Sri Lanka's 25-year civil war ends, Tigers admit defeat

[Beskar]

Sri Lanka rebels offer to lay down arms

Sri Lankan rebels admit defeat; fate of Tamil Tiger chief unknown - Yahoo! Canada News

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COLOMBO, Sri Lanka - The Tamil Tiger rebels admitted defeat in their 25-year-old war with the Sri Lankan government Sunday, offering to lay down their guns as government forces swept across their last strongholds in the northeast.

The government rejected the last-ditch call for a ceasefire, saying the thousands of civilians trapped in the war zone all have escaped to safety and there was no longer any reason to stop the battle.

With the war nearing its end, Sri Lankans poured into the streets in spontaneous celebration. President Mahinda Rajapaksa scheduled a nationally televised news conference for Tuesday morning at Parliament, where he was expected to tell the nation the war was over.

The fate of the Tamil Tigers' top commanders remained unclear, including the whereabouts of the reclusive rebel leader Velupillai Prabhakaran.

A senior military official said troops found the bodies of several rebel fighters who had committed suicide Sunday when troops surrounded them. The bodies were suspected of being Prabhakaran and his deputies, but the military was still trying to confirm their identities, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

The rebels, who once controlled a wide swath of the north, have been routed by government forces in recent months. On Sunday, Tamil Tiger suicide bombers targeted troops clearing out the last pockets of rebel resistance in the war zone and troops killed at least 70 rebels trying to flee, the military said.

On Sunday afternoon, the tattered and nearly defeated rebel group offered to lay down its arms, saying it was acting to protect the wounded in the war zone.

"This battle has reached its bitter end," rebel official Selvarasa Pathmanathan said in a statement. "It is our people who are dying now from bombs, shells, illness and hunger. We cannot permit any more harm to befall them. We remain with one last choice - to remove the last weak excuse of the enemy for killing our people. We have decided to silence our guns."

Pathmanathan said the bodies of thousands of dead and wounded civilians lay on the battlefield.

Media Minister Anura Yapa dismissed the appeal, saying government forces had rescued all the civilians.

"We are looking after those people. We want to free this country from the terrorist LTTE," he said, referring to the group by its formal name, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.

With most journalists and aid workers barred from the war zone, it was not possible to verify the accounts of either side.

Troops on Sunday killed at least 70 rebels trying to escape the one-square kilometre patch of land that government troops have surrounded, the military said.

Thousands of Sri Lankans danced, set off celebratory fireworks and beat on drums in celebration Sunday after Rajapaksa made an initial declaration of victory in the country's civil war with the separatist rebels.

"We are celebrating a victory against terrorism," said Sujeewa Anthonis, a 32-year-old street hawker.

As the fighting raged on in recent days, concerns mounted for the fate of the tens of thousands of civilians trapped in the war zone amid heavy shelling and intense fighting.

But 63,000 civilians fled the area over the past 72 hours, clearing the way for the government to finish off the rebels, military spokesman Brig. Udaya Nanayakkara said Sunday.

 

[Beskar]

Sri Lanka rebels 'call ceasefire'

17 May 2009

BBC NEWS | South Asia | Sri Lanka rebels 'call ceasefire'

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Tamil rebels trapped in a tiny enclave of northern Sri Lanka have declared a ceasefire, a rebel spokesman says.

The Tamil Tigers (LTTE) had given up their fight against a major government offensive and "decided to silence our guns", he said on a pro-Tamil website.

"This battle has reached its bitter end," said Selvarasa Pathmanathan, the Tigers' chief of international relations, in a statement on Tamilnet.

President Mahinda Rajapaksa has already claimed victory in the 26-year war.

A later statement on the Tamilnet website appeared to modify the rebel position.

Mr Pathmanathan said the LTTE was "prepared to silence its guns if that is what needed by the international community to save the life and dignity of the Tamil people".

"In the past 24 hours, over 3,000 civilians lie dead on the streets while another 25,000 are critically injured with no medical attention," said the statement.

A senior Sri Lankan media spokesman told the BBC the government did not respond to documents posted on Tamilnet or take them seriously.

Lakshman Hulugalle said the government was waiting for an official "request" from the LTTE.

Civilians trapped

In contrast, Sri Lanka military officials said earlier that all the civilians who had been trapped in Sri Lanka's northern war zone had escaped.

The government rejected the ceasefire calls, saying that as all trapped civilians had now fled from the area of conflict, there was no reason to stop its offensive.

Charles Haviland
Charles Haviland, BBC News, Colombo

The Tamil Tiger statement sounds permanent but there is no use of the emotive word "surrender" nor an explicit admission of defeat. A defiant note is sounded when he says that "no force can prevent the attainment of justice for our people".

But the Sri Lankan government, on the crest of a wave of military success, says the fighting has not finished.

The defence minister said the military had yet to clear a small area of jungle where some LTTE members might be hiding, but added that 250,000 people had fled the conflict zone in recent weeks and not a single one had reported seeing the Tamil Tiger leader Velupillai Prabhakaran inside the area.

Army spokesman Brig Udaya Nanayakkara said some 50,000 ethnic Tamils had fled the area over the past three days.

Like all accounts from the war zone, neither claim can be independently verified.

Fighting is still continuing, but there has been no sign of the Tigers' leader, Velupillai Prabhakaran, the Sri Lankan defence minister told the BBC.

For months, tens of thousands of Tamil civilians have been trapped in the war zone, vulnerable to bombardments as the government and Tamil Tiger rebels fought bitterly.

The United Nations says they were being forcibly kept there by the rebels and that more than 6,000 have been killed since January.

The UN has told the BBC the army figures reinforced its view that Sri Lanka's authorities were ill-prepared for the huge influx of internally displaced people.

