In name of peace A little known Sinhalese film, doing the rounds of the Asian film festival circuit sometime ago, told an emotional story on a favourite Sri Lankan theme - the Tamil-Sinhala divide. To a non-Sri Lankan audience the story, of a little Tamil girl who leaves her wounded revolutionary father to die in the jungle and seeks shelter in a Sinahalese home on the outskirts of the jungle, is fascinating. Especially during a scene where the injured Tamil revolutionary grips the cyanide capsule strung on a little black thread around his neck, as he hears sounds of approaching Army officers. Reel crossed over to real around five on Wednesday evening when Vellupillai Prabhakaran sat before almost 200 journalists at his first press conference in 12 years, in Killinochchi in northern Sri Lanka. Prabhakaran, a founding father of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) -- one of the most feared terrorist outfits in the world -- is known to wear a cyanide capsule around his neck, to be swallowed in the event of his capture. His guerrillas, many of whom are women and children, are expected to show the same sort of dedication to the Cause. For many of the journalists who had gathered to see Prabhakaran, it was a once-in-a-lifetime event. The accompanying security was formidable, with a 10-hour screening during which all equipment from satellite phones to pens and notepads was confiscated. No information was given to the journalists, assembled from seven in the morning on Wednesday at an LTTE office 3 km from Killinochchi, about the time or venue of the press conference. All the secrecy and precision planning, so typical of any Prabhakaran operation, was equally a part of his mammoth media show. When Prabhakaran, surrounded by soldiers, walked into the compound where he held the press conference dressed, not in his usual military fatigues, but in a blue-grey safari suit he sent out an initial, significant message of a change. Analysts feel that the clamouring civil demand for peace in Sri Lanka combined with a new global intolerance for all terrorist activity post-September 11 has forced Prabhakaran to rethink his guerrilla tactics. Evidence of this has unfolded over the last few months as the LTTE leader announced a unilateral ceasefire, agreed to next month's peace talks in Thailand with the Sri Lankan government, and of course, called Wednesday's conference. It is, however, difficult to read Prabhakaran's intentions accurately, for over the years he has proved to be a smooth operator. From a secret jungle base in north-east Sri Lanka, the 47-year-old Prabhakaran has been steering the LTTE on its course for an independent Tamil homeland. Depending on which side of the spectrum he is viewed from, Prabhakaran is either a freedom fighter struggling for Tamil emancipation from Sinhala oppression, or he is a megalomaniac with a brutal disregard for human life. However, the dedicated freedom fighter struggling for emancipation is a difficult image for most people to swallow, given that to him belongs the dubious honour of founding, or at any rate, popularising the concept of the suicide bomber. It's also a little difficult to rationalise Prabhakaran's enthusiasm to send out a seemingly unlimited supply of young men and women to die for the Cause, four of whom were indicted in the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi, while his own children are busy excelling in national examinations. Over the almost two decades that the Tamil Tigers have been fighting for an independent homeland, more than 50,000 'revolutionaries' have been killed. Every year on Prabhakaran's birthday - November 26 - the LTTE observes the Great Heroes Day, in memory of all the martyrs who have died for the Tamil Eelam. On this day, Prabhakaran addresses his revolutionaries over the radio. Even as he speaks to them, LTTE cadres unleash a wave of violence through the region, the organisation's way of remembering their war heroes. The practice stopped when Prabhakaran called the unilateral ceasefire last December. Prabhakaran, however, started out in relative obscurity. Born the youngest of four children in the northern coastal town of Velvettihurai, he was an average student, shy and bookish, according to some accounts. Another version has it, that the shy student was expelled from his school after he exploded a crude bomb in a classroom. Prabhakaran's involvement in the Tamil protest movement began a few years later, when as a teenager he saw instances of discrimination against the Tamils in education, employment and politics. Around this time he started attending his first political meetings. In 1975, he was implicated in the murder of the mayor of Jaffna - the first high-profile killing carried out by the rapidly growing Tamil nationalist movement. Around this time, he also began looking at a more permanent role for himself in the Tamil nationalist movement. In the early Eighties, he deftly removed all obstacles to his total supremacy in the organisation and formed the guerrilla Tamil Tigers unit. With his ascendancy, the ideology of the movement also underwent a change - it became rigid in its demand for an independent state. Over the years, Prabhakaran has remained consistent in his demand for an independent Tamil state. Despite the initial positive signals, by the time his press conference was over two hours and 24 minutes later, the signals seemed diffused. For once again, he repeated that though he was approaching the peace talks in Thailand with an open mind, 'the Tamil people still want an independent homeland.' The LTTE remains the domineering force behind the rebel movement in Sri Lanka, and without Prabhakaran's consent any move towards a peace process in the region remains futile. No surprise then that his next comment: 'We are freedom fighters - not terrorists - seriously committed to peace,' rang more than a little hollow, minutes before the historic press conference ended.