Sri Lanka's rebel leader 'killed'

[Netto Azure]

Sri Lanka's rebel leader 'killed'
End of the road

The leader of Sri Lanka's Tamil Tiger rebels, Velupillai Prabhakaran, has been killed, the military says.
It said Prabhakaran - along with two of his top commanders - had died while trying to flee from the last rebel-held patch of jungle in the north-east.
The military said it had crushed the Tamil Tigers' 26-year insurgency, as people around the country celebrated.
No photos of Prabhakaran's body have been released. The army says it is working to identify it among the dead.
The claims cannot be verified as reporters are barred from the war zone.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8055015.stm#map
European Union foreign ministers meeting in Brussels condemned civilian casualties and called for an inquiry into alleged war crimes by both sides.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's office said he was planning to visit Sri Lanka, without providing any further details.
UN humanitarian aid chief John Holmes said the priority was to evacuate all the civilians caught up in the fighting.
"Obviously, we're relieved that the fighting is finished and hope that all the civilians are indeed out of that zone, and indeed are heading towards safety, but it's hard for us to be absolutely sure about that for the moment," he said.

Well....one less problem to worry about?

 

[Nicoleta01]

I say Congrats for the Sri Lankan government in (so far) ending the war as victors. 26 long years of fighting appear to be coming to an end....

 

[C7CACorncas12]

Well....one less problem to worry about?

Amen to that. Investor's Business Daily has pointed the clarity behind this victory rather nicely, I should say. (Note: The emphasis is mine.):

Meanwhile, in Sri Lanka, similar clarity was achieved with the Sri Lankan army's resounding victory over the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. The Tigers are a terrorist group that has been plaguing the island state for 26 years, making vague demands for a Tamil "homeland" in the north.

In the course of their war, they killed politicians, military men and bystanders in a war whose casualty count topped 100,000. They also developed the suicide bomb as a weapon and pioneered a terrorist "navy."

Against these atrocities, the Sri Lankan government had been told by the international community to engage in one peace process after another to appease them. The latest was a demand from the United Nations for a cease-fire.

This time, no. The Sri Lankan military defied U.N. and NGO do-gooders who had nothing but criticism and went ahead and did what was right for the nation: It destroyed the enemy.
In a classic finale, the army on Monday blew away the entire terrorist leadership in a hail of gunfire even as the LTTE menaced it with a column of 70 suicide bombers at their advance. Charging ahead anyway, the Sri Lankans scored a direct hit on Velupillai Prabhakaran, founder and longtime leader of the terrorists, and announced the war was over.

"This battle has reached its bitter end," the terrorists' "foreign minister" announced as their ragged remnants surrendered. Better than any "peace process," the finale ended three decades of suicide bombings, village takeovers, and terrorist shakedowns, along with the broader lack of investment, war inflation, corruption and other indignities Sri Lankans have endured — and hated — for decades.

Not surprisingly, Sri Lankans celebrated the war's end in a way they hadn't with so-called cease-fires: with dancing, singing and throwing fireworks in the streets of Colombo. A monster gone, the nation can now dream of moving onto the same bright economic path as India.

Investor's Business Daily: Two Big Victories In South Asia

Good riddance to those terrorists, and perhaps now, Sri Lanka will be ready to join India in the world.

 

[the gadfly]

Now let's see how the majority Sinhalese treat the minority Tamils. I hope it's better than that which launched the Tamil Tigers.