Tamil Tiger leader was seen as ruthless innovator
- From: Chim <ChimS1@xxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 19 May 2009 02:45:15 -0700 (PDT)
Tamil Tiger leader was seen as ruthless innovator
Sri Lanka says it killed Velupillai Prabhakaran, the man who molded
the now-defeated rebels in his image. The militant group’s tactics
such as suicide bombings were copied by others.
By Mark Magnier
11:20 PM PDT, May 18, 2009
Reporting from New Delhi -- Reclusive Tamil Tiger chief Velupillai
Prabhakaran had narrowly escaped death several times during the last
three decades even as his obsession with security ensured that untold
other assassins never got close.
But on Monday, in northern Sri Lanka, the chubby, mustached 54-year-
old leader's time ran out. According to government reports, he was
killed along with two top aides as they tried to escape in an
ambulance during the final throes of fighting between the Sri Lankan
military and the ethnic militant group he led.
The government of Sri Lanka quickly declared victory in its quarter-
century war against the Tigers, who sought a homeland for marginalized
Tamils in the Sinhalese-majority nation.
A pro-rebel website denied that Prabhakaran was dead.
During his epic career as a rebel, Prabhakaran created one of the most
ruthless and sophisticated insurgencies, with many of the tactics he
pioneered becoming standard procedure for militant groups around the
world.
Along the way, he refined the use of suicide bombings, offered
tactical inspiration to Al Qaeda and Hamas and ordered up the
assassination of political leaders, including onetime Indian Prime
Minister Rajiv Gandhi.
As news of the leader's death spread over state television and in
government text messages, civilians in the capital city of Colombo
danced, sang and lighted fireworks.
But some within the Tamil community, which accounts for about 12% of
the island nation's 20 million people, were wary that nationalist
triumphalism could spark acts of vengeance against them -- and felt
they had lost their only defender against state brutality, as flawed
as he was.
Merciless, focused and innovative, Prabhakaran built the Tigers in his
image. The group grew in less than a decade from little more than a
street gang into one of the world's most successful militant
operations.
At its peak, the group controlled one-third of Sri Lanka, had its own
sizable army and navy, a nascent air force, courts, tax collectors,
hospitals, smuggling operations and liaison offices in 54 countries.
Its innovations included the use of suicide vests lined with C-4
plastic explosives, recruiting female suicide bombers and perfecting
political terror.
Tiger naval operations reportedly inspired Al Qaeda's 2000 attack on
the U.S. destroyer Cole. Until the American-led invasion of Iraq in
2003, the Tigers, known formally as the Liberation Tigers of Tamil
Eelam, reportedly carried out two-thirds of all suicide attacks in the
world.
Ironically, Prabhakaran's obsessive focus and unwavering drive for an
independent Tamil state may have left his people worse off than they
were when he launched the Tigers in the 1970s. "When you look at it
from a historical standpoint, it was kind of pointless," said Anita
Pratap, author of "Island of Blood" and one of the few people to
interview Prabhakaran. "There were so many lives lost, so many Tamils
paid such a high price. It was such a tragic loss."
Analysts said Prabhakaran was a brilliant military tactician. But even
as other militant groups such as the Irish Republican Army turned in
their guns for a place at the negotiating table, his refusal to
compromise ultimately left Tamils with little in the way of a lasting
political legacy.
Prabhakaran, the youngest of four children, was born Nov. 26, 1954,
into a lower-caste family in Velvettithurai on the Jaffna peninsula.
The son of a government clerk, he was remembered as a shy, quiet and
unassuming high school dropout who loved Clint Eastwood films, Chinese
food and books on military strategy.
He became politically aware during the 1960s and '70s, emerging as one
of thousands of Tamil youths in northern Sri Lanka radicalized as a
result of violence and discrimination at the hands of the majority
Sinhalese.
He launched the Tigers in 1972, putting himself squarely on the map in
1975 by gunning down the Tamil mayor of Jaffna, Alfred Duraiappah, in
broad daylight for what he saw as the politician's cozying up to the
Sri Lankan government. Prabhakaran explained later that he felt it was
important to act rather than harbor illusions.
