Fate of Tiger chief a mystery as rebels routed

Scouring a tiny beach and lagoon peninsula in Sri Lanka's northeast are thousands of government troops, examining the faces of the dead, hunting for hidden bunkers under the jungle floor.

They are looking for any sign of the leader of the defeated Tamil Tiger rebels, Velupillai Prabhakaran, who built up what was once the world's most lethal guerrilla organisation.

And without him in a body bag or behind bars, the island's bitter ethnic war cannot be considered won.

But there have been no confirmed sightings of the mustachioed, portly warlord for months, even by senior rebel figures or their family members captured by the army in the dying days of the conflict.

"They say he is still there, leading the fight. But we haven't found anybody, not a single person, who has actually seen him," a Sri Lankan defence official told AFP on condition of anonymity.

With intelligence so thin, speculation has been rife.

Defence sources say on Friday night, a huge fireball was seen inside the jungle area where the once formidable Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) army has been staging its last stand.

The theory doing the rounds in Colombo's corridors of power is that Prabhakaran, no longer able to flee by boat, decided to blow himself up along with his top lieutenants – ensuring his body is never found and his aura lives on.

And on Saturday, the defence ministry said the rebels, notorious for wearing cyanide capsules around their necks so as not to be taken alive, were planning a "mass suicide".

But Prabhakaran may also be alive and still on the island, in hiding, or he may have long fled. After all, he has been living underground since 1972, the year he started his bloody campaign for a separate state.

Last week, advancing troops said they found a huge underwater "metal home" built out of iron stripped off a beached container ship and designed to be submerged underwater off the coast as a secret survival capsule.

The advance in the LTTE's former mini-state has also uncovered a DIY submarine, a multi-storey underground bunker complete with air conditioning, a taxidermied big cat and a bottle of cognac, as well as light aircraft parts but no plane.

Defence officials say Prabhakaran's "ruthless megalomania" included the use two body doubles -- meaning that if he is found, DNA tests may be necessary to make sure they have the right man.

A more mundane possibility is that he simply hopped on a speedboat earlier this year, linked up with a bigger boat that is part of the LTTE's reputed illegal shipping empire, and is floating somewhere on the high seas.

He may also have fled to nearby India, where in Tamil Nadu state there are even top politicians who are openly supportive of the LTTE – even though Prabhakaran is wanted in connection with the 1991 assassination of former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi.

Other places cited as possible destinations are the small coastal fishing communities along the coasts of Thailand and Malaysia, where police have been put on alert on several occasions in the past few months.

According to the LTTE's co-founder Dharmalingam Sithadthan – now a mainstream politician who lives in Colombo – the battle against the LTTE has been won, but the war will not be over until Prabhakaran is captured or confirmed dead.

"The conventional capability of the LTTE has been completely destroyed and they will never be able to control territory in Sri Lanka again," he told AFP.

"But if Prabhakaran is not found, then it is not a complete victory. If Prabhakaran is killed... then we have a real chance for peace because he was the main obstacle to any political settlement."

 

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