Hold That Tiger

Some good news in the world today, the bloody quarter-century conflict between the government of Sri Lanka and the rebel Tamil Tigers has for now come to an end as the Tigers have surrendered.

The Tamil Tigers conceded defeat in Sri Lanka's 25-year civil war on Sunday, after launching waves of suicide attacks to repel a final assault by troops determined to annihilate them.

President Mahinda Rajapaksa had declared victory over the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) the day before, even as combat raged in the island's northeast and the military said it was freeing the last of thousands of trapped civilians.

By midday Sunday, the military said troops had freed all the civilians being held by the LTTE inside an area that was less than a single square km (0.5 sq mile). A total of 72,000 had fled since Thursday, it said.

LTTE founder-leader Vellupillai Prabhakaran's fate remained a mystery, although military sources said a body believed to be his was recovered and its identity was being confirmed.

The LTTE, founded on a culture of suicide before surrender, had shown no sign of giving up. Suicide fighters blew themselves up on the frontline on Sunday morning, and more than 70 were killed trying to flee overnight, the military said.

But by afternoon the military said fighting had slowed, and the pro-rebel web site www.TamilNet.com released a statement from the LTTE's head of international relations saying: "This battle has reached its bitter end."

"We remain with one last choice -- to remove the last weak excuse of the enemy for killing our people. We have decided to silence our guns," Selvarajah Pathmanathan's statement said.

Now, as any American can tell you, comes the hard part of living in the peacetime. Obama and the US have a major opportunity to help Sri Lanka recover from this and to assure that war does not break out again in the country, but first there must be a reckoning of twenty five years of war crimes comitted by both sides.

Were that other countries were held to that standard.