Sri Lanka display 'body of Tamil Tigers leader' for TV cameras

Sri Lanka's president declared his country "liberated from separatist terror" today as state television showed the body of the Tamil Tiger rebel leader killed by troops.

However, in his victory address to parliament, President Mahinda Rajapaksa appeared to reach out to the minority Tamils, for whom the rebels had said they were trying to carve out a homeland.

"Our intention was to save the Tamil people from the cruel grip of the (rebels). We all must now live as equals in this free country," he said.

Meanwhile, TV showed a bloated body resembling the rebel leader, still dressed in a dark green camouflage uniform, laid out on a stretcher on the grass. A blue cloth rested on top of his head, apparently to cover a bullet wound. His open eyes stared straight up.

"A few hours ago, the body of terrorist leader Prabhakaran, who ruined this country, was found on the battleground," army chief General Sarath Fonseka told state television.

The death of Velupillai Prabhakaran, the unquestioned leader of the Tamil Tigers, would make it far more difficult for the rebel movement to re-form and continue its nearly 30-year separatist war.

In his victory address Rajapaksa recalled how the rebels, known formally as the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, once controlled a wide swath of the north and east.

Rajapaksa said that for the first time in 30 years, the country was unified under its elected government.

The rebels, listed as terrorists by the US and European Union, had been fighting for a homeland for the mainly Hindu Tamil minority after decades of marginalisation at the hands of governments dominated by the mainly Buddhist Sinhalese majority. Tamils make up nearly 20% of the country's 20 million people. About 75% are Sinhalese.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said he was relieved the war appeared over in Sri Lanka, but wanted the government to address the "concerns and aspirations" of its minority Tamil population.

Rajapaksa has said in the past he would negotiate some form of power-sharing with the Tamil community following the war and he alluded to the need for an agreement.

"We must find a homegrown solution to this conflict. That solution should be acceptable to all the communities," he said. "That solution, which would be based on the philosophy of Buddhism, will be an example to the whole world."

He also called upon Sri Lankans - especially Tamils - who fled the country to return and help it rebuild.

"There are no minority communities in this country. There are only two communities, one that loves this country and another that does not," he said.

However, there were also signs that the tension between the government and the Tamil community in the north would continue.

The war killed more than 70,000 people over the past quarter-century. Another 265,000 ethnic Tamils were displaced in the recent offensive and many of them have been sent to overcrowded camps in the north.

The chubby Prabhakaran turned what was little more than a street gang in the late 1970s into one of the world's most feared insurgencies. At the height of his power, he controlled a virtual country in the north and a rebel army of thousands backed by artillery, a navy and a nascent air force.

He was also branded a terrorist abroad and his fighters waged hundreds of suicide attacks, including the 1991 assassination of former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, and forcibly recruited child soldiers.

Although Mr Rajapaksa promised political compromise, the defeat of the rebels leaves a vacuum in the Tamil leadership.

Prabhakaran killed many community leaders seen as a challenge to his authority. Others moved abroad, while many of those who remained active in politics either allied themselves with the government or were linked to the rebels and effectively sidelined.