LONDON — One of the world's longest running insurgencies might be coming to an end with the Sri Lankan government close to overrunning the last remaining holdouts of the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) forces. The Sri Lankan military says that only 500 fighters remain in a narrow patch of territory.
By announcing a unilateral ceasefire, the Tigers have demonstrated their rapidly weakening position even as it is clear that the Sri Lankan government will accept nothing less than a surrender. A range of global and regional factors, including the changing global political climate toward extremism and terrorism since 9/11, the drying up of support and funds from the Tamil diaspora as well as Colombo's success in courting China and Pakistan to strengthen its military capabilities, has enabled the Sri Lankan government to mold the situation in its favor.
Though Tamil separatism as a political ideology remains rather potent, the LTTE as a military force has gradually withered away over the past few years. The LTTE has been fighting since 1983 to create an independent state for Sri Lanka's minority Tamils, who constitute 18 percent of the island nation's population of 21 million, after decades of marginalization by governments dominated by the ethnic Sinhalese majority.