Our only regrets are for the lives lost and that we could not hold out for longer' by Selvarasa Pathmanathan, the Tigers' chief of international relations, brought an end to the armed conflict. Prabhakaran's reported death and the announcement 'We have decided to silence our guns. His 12-year-old second son was executed a short time later. His son Charles Anthony was also killed in fighting with the Sri Lankan Army, and his wife's and daughter's bodies were reportedly found by the Sri Lankan army the Sri Lankan government later denied the report. Prabhakaran, who had said, “I would prefer to die in honour rather than being caught alive by the enemy”, was killed in fighting with the Sri Lankan Army in May 2009. Peace talks eventually broke down, and the Sri Lanka Army launched a military campaign to defeat the LTTE in 2006. By then, the LTTE, which came to be known as the Tamil Tigers, controlled large swathes of land in the north and east of the country, running a de facto state with Prabhakaran as its leader. After years of fighting, including the intervention of the Indian Army ( IPKF), the conflict was halted after international mediation in 2001. This ambush, along with the subsequent pogrom that resulted in the deaths of thousands of Tamil civilians, is generally considered the start of the Sri Lankan Civil War. įounded in 1976, the LTTE rocketed to prominence in 1983 after it ambushed a patrol of the Sri Lanka Army outside Jaffna, resulting in the deaths of 13 soldiers. Considered the heart of Tamil culture and literature in Sri Lanka, Jaffna was concentrated with growing Tamil nationalism, which called for autonomy for Tamils to protest the discrimination against them by the Sinhalese-dominated Sri Lanka government and Sinhalese civilians since Sri Lanka gained independence from Britain in 1948. Prabhakaran was the youngest of four children, born in Valvettithurai, on Sri Lanka's Jaffna peninsula's northern coast.

The LTTE waged war in Sri Lanka for more than 25 years, to create an independent state for the Sri Lankan Tamil people. Later in March 2009, the Sri Lankan Army discovered photographs of Vaiko and Prabhakaran when the army overran areas that were under Tigers' occupation, creating quite a flutter in political circles.Velupillai Prabhakaran ( listen (US English) Tamil: வேலுப்பிள்ளை பிரபாகரன் Tamil pronunciation:, 26 November 1954 – 18 May 2009) was a Sri Lankan Tamil guerrilla and the founder and leader of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), a militant organization that sought to create an independent Tamil state in the north and east of Sri Lanka.

Vaiko was arrested in March this year for attempting to wave black flags at External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee. Last October, he spent 14 days in judicial custody for another pro-LTTE speech. He spent 18 months in prison in that spell. The MDMK leader was jailed in 2002 for a speech supporting the LTTE.

Vaiko's political career has revolved around the one-point agenda of whipping up support for the LTTE in Tamil Nadu. Not missing a chance to hit the Congress and its ally, the ruling DMK, he followed it up with, 'People seem to have forgotten Sriperumbudur', in an obvious reference to the assassination of Congress leader and former PM Rajiv Gandhi. His succession of dire speeches began with a warning that there will be a bloodbath in Tamil Nadu, if LTTE chief Prabhakaran was harmed.

Vaiko speech about tamil eelam