Velupillai Prabhakaran and around 2,000 of his supporters are engaged in a desperate battle for survival with the Sri Lankan army… [He] has few options left, but to be continuously on the run; and few places, or countries he can run to. While he could be accidentally captured like Kasab, he would rather swallow a cyanide pill than surrender, so says G Parthasarathy in an leading article in the Times Of India today(11).

His dream of a Tamil Eelam looks father than ever before after losing the precious lives of his followers. With 37 countries, including India, the US, the UK and members of the EU, had declared the LTTE as a terrorist organisation, due to this reason Prabhakaran today faces international isolation.

“Prabhakaran is a psychopath. He started his career with a bloodbath against not only Sinhala officials and civilians, but also fellow Tamil militants and political leaders. He eliminated his principal rival Sabarathinam, leader of the rival Tamil Eelam Liberation Organisation in the 1970s. He has, thereafter, brutally killed scores of moderate Tamil leaders. After assuring Rajiv Gandhi that he would abide by the terms of the 1987 Indo-Sri Lankan accord, he embarked on a killing spree in eastern Sri Lanka, compelling New Delhi to order a crackdown by the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF)”.

Here is the full text of the editorial

National attention is today focused predominantly on the 26/11 terrorist attack. There is little understanding of how India's security environment

is going to be made even more complex by recent developments in Sri Lanka, where an embattled LTTE leader Velupillai Prabhakaran and around 2,000 of his supporters are engaged in a desperate battle for survival with the Sri Lankan army.

Prabhakaran's military strength had significantly declined recently when Karuna, his most influential military commander in the island's eastern province, turned against him. Prabhakaran had earlier killed his most outstanding military commander Mahattya, asserting that the latter was trying to oust him, with Indian support. But Prabhakaran has few options left, but to be continuously on the run; and few places, or countries he can run to. While he could be accidentally captured like Kasab, he would rather swallow a cyanide pill than surrender.

Prabhakaran is a psychopath. He started his career with a bloodbath against not only Sinhala officials and civilians, but also fellow Tamil militants and political leaders. He eliminated his principal rival Sabarathinam, leader of the rival Tamil Eelam Liberation Organisation in the 1970s. He has, thereafter, brutally killed scores of moderate Tamil leaders. After assuring Rajiv Gandhi that he would abide by the terms of the 1987 Indo-Sri Lankan accord, he embarked on a killing spree in eastern Sri Lanka, compelling New Delhi to order a crackdown by the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF).

With 37 countries, including India, the US, the UK and members of the EU, having declared the LTTE a terrorist organisation, Prabhakaran today faces international isolation. With dwindling political support, even within Tamil Nadu, and with western governments having ordered a crackdown on Tamil expatriates remitting money to LTTE front organisations, the financial, diplomatic and military squeeze on Prabhakaran is tightening.

He is now playing a desperate endgame of sowing dissensions against New Delhi in Tamil Nadu. Pro-LTTE websites are now propagating vicious anti-Indian propaganda and Sri Lankan Tamil expatriates are being mobilised to demonstrate against Indian diplomatic missions.

Just after Pranab Mukherjee's visit to Colombo, a pro-LTTE website warned: "India is not only heading for maintaining perpetual trouble in Sri Lanka, but also inviting turmoil in part of its own country". It warned that "the war is not going to be confined to the Island of Sri Lanka, but will be fought involving Tamil Nadu also". There have also been derogatory references to the Congress and its leadership. With general elections due shortly in India, every security precaution needs to be taken to ensure that the LTTE is prevented from disrupting our electoral process as it did in 1991 by the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi.

Security will have to be tightened along our maritime frontiers with Sri Lanka. There is little doubt that apart from its efforts to infiltrate into Tamil Nadu and promote violence and separatism there, the LTTE will establish links with jehadi groups operating out of Pakistan and Bangladesh. These actions will be far less effective if the Sri Lankan army eliminates Prabhakaran.

While the DMK and the AIADMK have drawn a distinction between their distaste for the policies of the LTTE on the one hand, and their concern for the welfare and well-being of Sri Lankan Tamils on the other, students, lawyers and radical groups in Tamil Nadu believe that the LTTE reflects Tamil aspirations in Sri Lanka. Unwarranted killings of Tamil civilians, or persistent denial of legitimate Tamil aspirations by the Sri Lankan government, will provoke strong reactions in Tamil Nadu.

New Delhi has to work with the international community to address Tamil aspirations. Sadly, past Sri Lankan efforts to forge a consensus for a political settlement have failed. It would be important for Sri Lanka to implement the provisions of the "Constitution of the Republic of Sri Lanka Amendment Bill" of August 3, 2000, and effectively end human rights violations of innocent Tamils. The implementation of this Bill, together with enforcement of the 13th Amendment of the Sri Lankan Constitution, 1988, will largely address Tamil concerns. Tamil would join Sinhala as an official language of the country and there would be a merger of the northern and eastern provinces with a single provincial administration headed by a chief minister. The merger will remain in force till a referendum in the eastern province is held to decide whether its people want a separate province.

Recent developments in Nepal, Bangladesh and Maldives have shown that democratic change is best effected when India works together with the US, the EU and Japan, who are major aid donors, to address issues of democratic freedoms. With Sri Lankan armed forces surrounding Kilinochchi, the operational capital of the Tamil Tigers, the US government said: "The US does not advocate that the government of Sri Lanka negotiate with the LTTE.

However, we do believe that a broad range of Tamil voices and opinion must now be brought into the political process, to reach a political solution that Tamils inside and outside Sri Lanka see as legitimate".

The major aid donors and India share a common interest in democratic freedoms, stability and ethnic harmony in a united and pluralistic Sri Lanka.