Sri Lankan Rebels Declare 25-Year War at ‘Bitter End’

By Jeremy Shaub

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/18/world/asia/18lanka.html?_r=1&ref=world

The war in Sri Lankan is finally at an end, even though it was not a pretty end but it had a "bitter end." The Sri Lankan government was doing some final "mop-ups" on the Tigers final refuge. Even though the war is over, this still does not mean that there will be random guerrilla attacks because not all of the extremists are gone. But actually we cannot know officially if all of the fighting is done because the Sri Lankan government is not allowing independent journalists in the country. A couple journalists from the New York Times actually flew in and were turned right around. But after the war the government said the civilians have escaped from the hot zone and the Tigers have had 3000 killed in the last 24 hours and that halted their fighting. The United Nations estimated about 7000 deaths since January. Even though the main fighting is over, the Sri Lankan government is still going to have to run into the remaining Tigers extremists, but it is good that the civilians have escaped the hot zone.