Velupillai Pirapaharan was an exceptional man. He had to be. To dominate a country and set its agenda for two and a half decades is no mean task. True he got lots of help from an unimaginative and weak leadership of the Tamils and the Sinhalese.

Yet to establish the pre eminent terror organisation in the world is no mean task. To do that Pirapaharan had the right ingredients, single minded commitment, the ruthlessness and the ability to inspire others. But most important was his absolute conviction that his way was the only way to win the rights of his people, and his way to use terror against all opponents the Sinhala state, the

Tamils who had enough of him and even Rajiv Gandhi.
While almost all other Tamil rebels groups there were at least 32 in the mid `80s had a political ideology, Pirapaharan had none. He was not a socialist, a communist or a capitalist. His sole objective was the creation of a separate state for the Tamils under his absolute rule. Democracy was anathema for him. There was no room for dissension or criticism. He was after all a product of the country`s political system where power is a tool to be wielded ruthlessly.

Charismatic personalities

Most leaders who inspired people and won their total loyalty either had charismatic personalities or were brilliant orators. Pirapaharan was neither. But his strength was that he understood his weakness. Instead, he crafted a myth by being elusive. Only a few cadres have ever seen him and he rarely made public speeches. The few who did meet the leader were the suicide cadres just before leaving on a mission.

The 1983 riots propelled this rag tag rebel group into a major force. In the first decade Pirapaharan achieved his first aim to be `the sole representative of the Tamil speaking people.` To achieve that he murdered the elected Tamil political leadership and then wiped out all the other Tamil rebel groups.

When the Muslims the other ethnic group that speaks Tamil refused to play ball and accept him as their leader, he evicted 80,000 out of the Northern Province and ordered his cadres to massacre as many as possible in the east. His hope was to force the Muslims to flee and make the north and east an exclusive Tamil area.

That too failed and he no longer was the sole leader of the `Tamil speaking people` but the sole leader of the `Tamil people,` a slight but significant amendment that must have hurt his ego no end.

A creation of the Sinhalese

However, Pirapaharan was a creation of the Sinhalese. If not for him, the Sinhalese would have never even thought of treating the Tamils as equals. It is Pirapaharan`s use of terror that forced the Sinhalese to even discuss devolving power and to abolish laws and systems that made them second class citizens.

The `Sinhala Only` policy, the standardisation of university entrances were all aimed at keeping the Tamils down. It is Pirapaharan that gave the Tamils a sense of dignity. Pirapaharan succeeded where the democratically elected Tamil leadership failed for two and a half decades. What the Tamil political leaders failed to achieve by appealing to reason, Pirapaharan did by using fear.

The tragedy for the Tamils in particular and the country as a whole was that Pirapaharan was politically na ve. If his single minded commitment was what made the LTTE what it became, then his inability to be flexible and realistic ultimately led to its down fall. A successful guerrilla leader knows when to turn his battlefield success into political victories. Pirapaharan failed to understand the new world order post 9/11.

Terror no longer acceptable

The use of terror was no longer an acceptable weapon to achieve freedom. There were no longer `freedom fighters` in this world but mere terrorists. The 2004 peace process with all its faults may have been Pirapaharan`s last chance to win the legitimate rights of his people. The LTTE since then faced the real threat of being irrelevant in the search for a political solution to this issue.
Unless the Sinhalese are magnanimous in victory and any solution offered by the government leads to meaningful devolution, the death of 100,000 people and the suffering of many millions would be in vain.

But whatever happens, Velupillai Pirapaharan will go down in history as having failed in his mission to create a separate state exclusively for Tamils in the north and east of the country.