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Just one day after Sri Lanka’s embattled rebel group conceded defeat, the Sri Lankan military has reportedly assassinated LTTE leader and founder, Velupillai Prabhakaran. Thousands of Tamils demonstrated in Britain, rejecting reports of his death and denouncing the Sri Lankan government as ‘terrorist.’ The protracted war between the Sri Lankan government and Tamil Tigers has been declared officially over after fighting reached a fever pitch over the last several months. Hundreds of thousands of civilians have been displaced, prompting aid groups to declare a humanitarian emergency. Over 26 years of fighting, about 70,000 people on the small South Asian island nation lost their lives. There are fears of a continued low-level insurgency by surviving Tamil Tigers but government sources are triumphantly about victory. Press freedom was among the many casualties of the war and even now, foreign journalists are barred and local journalists on notice after the recent assassination of a high-profile newspaper editor. It now remains to be seen how relations between the majority Sinhalese and minority Tamil populations pan out in the aftermath of this war.

GUEST: Robert Templar, Asia Director of the International Crisis Group. For more information, visit www.crisisgroup.org.