Prabhakaran’s body found,Lanka celebrates

Meanwhile,TV footage showed a bloated body resembling the rebel leader,still dressed in a dark green camouflage uniform,laid out on a stretcher on the grass. A blue cloth rested on top of his head,apparently to cover a bullet wound.

“A few hours ago,the body of terrorist leader (Velupillai) Prabhakaran,who ruined this country,was found on the battleground,” army chief Gen Sarath Fonseka said. Prabhakaran’s body was identified by former close confidant Vinayagamoorthi Muralitharan,also known as Col Karuna,who defected from the group and is now a government minister,the government said in a statement.

“The body is of Prabhakaran’s… there is no doubt about this… Though I am bit saddened that he is no more but the fact is he never listened to anyone. He always believed that violence is the only solution,” Karuna,who is now a federal minister,told PTI here. “He is the same.. there is no change in his body. He met with this fate for his own deeds,” he said .

Defence spokesman Keheliya Rambukwella said they government might conduct a DNA test as well. He declined to reveal what the plans were for the disposal of the body.

The death of Prabhakaran,the leader of the Tamil Tigers,would make it far more difficult for the rebel movement to re-form and continue its nearly three decade separatist war. Speaking before the announcement,a rebel official abroad denied Prabhakaran was killed and said the Tamil Tiger leader was in a safe place.

With the war on the northern battlefields over,Rajapaksa delivered a victory address to parliament early Tuesday. Recounting how the rebels,known formally as the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam,once controlled a wide swath of the north and east,Rajapaksa said that for the first time in 30 years,the country was unified under its elected government. “Our motherland has been completely liberated from separatist terrorism,” he said,declaring Wednesday a national holiday.

The rebels,listed as terrorists by the US and European Union,had been fighting for a homeland for the mainly Hindu Tamil minority after decades of marginalisation at the hands of governments dominated by the mainly Buddhist Sinhalese majority. Tamils make up nearly 20 per cent of the country’s 20 million people. About 75 per cent are Sinhalese.

Rajapaksa has said in the past he would negotiate some form of power-sharing with the Tamil community following the war and he alluded Tuesday to the need for an agreement. “We must find a homegrown solution to this conflict. That solution should be acceptable to all the communities,” he said.

He also called upon Sri Lankans — especially Tamils — who fled the country to return and help it rebuild.

A rebel official overseas,Selvarasa Pathmanathan,denied Prabhakaran had been killed. “Our beloved leader Velupillai Prabhakaran is alive and safe. He will continue to lead the quest for dignity and freedom for the Tamil people,” he said in a statement posted Tuesday on the rebel-affiliated TamilNet website.