prabhakaran

prabhakaran

To the Sri Lankan government, Velupillai Prabhakaran was the leader of one of the world's most ruthless organisations and was comparable to Pol Pot or Osama bin Laden. But to his supporters, he was an indefatigable fighter for Tamil rights.

For three decades, Prabhakaran, 54, who had a fascination with Napoleon Bonaparte and Alexander the Great, eluded death, assassination attempts and capture as he single-mindedly pursued the goal of a homeland for the minority Tamils.

That goal came tantalisingly close as the supreme commander of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) at one stage presided over what was in effect a rebel mini-state in northern Sri Lanka. The Tigers ran their own law courts, police force and Tamil Eelam banks and even their own time zone – half an hour behind the Sri Lankan capital, Colombo.

But after the breakdown of numerous truces and outside attempts by Norway to broker a political settlement, an all-out army offensive this year has wiped out the Tigers as a fighting force.

The Sri Lankan military says its troops have killed the man they have been hunting for so long; that they shot him dead as he was trying to escape in an ambulance.

In previous rounds of fighting, Prabhakaran, who carried a cyanide capsule around his neck, reportedly told his bodyguards to kill him and burn his body beyond recognition rather than allow his capture.

Although demonised by the Sri Lankan authorities, Prabhakaran became the symbol of militant Tamil nationalism, appearing on posters, calendars, watches and the placards waved by his supporters around the world, even if they had misgivings about some of the Tigers' tactics – the government accused the rebels of using civilians as human shields and shooting fleeing civilians as the rebels were cornered in their last refuge in north-eastern Sri Lanka.

Prabhakaran's supporters point out that at one stage he was willing to set aside the military struggle and fight for his goals through political means. In a rare press conference in 2002, when he shed his familiar green fatigues, the short and stout guerrilla leader said he wanted a negotiated political settlement and rejected the label of terrorist organisation, claiming that the Tigers were a liberation movement.

Still he looked distinctly uncomfortable when asked about the assassination of the former Indian prime minister Rajiv Gandhi, who was blown up by a female LTTE suicide bomber in 1991, describing it as a "tragic incident".

Because of such actions, the Tigers found it hard to shake off their reputation for brazen terrorism.

The youngest of four children, Prabhakaran was born on 26 November 1954 in the northern coastal town of Velvettithurai, on the Jaffna peninsula. An average student, he said in an interview that he was fascinated by Napoleon and Alexander the Great. He was also influenced by the lives of two Indian leaders, Subhash Chandra Bose and Bhagat Singh, who fought for independence from Britain.

He became politically active as a teenager, radicalised by what he what he saw as discrimination by the Sinhalese majority against Tamils in politics, employment and education. In the early 1970s, Prabhakaran founded the Tamil Tigers, and in 1975 he was accused of being responsible for the murder of the mayor of Jaffna, the first of many assassinations for which he is blamed.

In 1983, he launched a guerrilla war, setting the stage for one of Asia's longest conflicts. His death should bring the military conflict to a close for now, but Tamil demands – backed by a vocal diaspora – for better treatment from the Sinhalese are unlikely to be silenced.