The leader of the Tamil Tigers on Thursday said Sri Lanka is "living in a dreamland of military victory", moments after government jets for a second year running destroyed a rebel radio station broadcasting his annual address. Even with a Sri Lankan military offensive besieging the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam's (LTTE) self-declared capital, leader Vellupillai Prabhakaran remained defiant in his yearly rallying cry.
"The Sinhala state has, as never before, placed its trust on its military strength," he said, referring to Sri Lanka's government. "It is living in a dreamland of military victory. It is a dream from which it will awake. That is certain."
Prabhakaran's speech, usually recorded beforehand at one of his jungle hideouts, went out world-wide via a Voice of the Tigers radio station broadcast on the Internet despite the air raid.
Air force spokesman Wing Commander Janaka Nanayakkara said the strike completely destroyed a radio station close to Kilinochchi, the northern town the LTTE has declared as capital of the separate state it wants to create and calls Tamil Eelam.
Troops are fighting on its outskirts and the military on Wednesday said its fall was imminent, but on Thursday said torrential monsoon rains had slowed combat operations. Prabhakaran reiterated longstanding accusations that President Mahinda Rajapaksa's war was meant to wipe out Tamils. Rajapaksa has repeatedly said military operations are aimed at the LTTE, and not Tamil citizens in the northern war zone.
Rajapaksa is from the Sinhalese ethnic majority, which has led all governments since independence from Britain in 1948. Many Tamils complain of marginalisation since then. "No political transformation has taken place during the last 60 years in the Sinhala nation. Therefore, hoping it will happen in the future is futile," he said.
The war, one of Asia's longest modern insurgencies, began in earnest in 1983 when anti-Tamil riots broke out after the LTTE fatally ambushed 13 soldiers on the northern Jaffna Peninsula.
Rajapaksa's government has made the most military progress of any in the 25-year war, capturing most of the turf held by the LTTE in August 2006, when a 2002 truce began unravelling. Prabhakaran's speech is usually aimed at galvanising supporters, especially those in the global Tamil diaspora who for years have funded the LTTE but increasingly cannot because it is on a host of international lists of banned terrorist groups. "Cordially I invite those countries that have banned us...to remove their ban on us and to recognise our just struggle," he said. The LTTE has carried out hundreds of assassinations and suicide bombings against politicians including moderate Tamils and former Indian prime minister Rajiv Gandhi. Prabhakaran in particular urged India, where the LTTE enjoys political support in the southern Tamil Nadu state but is banned by the government as a terrorist group, to reconsider.
"Our people always consider India as our friend. They have great expectation that the Indian superpower will take a positive stand on our national question," he said. Despite threats from pro-LTTE Indian parties and efforts to force a cease-fire over the last month, New Delhi agreed with Colombo that the offensive against the LTTE must continue as long as Tamil citizens are kept safe.