Death of a dream

The recovery of the body of LTTE leader V. Prabakaran from near a lagoon in north-eastern Sri Lanka on May 19, 2009, signalled the end of a militant campaign for a separate Tamil state, which resulted in the death of tens of thousands of civilians, the assassinations of a former Prime Minister of India, and numerous high-level politicians in the island nation, the ruthless silencing of moderate voices that spoke for the same cause, and the gunning down of even the one-time comrades-in-arms of Prabakaran. At the end of it all, the cause of Tamil Eelam is dead and the possibility of a Tamil state with a semblance of autonomy appears elusive.