: "we have no alternative other than to secede and form an independent state. "We urge the Sinhala political leadership not to create the objective conditions that would drive our people to seek this ultimate option." The rebels started fighting for a separate Tamil homeland in 1983, claiming the mostly Hindu Tamils were discriminated against by Sri Lanka’s mostly Buddhist 14 million Sinhalese majority. The conflict stopped after a February 2002 ceasefire. The truce has held, but peace talks broke down in April, with the rebels demanding more autonomy than the government was willing to offer.

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Southeast Asia

Tamil Tigers to get regional autonomy...

2002-12-05

Sri Lanka and the Tamil Tiger rebels agreed on Thursday to develop a government that would give the rebels a chunk of the country regional autonomy — a breakthrough decision after months of efforts to end the 19 years of fighting between them. The Tamil Tigers have been fighting for independence since 1983 but gave up the demand just ahead of the third round of peace talks in Oslo. Now, both sides agreed to pursue a peace based on the principle of internal self-determination in Tamil-dominated areas of the north and east, according to a draft copy of the joint statement obtained by the Associated Press. 'The parties have decided to explore a political solution founded on internal self-determination based on a federal structure within a united Sri Lanka,' the statement said. It also said that political steps must be supported by measures to ensure continuation of an existing cease-fire and 'that new concrete measures will be taken to facilitate further de-escalation.' The agreement was reached a week after the reclusive rebel leader Vellupillai Prabhakaran said for the first time that the Tigers were in favour of a solution that offered 'substantial regional autonomy.' The statement said that the rebels will let competing political parties stay in their regions as long as they are unarmed, and that the activities of their courts and police would not extend into government-held areas. Ceylon's been a single "country" for 2500 years, and hasn't moved an inch. There's always been movement between it and the Tamil Nad. Now the Tamils need their own chunk of it. Nor will this be the end of it. The Singhalese are Buddhists, y'know. And the Tamils are Hindus and Muslims.

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