Tamil Tiger eastern base 'taken'

BBC ^ | Wednesday, July 11, 2007 | unattributed

[SunkenCiv]

The Sri Lankan military say they have taken what they are calling the last Tamil Tiger rebel stronghold in the east of the country. A spokesman said troops had re-taken the rugged area of Thoppigala in the district of Batticaloa, which has been in rebel hands for years. The Tamil Tigers still control large swathes of the island's north. Speaking to the BBC in their stronghold at Killinochchi, the rebels admitted the army was now dominant in the east... Correspondents say that the fall of Thoppigala gives the government control over the entire eastern province for the first time in nearly 14 years, if troops can hold on to the base... The Tigers' military spokesman, Rasiah Ilanthirayan, told the BBC their forces who remain in the east had gone into "guerrilla" mode and he said winning the war was not about taking control of real estate... A ceasefire signed between the two sides in 2002 is still in place on paper in Sri Lanka, although it has broken down on the ground. Much of the fighting up until now has taken place in the east.

[SunkenCiv]

Col Karuna says he left the rebel movement because disproportionate numbers of cadres from the east, like him, were being sacrificed on the battlefield, while the rebels from the north controlled the organisation... Prabhakaran was not serious about peace negotiations with the government of Sri Lanka and the now all-but-defunct 2002 ceasefire... What we were told by him was to drag these talks out for about five years, somehow let the time pass by, meanwhile I will purchase arms and we'll be ready for the next stage of fighting. That was his order. I told him many times, 'Let's get a federal kind of solution. This federal settlement will bring an immediate solution for the Tamils.' But he never really accepted that," he said... His newly-formed party, the TMVP, would contest future provincial and general elections, he said. Senior government figures have spoken of him being a possible future chief minister of the Eastern Province. He says he has abandoned the idea of a Tamil Eelam - the Tamil homeland for which the Tigers have fought for decades - and now wants a solution to the ethnic conflict under one united Sri Lanka... "The northern districts and the eastern districts have to have a lot of powers because the northern and the eastern districts are the most affected by war. To build up these places we need a lot of economic power. We have a need to build up the education also, we need a lot of allocations for that as well," he said... "As to Prabhakaran calling me a traitor, I am really not worried. Today, that is what he is. It's because of Prabhakaran, a single man, that all these killings and violence have been taking place," he says. [from "A date with a renegade rebel Tiger"]

[SunkenCiv]

Lots of interesting stuff on the BBC site today. Of course, if they change the headline at the BBC site, the topic may be pulled...

[SunkenCiv]

Tamil Tiger search.

[Wombat101]

All your base are belong to us.

[CarrotAndStick]

The Tamil Tigers are one of the most ruthless and sophisticated guerilla forces that the world has ever seen. If the Muslims learn a thing or two from them, they would start being a very, very dangerous force to reckon with.

[Wally_Kalbacken]

Rasiah Ilanthirayan,
Batticaloa,
Prabhakaran,
Tamil Eelam,
Prabhakaran,
Thoppigala

?

Stop! My head is hurting! It’s like these folks have a different word for evarthang!

[Sherman Logan]

Tom Sowell has a very interesting discussion in one of his books about how the Sinhalese/Tamil conflict got started.

The two lived more or less in peace under the British and for about a decade after independence. (From memory.)

Then a Sinhalese politician started up anti-Tamil rhetoric as a way of getting political control from his Sinhalese opponents. The Tamils retaliated by grouping together in self-defense, and the situation deteriorated from there.

[Strategerist]

They already did. The Tamil Tigers pioneered the development and use of the personal suicide belt bomb.

[SunkenCiv]

Could make for interesting taglines...