The butcher butchered

Prabhakaran is dead.

Many men have lived and died. A few have become known for their hold over others. The late Prabhakaran surely fits this scheme. I remember reading the first accounts of the civil war in Sri Lanka in the early 80s. I had just started my then fascination with TIME magazine - purchasing it from old paper shops and reading up on 'the big world.' There were articles about various Tamil liberation groups that had sprung up - some clearly getting support from their brethren in Tamil Nadu.

PLOTE, TELO and others have come and gone. One group prospered. The LTTE, driven by their leader Prabhakaran carved out a niche for themselves. Carved it out with blood. Much of it their own - and the many that they pressed into service. The man who made all this possible: Prabhakaran.

When we heard that a plane had crashed into the World Trade Centre in New York, my first thought out there at the small rural mission hospital we were working at, was that it had to somehow be linked with Prabhakaran.

I still remember hearing with dismay that Rajiv Gandhi was killed. How? With a human bomb. Something we could not believe at the time.

Prabhakaran believed. He pioneered the widespread use of human bombs. It is said that the bombers would be given a meal with him the night before they executed their missions. The power of this man. The allure of his thought of a Tamil nation. The hard ruthlessness that saw him take on the world, extort cash in millions from Sri Lankan Tamils abroad, run an army who kept the Sri Lankan national army at bay, who were willing to fight with the Indian Peace Keeping Force in Sri Lanka (inflicting heavy losses on our soldiers), who believed in himself above all.

We now have a picture of a bloated corpse, which the finally triumphant Sri Lankan military says is that of Prabhakaran.

The open eyes staring skyward are empty.

How does a single man wield so much clout? Where in the grand scheme of things do individuals tip the tide of history? Would the tearful recent history of the tear-drop nation of Serendip have been different without a Prabhakaran?

And what of the 70,000 who have been killed in the fighting over the years? Where in the scheme of things do we allot the murders on all sides. The deaths of journalists in Colombo. The deaths of young Tamil men taken for questioning over the years. The deaths of the civilians of every stripe of ethnicity and persuasion.

The guns have stopped. For some time at least. The last few days have seen such horror.

Much of the savagery was concentrated on a shallow strip of beach where the LTTE held its final stand, using thousands of civilians as their shield to operate from, and where the Sri Lankan armed forces mercilessly bombarded with artillery shells. Prabhakaran and his men had never given quarter. This time the SL army made sure they did not survive to rebuild. In the mix thousands were killed.

In my head my various Sri Lankan friends come to mind. Arvinda, Dan, Mark, Raj... from Sinhalese, Burgher and Tamil backgrounds. Will they be able to look back at May 19 2009 as a day when their country turned the corner and started rebuilding - or are we looking at the valourisation of one of the most cruel men of all times - and another unending struggle for sovereignity that flows through the barrel of a gun?