Refugee camps inland are already badly strained accommodating the huge numbers of those who have fled the conflict.

Rebels 'cornered'

Both the UN and Western governments have called on Sri Lanka to exercise restraint in its pursuit of a military victory over the Tigers.

INSURGENCY TIMELINE
1976 Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam form in the north-east
1987 India deploys peace-keepers to Tamil areas but they leave in 1990
1993 President Premadasa killed by Tiger bomb
2001 Attack on airport destroys half Sri Lankan Airlines fleet
2002 Government and rebels agree ceasefire
2005 Mahinda Rajapakse becomes president
2006 Heavy fighting resumes
2009 Tigers call for ceasefire after army takes main rebel strongholds, confines Tigers to small coastal enclave

Despite President Rajapaksa's claim of military victory on Saturday, senior officials told the BBC that fighting was still continuing in the area where the LTTE leaders were said to be cornered.

A military spokesman has told the BBC the last remnants of the rebels are trapped in 1.5 square kilometres of jungle. Again, his assertion cannot be verified.

More than 70,000 people have died in the bitter war for a Tamil homeland.

Sri Lanka's army said earlier 70 rebels had been killed trying to escape from a tiny enclave where they are holed up in the island's north-east.

The army says it has cut off rebel access to the sea.

Brig Udaya Nanayakkara said a "process of identification" was going on to identify the 70 rebels killed while trying to cross a lagoon in six boats.

President Rajapaksa is expected to give a nationally televised news conference in parliament on Tuesday, when reports suggest he may officially declare the war over.

 

[muse]

Now the Sri Lankan must prosecute the leadership of the LTTE and let the chips fall where they may. The world will be safer when the full story of how the LTTE came to be established, who financed them, who trained them, who in particular, established the framework of the suicide bombing program, how was the intellectual, in particular rhe psychological training developed, who provided training in this technique (this is will particularly helpful to Pakistanis) this information should be made known to the world and the leadership be seen to be punished.

 

[Luftwaffe]

don't mind muse saying it here should use ClearType for text some problem with text when viewed disturbs eyes i think lot of ppls eyes because not adjusted..
if you're using XP/for vista can be used use this link below..
ClearType Tuner Step 1: Turn on Windows XP ClearType

 

[Fennecus]

Congratulations to the people of Sri Lanka.

 

[Durran3]

Its been a long coming.. more than 30 years.. I am just curious as to why didn't the Sri Lankan military go full force before ??

 

[Always Neutral]

Its been a long coming.. more than 30 years.. I am just curious as to why didn't the Sri Lankan military go full force before ??

I think they chose their timing well. USA has just got a new President and the Indians were pre-occupied with National elections and the world was focused on Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan.

Regards

 

[Infanteer]

Its been a long coming.. more than 30 years.. I am just curious as to why didn't the Sri Lankan military go full force before ??

Its not really over. Yes i understand that LTTE infrastructure is destroyed but it doesn't take them long to cause panic and chaos all over Sri Lanka and to recruit more Tamils from North and rest of Sri Lanka.

 

[muse]

Body of LTTE ‘leader’ found : Tamil Tigers’ guns silenced

* LTTE concedes defeat g Military says 70 Tigers killed trying to flee overnight
* Troops free all civilians being held by LTTE

COLOMBO: The Tamil Tigers conceded defeat in Sri Lanka’s 25-year civil war on Sunday, after launching waves of suicide attacks to repel a final assault by Sri Lankan troops determined to annihilate them.

President Mahinda Rajapaksa had declared victory over the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) the day before, even as combat raged in the island’s northeast. LTTE suicide fighters blew themselves up on the frontline on Sunday morning and more than 70 were killed trying to flee overnight, the military said.

Freed: By midday Sunday, the military said troops had freed all the civilians being held by the LTTE inside an area that was less than a single square kilometre. A total of 72,000 had fled since Thursday, it said. The military said the fighting had slowed by afternoon, and a pro-rebel web site released a statement from the LTTE’s head of International Relations Selvarajah Pathmanathan saying, “This battle has reached its bitter end.”

“We remain with one last choice – to remove the last weak excuse of the enemy for killing our people. We have decided to silence our guns,” Pathmanathan’s statement said.

A body believed to be that of LTTE founder-leader Vellupillai Prabhakaran had been found but the identity of the corpse had not been confirmed yet, military sources said. “They are taking the body for checks to confirm it is the real Prabhakaran,” a military official said. reuters

 

[mughaljee]

Body of LTTE ‘leader,
any footage please
and congratulation to all Sri Lankans Brothers.

 

[fatman17]

....and the President of SL should be singing "with a little bit of help from my friends"

 

[white_pawn]

i dont think its still over, as until an unless each an every LTTE member, Operatives are finished, SLA should not rest as if they do so, it will come back to hunt them. So its better to completely terminate each and everyone of them and then and only then it can be send that the war is over.

Yup its could sound harsh but that is the best way to get rid of such issues.

 

[wtf]

Body of LTTE ‘leader,
any footage please
and congratulation to all Sri Lankans Brothers.

Sri Lanka announced a large explosion in the area where LTTE heads were supposed to be. They are claiming that the chiefs committed suicide. No body has yet been found.

 

[pakomar]

i dont think its still over, as until an unless each an every LTTE member, Operatives are finished, SLA should not rest as if they do so, it will come back to hunt them. So its better to completely terminate each and everyone of them and then and only then it can be send that the war is over.

Yup its could sound harsh but that is the best way to get rid of such issues.

Of course it’s not over but military has succeeded in breaking LTTE command structure.

 

[white_pawn]

Of course it’s not over but military has succeeded in breaking LTTE command structure.

yup the war is still on, and SLA should get all those who work and support LTTE. See its like cancer, if you dont get rid of it completey its going to come back again.