The rise and fall of P'karan
[The Island editorial]
Prabhakaran's thirty-four-year-old killing spree has
taken him nowhere. He began dreaming of Eelam in the early 1970s and cut
his teeth on violence in 1975 by murdering the Jaffna Mayor Alfred
Duraiappah in cold blood. But, today like Ozymandias' empire, nothing
remains of Prabhakaran's 'separate state'. His Eelam project has
manifestly come a cropper. Worse, he is shamelessly hiding behind
innocent men, women and children and driving his cadres to suicide so
that he could live another day or two.
It is a supreme irony that the man who rejected out of
hand President Chandrika Kumaratunga's offer of the entire Northern
Province for a period of ten years without any elections in 1994 and
went on to claim that he had established a de facto separate state has
been reduced to a fugitive turned refugee dying many times before his
death.
Not a single square inch of land is now under his
control!
No country could have made a better contribution to
the world's war on terror than Sri Lanka. Her model military campaign
has brought 'the world's most ruthless terrorist organisation' to its
knees. This little country has, in her small way, demonstrated to the
world that terrorism is not so intractable as it is made out to be and
it can be effectively neutralized militarily to create an environment
for causes of a conflict to be eliminated politically.
This war would have been over months ago if the armed
forces had smashed through the LTTE bastions unleashing hell all around
with no concern for civilians' safety and welfare. Troops, to their
credit, went out of their way risking as they did their life and limb to
minimize collateral damage and to carry out humanitarian operations
sapping their energy.
The armed forces won't march on the no-fire zone,
which is, in fact, a misnomer as the LTTE is launching attacks from that
area. Prabhakaran may get a breather there but he must be prepared for
the inevitable. The army has proved since the Mavil Aru battle (2006)
that it knows more than one way to skin a cat!
Neither Prabhakaran nor his propaganda hirelings can
bluff his combatants any longer. The beleaguered cadres know it's
curtains. During the past 72 hours or so, the army has recovered over
450 bodies of hardcore Tigers including several 'commanders'. These
facts cannot be hidden from the remaining fighters. Prabhakaran is very
likely to experience mass desertions and a popular uprising within the
next few days. Civilians have already set an LTTE 'police station' on
fire in the safe zone and severely beaten a Tiger 'police man' who
entered a welfare centre disguised as an ordinary person.
It is only wishful thinking that Prabhakaran will be
able to escape. If he has an alternative to facing a bullet or tasting
cyanide it is surrender. He has no other way of saving his cadres who
made the mistake of reposing their blind faith in him. He can prove that
he is not totally devoid of some leadership qualities, if any, by giving
himself up. And fast!
Courtesy: The Island |
