The man with the cyanide pill

Font Size

Print

Feedback

Email

Discuss

: He is one of the world’s most elusive guerrilla leader, Vellupillai Prabhakaranhas spearheaded the LTTE and led the battle against the Sri Lankan army since 1972. The son of a government employee, the 54-year-old began fighting against Sri Lankan government mistreatment of his Tamil minority in 1972.

He initially called his group the Tamil New Tigers. Although he caught the attention of authorities shortly thereafter, his notoriety grew after he killed the pro-government mayor of the northern city of Jaffna in 1975. A year later, he changed his growing insurgent group’s name to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). The goal of the LTTE was to form a separate state for Tamils called “Eelam”, homeland in Tamil.

The LTTE quickly became the most brutally efficient of several groups formed to fight against what they saw as mistreatment by successive governments, all led by the Sinhalese ethnic majority since independence from Britain in 1948. By the time Sri Lanka’s war got underway in 1983, Prabhakaran was already beginning to eliminate rival groups and within several years had made sure his was the only show in town.

Guerrilla tactics

He is said to be tremendously persuasive and has built up his mystique as a master guerrilla for decades. He is known by friends as “Thamby”, little brother in Tamil. His single-minded devotion to his cause helped him create a cult of personality so strong followers willingly carry out suicide bombings on his orders. Annually on his birthday (November 24), Prabhakaran gives a speech setting out the year’s agenda. The LTTE calls the event its martyrs day.

Dead or alive

Highly unlikely alive. Prabhakaran wears a vial of cyanide to be taken in case of capture, and demands the same of his followers. According to an authoritative biography, “Inside an Elusive Mind” written by Indian journalist MS Narayan Swamy, Prabhakaran has in the past told his bodyguards to douse him in petrol and burn him alive if he was about to be captured.

Whereabouts

The military last month said witnesses who fled the war zone said he was still there. The LTTE peace secretariat head Seevaratnam Puleedevan said Prabhakaran was on the battlefield.