Tamils admit defeat in 25-year war
The Tamil Tiger rebels admitted defeat in their 25-year-old war with the Sri Lankan government today, offering to lay down their guns as government forces swept across their last strongholds in the northeast.
The government rejected the last-ditch call for a ceasefire, saying the thousands of civilians trapped in the war zone all have escaped to safety and there was no longer any reason to stop the battle.
With the war nearing its end, Sri Lankans poured into the streets in spontaneous celebration.
President Mahinda Rajapaksa scheduled a nationally televised news conference for Tuesday morning at Parliament, where he was expected to tell the nation the war was over.
The fate of the Tamil Tigers’ top commanders remained unclear, including the whereabouts of the reclusive rebel leader Velupillai Prabhakaran.
A senior military official said troops found the bodies of several rebel fighters who had committed suicide today when troops surrounded them.
The bodies were suspected of being Prabhakaran and his deputies, but the military was still trying to confirm their identities, the official said.
The rebels, who once controlled a wide swathe of the north, have been routed by government forces in recent months.
Today Tamil Tiger suicide bombers targeted troops clearing out the last pockets of rebel resistance in the war zone. At least 70 rebels were killed trying to flee, the military said.
Hours later the rebel group offered to lay down arms, saying it was acting to protect the wounded in the war zone.
“This battle has reached its bitter end,” rebel official Selvarasa Pathmanathan said in a statement.
“It is our people who are dying now from bombs, shells, illness and hunger. We cannot permit any more harm to befall them. We remain with one last choice – to remove the last weak excuse of the enemy for killing our people. We have decided to silence our guns.”
Pathmanathan said the bodies of thousands of dead and wounded civilians lay on the battlefield.
Media Minister Anura Yapa dismissed the appeal, saying government forces had rescued all the civilians.
“We are looking after those people. We want to free this country from the terrorist LTTE,” he said, referring to the group by its formal name, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.
With most journalists and aid workers barred from the war zone, it was not possible to verify the accounts of either side.
