Sri Lanka's Civil War is finally over. The government had pushed rebel Tamil Tiger forces into a tiny, one and half square mile patch of jungle in northeast Sri Lanka and was slowly squeezing them dry. This morning brings word that rebel leader Prabhakaran has been killed by the government- and if rebel forces haven't surrendered yet, then they're about to be overrun or just mowed under.
It's been thirty years since the Civil War began and it's killed at least 70,000 people. If there were mistakes made by the LTTE, the worst was probably their involvement in the assassination of Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, which cost them critical support in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu and amongst Tamil communities abroad. The assassination was in response to India placing peace-keeping troops in the north of the island, but the LTTE made a huge blunder by assassinating Gandhi and an even bigger one by not taking advantage of their tactical advantage in the early 90s to force a settlement on their terms.
Prabhakaran, however, had other ideas: pushing for a completely independent homeland for the Tamils-- which effectively put the kybosh on any negotiated settlement and eventually, the LTTE paid the price for it.
As the dust clears, we have to reflect on a couple of things: first, the death of Prabhakaran is something that took the Sri Lankan government thirty years to do. At one point in time this man was one of the most feared terrorists on the face of the planet- even today, one could have easily slipped him in behind Osama Bin Laden as one of the most wanted men on Earth- yet he was never taken alive. This, to me, underlines the shortcomings of a conventional military approach in dealing with insurgencies. Sometimes, sending in the troops is the best way, other times you might get more mileage by getting an agent into the LTTE and getting close to the guy with a gun. (I'm sure the Sri Lankan government did have a covert effort underway, but it obviously wasn't as successful as the conventional military approach eventually turned out to be.)
Secondly, that even with the Civil War being over, the proximate causes have yet to be resolved. The Tamils are still going to be pissed off, oppressed minorities that resent the Sinhalese majority- in order for this victory to be meaningful at all, the Sri Lankan government needs to be magnanimous in victory. You killed them with your soldiers, now win by killing them with kindness. That's going to be the true test of this victory- can it produce a lasting peace?
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