Word: war
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...decades to think about how his end would come. It could have come from the cyanide capsule that he - like many Tiger fighters - wore around his neck, a pledge to commit suicide in case of capture by the Sri Lankan army. He had been fighting a war for an independent homeland, or eelam, for the island's Tamil minority since 1983, and the army had pursued him throughout the jungles of the north and east for decades. In 2002, during a press conference near the beginning of a four-year cease-fire, Prabhakaran revealed that he had asked his aides...
...which his face is clearly visible. For the generation of Sri Lankans who have grown up knowing only a nation in conflict, the image of Prabhakaran has loomed over their lives, either as enemy or savior. More than 70,000 people have been killed in 26 years of war in Sri Lanka, and there are those who will not believe the elusive figure is gone until they see proof. (Read "Behind Colombo's P.R. Battle Against the Tamil Tigers...
...with the assassination of Alfred Duraiappah, then mayor of the northern city of Jaffna. A group calling itself the Tamil New Tigers, of which Prabhakaran was a leader, claimed responsibility. The next year, Prabhakaran founded the LTTE. What began as a guerrilla movement escalated into full-scale civil war in July 1983. The LTTE killed 13 Sri Lankan army troops in an ambush in Jaffna. In retaliation, as many as 3,000 Tamils, mainly in Colombo, were killed in several days of violence at the end of July. Human-rights groups and other researchers say that Tamil homes and businesses...
...control of the north, secured by several thousand soldiers. But the transformation from running a guerrilla force to a conventional army may have been the leader's undoing. The nation's current President, Mahinda Rajapaksa, took office in 2005 and vowed to pursue a military solution. In a conventional war against an army many times its size, the LTTE was sure to be outmatched, and eventually it was. Prabhakaran never again appeared before the press after 2002, but he continued to release photos and speeches every year. "With its greed for land, Sinhalam [Sri Lanka] has entered a militaristic path...
...Prabhakaran was correct. The LTTE had been banned by the U.S., the European Union and several other countries as a terrorist organization, and Rajapaksa pursued what he called a "war on terror" against the LTTE despite the repeated concerns of the U.N. and other groups about human-rights violations and civilian casualties inflicted by both sides. More than 220,000 Tamil civilians are still being held in the north in internment camps, and it is not clear when they will be allowed to go home. The U.N. estimates that 40,000 to 60,000 people are en route...