MR: That’s right. Yes, because of our…armed forces were so committed for the fight.

•SG: Tell us a little bit about the final phases of the battle.

MR: Yes.

•SG: How did it progress? What happened? When did the breakthrough come?

MR: No, from the time after we walked into Madhu , that is the, North-West of the…

•SG: Right…island.

MR: Island. We were stuck there for about eight to nine months. Then we… it was a, just a, walk-over, I would say. But we knew after we went to Killinochi, I mean, we were, you know, through.

•SG: what is the biggest mistake that Prabhakaran made in this.

MR: Well, to kill Rajiv Gandhi.

•SG: To kill Rajiv Gandhi.

MR: That was…

•SG: Why? Why?

MR: because they antagonised the whole sympathy of India. That was the biggest mistake, I think, he did at that time.

•SG: That is the biggest mistake he did in thirty years.

MR: Thirty years.

•SG: One…

MR: and two…

•SG: One fatal mistake.

MR: Yes, and the second was that he didn’t gauge the powers of the South.

•SG: To my mind there is a third mistake also. I think, and maybe, all mistakes from one mind-set, which is hubris, which is a big ego. You know, no guerilla fighter should try to take on a whole country’s armed forces in a frontal battle.

... contd.