The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) is in its death rattle. It wasdecisively defeated by the Sri Lankan Armed Forces weeks ago, but a handful ofits leadership headed by Prabhakaran has cynically and cruelly prolonged theagony of the Tamil civilians by using them as a buffer and human-shield in orderto delay the re-establishment of the writ of the Sri Lankan government in aminiscule piece of territory (about 20 sq.kms), which has been declared by the governmentas a no-fire zone to avoid collateral casualties among the civilians still underthe control of the LTTE and to enable them to escape from the clutches of theLTTE.