Sri Lankan government formally declares civil war over
Updated
The Sri Lankan government has formally declared an end to the 25-year civil war.
Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa has delivered a victory address to parliament, and he's even telling foreign investors that they ought to put their money into building businesses in what used to be Tamil Tiger territory.
President Rajapaksa declared Wednesday a national holiday, and insisted that said the war had not been waged against the Tamil people. There's still a question mark over the fate of the Tamil Tigers' chief, Velupillai Prabhakaran
Presenter: Mark Colvin
Speaker: ABC correspondent in Sri Lanka, Sally Sara
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SARA: Well the speech was one that praised the military and merely gave the president's final announcement that victory had been achieved. There was also one of trying to reach out to the Tamil minority. The president though was interesting part of his address in the Tamil language to speak to people about the governments plans and was calling for unity. Also a strong sense of nationalism. The president was saying that Sri Lanka has shown that it can solve its own problems and what it wants from the international community is not advice, but material help in rebuilding the north. So that was some of the main themes of his speech to parliament a short while ago.
COLVIN: And what was the atmosphere like?
SARA: The atmosphere, there was a brief ceremony as the president arrived. There is very high security here in the capital, Colombo. There were more fireworks being let off by people in the streets, but really not possible for large crowds to gather just because of security concerns, so many people were watching the address on national television. It was being beamed out live.
COLVIN: Overall though, the atmosphere has been one of rejoicing in the capital at any rate where you have been?
SARA: It has been and the big punctuation point that we were talking about yesterday, a lot of people were looking for this news from the government that the armed forces believed that they had killed the rebel leader, Prabhakran, and now we've got pro-Tamil sources denying that, saying that he is still alive and well and that's a little bit unsettling for the government and also for many civilians who are in their mind this conflict is not over until they have absolute proof that Prabhakran has been killed.
COLVIN: There is neither proof of life or proof of death?
SARA: That's right, the army came out and announced officially on state television yesterday that he had been killed in an ambush up in the battle zone, but they are yet to produce photographs of the body and there is talk that DNA tests may be done as well. So that's an area that has not been brought to its ultimate conclusion yet and as I said that's really important for a lot of people here, there are very frightened of him and feel that if he is still alive, that there is a chance that the Tamil Tigers can switch from guerilla war into terrorism, opportune terrorism in other parts of the country.
COLVIN: Now you are not in Colombo entirely by choice are you? I mean journalists would like to be up in what was the war zone, able to inspect it for themselves and that's still not possible?
SARA: That's right and not only is the journalists but foreign observers for aid groups and what is likely to happen is that now that we've had the ceremony from the president, the announcement of the official victory from the government, attention is likely to return to the humanitarian situation. And really we are not in that first stage of aid agencies being able to fully and freely access of the need up in northeastern Sri Lanka, let alone to start dealing with those issues. So that's also expected to be something that will be discuss at length when the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon arrives here in Sri Lanka later in the week.
COLVIN: It's not been a popular stance though, has it? I mean the British Foreign Secretary was burned in effigy and I think there have been riots outside the British embassy or High Commission there, because of Britain's stand on the human rights issue?
SARA: Well that's right, and we were among the crowd yesterday hear in Colombo, and people were coming up to us and saying why doesn't the international community congratulate us on our own. We've got rid of this terrorist group and why are we being condemned for this. Other countries should be learning from what we've done, not condemning us for what has happened. So it's a difficult dilemma and really at this stage we don't know the numbers. What has been the civilian cost of this campaign, let alone to weigh up how that measures out against the possible defeat of the Tamil Tigers. So they are questions that are being asked very seriously and that will emerge when people can actually get into that conflict zone and see exactly what has happened.