The military fight against the government kicked off in 1983 when the
Tigers launched a land-mine attack that killed 13 soldiers. Over the
next quarter of a century, the group staged hundreds of attacks,
killing civilians, members of the military, government officials and
even the country's head of state. Along the way, he purged many rivals
in a conflict that has taken more than 70,000 lives.
Prabhakaran recruited Tamils who had become alienated by the brutality
of the army and government, and he engendered loyalty, fear and
commitment. He ordered cadres to cut their personal ties, abstain from
sex and carry cyanide around their necks to avoid being captured
alive.
Beate Arnestad, a Norwegian filmmaker granted rare permission to make
a 2007 documentary about young female Tiger suicide bombers, said
these children of war saw Pra- bhakaran as a father figure protecting
them against a malicious, vindictive state.
"They had no access to any other information," Arnestad said. "It was
very easy to brainwash them. They had not experienced anything but
war, and only saw people as enemies or friends."
From an early age, Prabhakaran was obsessed with secrecy -- on leavinghome at 18 he reportedly burned all family photos of himself -- and
maintained extensive safeguards as the organization grew.
"He was obviously paranoid about security," said M.K. Narayan Swamy,
author of the biography "Inside an Elusive Mind." "And for justifiable
reasons."
Prabhakaran rarely slept in the same jungle hide-out two nights in a
row, employed a three-tiered bodyguard system, hired doubles and
removed or killed those who displayed even a hint of disloyalty.
Author Pratap said each of her pens was taken apart, every book
carefully scrutinized and the venue changed three times before she met
him.
In January 1984, the rebel leader met Mathivathani Erambu, a college
student on a hunger strike for Tamil rights in Jaffna, and they
married later that year. By most accounts he was a devoted family man,
and the couple had two sons and a daughter. The oldest son and close
aide, Charles Anthony, 23, was reported by the government to have been
killed Sunday a few hours before his father. TV footage showed the
younger Prabhakaran's body with his right eye blown out.
Considered a hero to some, Velupillai Prabhakaran has also been dubbed
a megalomaniac, a military genius and "lord of the jungle." The Tigers
have earned a place on the terrorist lists of the U.S., the European
Union and India.
Those who met Prabhakaran say he was soft-spoken, even effeminate, in
spite of his carefully cultivated personality cult, which included
omnipresent Rambo-style posters in Tamil-held territory. Pratap said
the first time she met him, she mistook him for an aide and thought he
resembled a "petty businessman."
As they started talking, she said she realized he was also one of the
most focused people she had ever met, and that he was absolutely
convinced that the means justified the end.
He was also vindictive, often waiting years to kill someone over a
real or perceived slight. He seemed particularly threatened by Tamil
groups that favored accommodation. "He killed two personal friends of
mine, moderate Tamils," said Praful Bidwai, an independent Indian
terrorism analyst. "There was absolutely no threat."
When the army overran one of his bunkers and a nearby villa in
February, it claimed to have found a stuffed tiger, a bottle of
cognac, a paintball gun and a shirt from English department store
Marks & Spencer, all belonging to him.
Prabhakaran had his share of close calls over the years. In 1972, a
bomb he and others were making exploded prematurely, injuring his leg.
In 1987 he was close to being captured by Sri Lankan forces, only to
have the Indian leadership rescue him for political reasons.
Three years later, the Indians nearly captured him only to see then-
Sri Lankan President Ranasinghe Premadasa help him as a way to kick
Indian "peacekeepers" off the island. A few years later, Prabhakaran
had Premadasa assassinated.
His biggest miscalculations, analysts said, were the assassination of
Gandhi in 1991, the failure to pursue peace talks after 2002 and
calling on Tamils to boycott elections in 2005, leading to a narrow
victory for President Mahinda Rajapaksa.
Rajapaksa proceeded to wage the successful military campaign that
culminated in bringing down the Tigers.
"I would prefer to die in honor rather than being caught alive by the
enemy," Prabhakaran said in a 1984 interview.
On Monday, according to the government, he got his wish.
mark.magnier@xxxxxxxxxxx
Pavitra Ramaswamy in The Times' New Delhi Bureau contributed to this
report.
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