Tamil Tigers warn new president

[srilanka1998]

Tamil Tiger rebels have warned the winner of Sri Lanka's presidential election, Mahinda Rajapakse, of the dangers of any move to break the country's three-year-old ceasefire.

"If they try to use military means to occupy our land or wage a conflict it will have negative implications for the other side," the leader of the rebels' political wing, SP Thamilselvan, told the BBC.

"We hope that they will understand the reality."

In his victory speech in Colombo, Mr Rajapakse promised to bring "an honourable peace to the country".

How he aims to do that is not clear. In his campaign he criticised his main rival for making too many concessions to the Tamil Tigers.

'Try to understand'

Mr Thamilselvan said that Mr Rajapakse was adopting the wrong strategy in promising to take a hard line with the Tigers.

The Sinhala leadership, he said, should try to understand and address the political aspirations of the Tamil people.

For his election campaign, Mr Rajapakse secured the support of the hardline Sinhala nationalist JVP and the Buddhist-clergy led JHU party.

Both these parties have been urging the government and the public to take a tougher stance against the Tigers.

Mr Thamilselvan said he understood the promises made by the Sinhala politicians during the elections but now they should try to understand the ground situation.

"Whoever comes to power they should try to address the political aspirations of the Tamils."

Sri Lanka's civil war has left some 64,000 people dead and a million displaced.

The Tigers instigated a ceasefire in 2002 but pulled out of peace talks the following year. The sticking point has been the issue of interim autonomy for the Tamils while a final peace agreement is reached.

The 2002 ceasefire came while the defeated presidential candidate, Ranil Wickramasinghe, was prime minister.

There was widespread apathy among Tamils in the north and east of the island ahead of the poll. On the day, very few voted.

Those within Tamil Tiger-controlled territory had to travel to the borders of those areas where the polling booths were set up.

Those that did want to vote faced roadblocks in some places and there were reports of intimidation.

The Tigers said they were not interested in who would win the presidential race, saying that both the main presidential candidates had used the peace issue to win votes.

'Not sure'

In the northern town of Jaffna, turnout was put at only 0.014% of more than 700,000 registered voters - the lowest ever anywhere in the country.


On polling day Jaffna was like a ghost town, with shops shut and almost no traffic on the road.

On Friday supporters of Mr Rajapakse stayed indoors, despite his victory.

While Jaffna residents heave a sigh of relief as there was no major election related violence the new political reality is also slowly sinking in.

"We are not happy that Mahinda Rajapakse has won the elections. If the Tamils here had voted then Ranil Wickramasinghe could have won," said one resident who did not want to be identified.

While many here feel that they had to stay away from the polls because of the Tamil Tigers, they feel sorry for Mr Wickramasinghe, who was instrumental in signing the ceasefire agreement with the Tamil rebels in February 2002.

According to one Jaffna University student, following the 2002 ceasefire agreement, security measures were relaxed greatly, benefiting civilians.

"Now with hardline parties behind the president we are not sure what will happen to us once again," he said.

 

[srilanka1998]

The enigma of Prabhakaran

The enigma of Prabhakaran

From a secret jungle base in the north-east of Sri Lanka, Velupillai Prabhakaran heads the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

He has a reputation as a fearless and ruthless guerrilla leader, and under his leadership, the LTTE, or Tamil Tigers, have become a highly-disciplined and highly-motivated guerrilla force.

His organisation shows no sign of being defeated militarily by the Sri Lankan army, even though it is vastly outnumbered in its struggle for a Tamil homeland.

Mr Prabhakaran is reputed to wear a cyanide capsule around his neck, to be swallowed in the event of his capture.

He expects the same dedication from his troops, many of whom the Sri Lankan Government says are either women or children.

Enigmatic figure

Mr Prabhakaran inspires conflicting emotions in Sri Lanka - which reflect the divisions between the Sinhala and Tamil communities.

To his followers, he is a freedom fighter struggling for Tamil emancipation from Sinhala oppression. To his adversaries he is a megalomaniac with a brutal disregard for human life.

It is difficult to verify either viewpoint, because the Tamil Tiger leader seldom gives interviews to journalists, who are in any case restricted by the government from going into areas controlled by his forces.

His movements between his various jungle hideouts are the subject of great secrecy, and he is reported to have narrowly avoided assassination or capture on numerous occasions.

Born on 26 November 1954, in the northern coastal town of Velvettithurai, on the Jaffna peninsula, Velupillai Prabhakaran is the youngest of four children.

He was an average student, shy and bookish. He said in one of his rare interviews that he was fascinated by Napoleon and Alexander the Great, devouring books on their lives.

He was also influenced by the lives of two Indian leaders, Subhash Chandra Bose and Bhagat Singh, both of whom were involved in the armed struggle for independence from Britain.

Accused of killings

Angered as a teenager by what he saw as discrimination against Tamils in politics, employment and education, he began attending political meetings and practising martial arts.

He soon became heavily involved in the Tamil protest movement, and in 1975 was accused of being responsible for the murder of the mayor of Jaffna.

That assassination was one of the first killings carried out by the burgeoning Tamil nationalist movement.

He was instrumental in the foundation of the Tamil Tigers around that time.

The killing of the mayor of Jaffna is not the only high-profile murder for which Mr Prabhakaran is the prime suspect.

He has also been accused by India of playing a key role in the murder of the former prime minister, Rajiv Gandhi, in 1991.

Mr Gandhi was killed by a suicide bomber who, the Indians say, was acting on orders from Mr Prabhakaran.

It is alleged that Mr Prabhakaran wanted to avenge the Indian prime minister's decision in the mid-1980s to deploy Indian peace-keeping troops in Sri Lanka.

Despite the conflicting views surrounding Mr Prabhakaran, there is one point on which both the Sinhala and Tamil communities agree: he is the dominating force in the rebel movement, and without his consent peace in Sri Lanka will never be attainable.