Lanka TV shows body of Tamil Tiger leader

COLOMBO (AFP) - Sri Lankan television broadcast images Tuesday of what it said was the body of Tamil Tiger
leader Velupillai Prabhakaran, as the island’s President hailed his army’s victory over the rebels.
The images were shown after the Tigers claimed the guerrilla leader was still alive and well, and said they would
continue fighting for a separate Tamil homeland despite President Mahinda Rajapakse’s call to unite the nation.
The video showed the upper section of a corpse which was dressed in camouflage fatigues. The back of the
head, which was resting on a bloodstained newspaper, appeared to be missing.
The face was intact, with the eyes wide open, and bore a clear resemblance to the stocky, moustachioed rebel
leader.
“We are a govt that defeated terrorism at a time when others told us that it was not possible,” Rajapakse said in
a nationally televised address to parliament. “The writ of the state now runs across every inch of our territory.”
Under international pressure to reach out to the Tamil minority, Rajapakse vowed that a political solution to the
island’s deep-rooted ethnic divisions would be found. “All should live with equal rights. They should live without
any fear or doubt,” he said. “Let us all be united.”
His speech had been shadowed by a Tiger statement insisting that Prabhakaran was not dead and that his fight
- which he began in 1972 - would go on. “Our beloved leader is alive and safe. He will continue to lead the quest
for dignity and freedom for the Tamil people,” the rebels’ international relations chief Selvarasa Pathmanathan
said on the pro-rebel Tamilnet website.
Pathmanathan went on to accuse the govt and military of “crimes against humanity,” saying senior LTTE leaders
had been shot dead after being invited to negotiate a surrender.