Circumstances of Pirapakaran’s death questioned.

"A public trial in large and a hearing attended by local and international media would have kept alive the spirits of the Sinhala nationalism in an amazing scale. Knowing the mindset of the government this is what it would have wanted to achieve like what is being done to LTTE’s KP in a small way."


LTTE leader Pirabakaran’s death was a gimmicky driven prop up to increase the support base of President Mahinda Rajapakse to hold on to power to cover up his failures in good governance during his four year term in office.

The rudimentary way in which Pirabakaran’s body was paraded and the degrading methods adopted to reflect the gruesome injuries to his head and displaying his semi naked body are state managed drama to cultivate a precedence of another war victory against the Tamils of a yesteryears sense to be recorded in the history of Sri Lanka.

To achieve an outright victory claim, the government did everything to cover up and avoid due process of dealing with Pirabakaran’s death. The government feels it has succeeded in giving its message that has not been contested by the questioning mindsets within or outside Sri Lanka. The government’s dictatorial conduct towards the questioning media and the outspoken civil society bolstered its calculated agenda to mislead and fabricate the facts and to stamp its version of events as the only factual account surrounding the death of Pirabakaran.

Any one saying anything outside government’s version of the story or reveal some hard facts about Pirabakaran’s death are threatened of dire consequence. The government’s threatening conduct in its mission to uphold its only version of events has so far stood grounds. When there were no questions asked or debated about the circumstances of Pirabakaran’s death, the government’s story becomes the Sinhala story of how the President Mahinda Rajapakese (the Raja) has defeated the Tamil uprising in a brutal way like the historical Dutugemunu-Elharan war in which Tamil King Elharan was slain by Dutugemunu.

The children of Sri Lanka when they learn the modern Sri Lankan history, the Education Department approved version of events will be that Pirabakaran was slaughtered with the butcher’s knife in the war and there are ample photographs to display the brutality inflicted and the rudimentary treatment to his dead body.

There were various stories from the government side relating to Pirabakarans death. One official said he was shot and killed by a specialist army unit. It was even reported that Pirabakaran was captured and taken to Colombo and then executed. One even said that Pirabakaran put his hands up and surrendered to the army. Another story said when Pirabakaran refused to apologise for his conduct to a senior army official, he was axed to death by the said officer. All what was fed to the Sinhala masses were tantalising stories for them to rejoice over Pirabakaran’s death.

Let us consider some of the circumstantial evidences that were left behind in the trail of stage managed events that the government has put across to the people to digest.

Pirabakaran’s dead body displayed by the state confirms not a single bullet injury to his body.

Then the story of capturing and slaughtering him with a crude weapon has been cleverly framed to extend the government’s Machiavellian agenda. What is very intriguing is why the Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapakse allowed him to be murdered in captivity without producing him before the Court of Law to justify his violent conduct for over thirty years. If Pirabakaran was taken into captivity the euphoria in the south would have been ongoing. If he was held behind the bars and time to time his plight and appearance before the judges were shown in the state television, it would have kept the momentum high in the South for Mahinda for many years until the death sentence is executed after a judicial decision.

A public trial in large and a hearing attended by local and international media would have kept alive the spirits of the Sinhala nationalism in an amazing scale. Knowing the mindset of the government this is what it would have wanted to achieve like what is being done to LTTE’s KP in a small way.

The stories emerging so far confirm the circumstances under which Pirabakaran died was not helpful for the government to claim that they ‘got him alive’. The government could not claim maximum mileage from his death unless a sham and rudimentary show of brutality inflicted on his body is propagated to prop up the nationalist feeling in the South.

It purposely thwarted any effort to undertake a post-mortem examination on Pirabakaran’s dead body. If it had undertaken a post-mortem examination, factual account of his death would have been established. The circumstantial evidence available could have been corroborated to the real story behind his death.

There is beyond doubt from the reasons established that Pirabakaran did commit suicide to avoid being slaughtered by the enemy. Committing suicide when death is imminent is the motto of the LTTE movement he created and nurtured for such a long time. If a proper post-mortem examination had been undertaken all traces of suicide evidence would have been revealed.

A proper post-mortem would have identified when the brutal attack on his head after his death. If it was post event of his suicide, the medical evidence would have authoritatively proved this. Even the government’s claim of him being shot and killed would have been revealed in the post-mortem report as the bullets lodged in his body would have analysed.

Soon after Pirabakaran’s death, I spoke to one of his former bodyguards. He told me the instructions given to him by his leader Pirabakaran how to handle an ultimate life threatening situation for him. The instructions were very clear that he will pull the trigger from his pistol on to his head and the bodyguards must ensure to burn his body immediately using the flammable liquid stored in the vicinity. In an extreme difficult situation, the bodyguards must at least burn his face and prevent his facial identity. The circumstances confronted by Pirabkaran was possibly that his bodyguards were either killed before his death or they were not near enough or were unable to execute their orders when he pulled the trigger.

This appears to be a plausible cause of his death. Those who were very close to Pirabakaran are very assertive that he would not have died like a coward by either surrendering or without putting up a fight. He was a hardened man who devised suicide as the mission in his war strategy.

If a post-mortem was conducted, it would have identified the bullet lodged in the head of Pirabakaran and this would not have been helpful to the government. The gruesome injury on his head must have been a post event to hide the suicide gun shot injury. In order to score points the government has to stage manage and demonise the death of Pirabakaran to sensationalise the Southern Sinhala feelings.

The true story that Pirabakaran committed suicide would have hyphened the feelings of LTTE supporters. With all the truth being circumvented in a calculated manner, they are still waiting to hear the true circumstances of Pirabakaran’s death.

The government became pathetically desperate in handling the death of Pirabakaran that it decided to burn and dispose the body in a secret way without holding it in a mortuary until such time proper procedures were followed to certificate his death. It finally issued the death certificate to India under pressure after dragging on for some months. Issuing a death certificate without following the due process, when death was under tragic circumstances is a questionable conduct of the government. The death certificate too was not publicised and if it is published it will further embarrass the government. The cause/s of death must be reflected in the death certificate and why such important document is held in the tight grip of the Secret Service of Sri Lanka confirms sinister intent.

A section of the LTTE claimed that Pirabakaran was not killed and the body displayed was a dummy look of their leader. The government did nothing to counter this claim. An expert DNA test could have produced substantive evidence either to confirm or reject the body was Pirabakaran’s. DNA test could have been corroborated with his children killed by the army.

Why did the government handle the important closure procedures in an irregular manner? The only intention of the government had is to score political mileage on Pirabakaran’s death. Unfortunately, such irregular and rudimentary behaviour has not helped the President in his elections campaigns and he is unable to elongate the death of Pirabakaran as expected for his advantage.

Why did the government fail to follow the due process by holding Pirabakran for a full scale trial? Why post-mortem or independent DNA tests not undertaken and also why his body was not retained in the mortuary to facilitate a thorough process later? All these questions stack up against the government. The body of such an important criminal in the eyes of government was secretly reduced to ashes without a burial. Why did this happen? If Pirabakaran’s body was buried, the truth could have been analysed scientifically even at a later date. This is what the government wanted to avoid at any cost.

By Rajasingham Jayadevan