Question: Mr. Prabhakaran, people say that all your combatants wear a cyanide capsule around their necks: is this just nonsense?

V. Prabhakaran: No, it is the truth. It has been our rule right from the very start. A number of our comrades have given their lives in this way. But it does ensure that practically none of us are taken prisoner...By doing this, our fighters protect those who help us...The cyanide capsule is the symbol of our determination... It gives us the strength to sacrifice our lives for our cause.

First of all, one awesome fact stands out: in the history of the world, no other guerrilla outfit--whether turned criminal or still faithful to their original ideals--no other terrorist group has succeeded in assassinating a chief of State (Ramasinghe Premadasa, Sri Lanka) and a figure of political stature comparable to that of Rajiv Gandhi, heir of an illustrious Indian dynasty, head of the opposition movement at the time of his death, and former prime minister of the "world's largest democracy," and all this outside territory under its direct control. Worse yet, between 1989 and 1994, the LTTE assassinated all their major enemies, without ever claiming responsibility for any of these crimes, and even indulging in the luxury of denying any involvement in this unprecedented series of murders and massacres.

July 1989: Appapilai Amirthalingam and Vettivelu Yogeswaran, two leaders of the Tamil United Liberation Front (moderates) were shot in their homes.

March 1991: Sri Lankan Defense Minister Ranjan Wijeratne died in a car-bomb explosion.

May 1991: Rajiv Gandhi attended a political rally in the city of Sriperumbudur, in Indian Tamil Nadu, near Madras. As a young lady prepared to place a garland around his neck, she set off a belt of 2.5 kilos of C4 that she had been wearing under her sari. Twenty people were blown to bits, including Rajiv and the terrorist, of whom only her head was found, along with the cyanide tablet that she was wearing around her neck, the Tigers' trademark. In August 1991, in the Indian city of Bangalore, the police surrounded the masterminds behind R. Gandhi's murder. The 11 Tigers all committed suicide by taking cyanide, except for the head of the group, Raja Arumainayam, whom the police gunned down. During the Spring of 1992, the Indian federal criminal investigation service charged Velupillai Prabhakaran with the murder of R. Gandhi, along with the head of the LTTE special services. The Indian courts then issued a 49-page document, with 400-pages of annexes, showing the Tigers' direct responsibility for the act. Rajiv Gandhi had paid for his "betrayal" of the Tigers during the intervention of the Indian peace force in Sri Lanka (1987-90).

November 1992: The head of the Sri Lankan Navy, Vice Admiral Clancey Fernando, was assassinated by a suicide bomber on a motorcycle, who set off a heavy plastic charge upon impact.

April 1993: The head of the Sri Lankan opposition (Democratic United National Front), Lalith Athulathmudali, 57 years old, fell to an assassin's bullet not far from Colombo, during an election rally. The killer, Kandiah Ragunathan, a 25-year-old Jaffna Tamil, committed suicide by swallowing cyanide shortly after the attack. Athulathmudali had been in charge of the campaign against the Tigers when he was Minister of National Security from 1987 to 1991.

May 1993: Ramasinghe Premadasa, 68 years old, President of Sri Lanka since December 1988, was assassinated, along with 16 members of his military staff, while attending a May Day parade. The perpetrator of this massacre was Kulaweerasingham Veerakumar, age 14, a Jaffna Tamil. Just as in the Rajiv Gandhi killing, all that was found of the terrorist was his head and his cyanide tablet. Premadasa had paid for his aborted attempt to effect a rapprochement with the Tigers.

October 1994: Gamini Dissanayake, candidate for the (conservative) United National Party in the presidential election, and an opponent of dialogue with the Tigers, attended a meeting not far from Colombo. In what was to be a replay of the Gandhi killing, a young woman, one Mrs. Pushpalamar, unleashed a bloodbath by setting off an explosive device in the front row of the hall. The toll was 57 fatalities, including the candidate, and 200 wounded. In the terrorist's handbag was a cyanide pill tied to the end of a shoelace and a photo of the candidate. The husband of the "human bomb," one Mr. Ravindran, like her a Jaffna Tamil, was implicated in planning the murder of R. Premadasa.

December 1994: Karavai Kandasamy, a former Tamil guerrilla who had given up armed struggle and became a harsh critic of the LTTE and deputy chairman of a moderate party was gunned down not far from his Colombo home.