Word: tamil
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Velupillai Prabhakaran, 54, the leader of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) who was declared killed by the Sri Lankan government on May 18, had decades to think about how his end would come. It could have come from the cyanide capsule that he - like many Tiger fighters - wore around his neck, a pledge to commit suicide in case of capture by the Sri Lankan army. He had been fighting a war for an independent homeland, or eelam, for the island's Tamil minority since 1983, and the army had pursued him throughout the jungles of the north...
...unquestioned leader of a de facto government that controlled more than 15,000 sq km of territory in the north and east of Sri Lanka and had its own system of taxes, roads and courts. By the final weeks of conflict, he was believed to be using thousands of Tamil civilians as human shields against the advance of the Sri Lankan military. At the time of his death, 250 core LTTE members stood with him. Few will mourn the end of a man who ruthlessly ordered the murder of his opponents, demanded absolute fealty and pioneered the use of suicide...
...over their lives, either as enemy or savior. More than 70,000 people have been killed in 26 years of war in Sri Lanka, and there are those who will not believe the elusive figure is gone until they see proof. (Read "Behind Colombo's P.R. Battle Against the Tamil Tigers...
...anger against the military and remembered an eighth-grade teacher who exhorted students to take up arms against it. "It is he who impressed on me the need for armed struggle and persuaded me to put my trust in it," Prabhakaran said. Jaffna was then considered the heart of Tamil culture and literature in Sri Lanka, and also the center of the growing Tamil nationalist movement, which called for greater autonomy for Tamil-majority areas to protest what they considered discrimination against Tamils by Sri Lanka's Sinhala-speaking majority. The most radical groups wanted complete independence and struck...
...next for the Tigers? The government has raised the possibility of the remnants of the LTTE regrouping into a diffuse guerrilla operation. But without its top leadership, a personality-driven movement like the LTTE is unlikely to last long. It could also continue in some form in the Tamil diaspora, though its reason for being - the creation of a Tamil homeland, or eelam - is essentially destroyed. The leadership of what remains of the Tigers - mainly its international network - is likely to be assumed by Selvarasa Pathmanathan, who now heads the global operations but who was better known as the Tiger...