Sri Lanka declared victory over the Tamil Tiger guerillas this week, ending a bloody civil war that had lasted more than 25 years. Tamil Tiger leader Velupillai Prabhakaran and two top commanders were killed as they tried to flee the war zone in the north, where the rebels were surrounded. The government sent citizens text messages informing them of Prabhakaran’s death, and his body was paraded through crowds of government troops. Witnesses said thousands of civilians were killed in the final onslaught. The long fight for a homeland for ethnic Tamils, a minority in the mostly Sinhalese island nation, has claimed more than 80,000 lives over the years. Some 300,000 Tamils who fled the fighting this year are languishing in refugee camps.
It’s hard to cheer the winning side, said The Boston Globe in an editorial, which at times matched the rebels in brutality. But what matters most now is that the U.N. and Red Cross be granted full access to the refugees. The government’s track record in this regard is not encouraging. President Mahinda Rajapaksa in recent weeks kept reporters and aid workers away while his soldiers unleashed “indiscriminate artillery fire and scorched-earth tactics.”
The humanitarian crisis in the war zone was caused by the Tigers’ “own depravity,” said The Washington Post. They pioneered suicide bombings, assassinated political leaders, and “enslaved and systematically brainwashed children” for use as soldiers. Prabhakaran could have ended the war by accepting a degree of autonomy for Tamils. Instead, he waged an all-out war of independence that has left the nation in shambles.
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There’s still a danger that war could resume, said the Los Angeles Times. The EU has called for an independent investigation into alleged war crimes on both sides; if the government wants to retain its credibility, it will cooperate. And then it will have to negotiate some level of autonomy for the Tamils. “Failure to protect the Tamils and to address their needs likely will produce new rebels and more fighting in short order.”
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