The annual speech by Velupillai Prab-hakaran, chieftain of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, to mark "Heroes' Day" on November 27th is anxiously awaited by Sri Lankans. The elusive separatist leader often uses it to reveal his macabre or heroic plans for the coming months. This year, however, there were no prizes for guessing his intentions. Both the Tigers, fighting for a Tamil homeland ("eelam"), and the hawkish government in Colombo had already made their positions plain: the 24-year-old war, which has claimed more than 70,000 civilian lives, will be stepped up.
展开▼
