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Personalities who have shaped the history of Sri Lanka in recent years.
Chandrika Kumaratunga
President for two terms, first in 1994 and again in 1999, she had to give way to her prime minister, Mahinda Rajapakse, who, as head of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party, won elections last year. Kumaratunga, whose father 'SW' was the country's most celebrated president and mother Sirimavo, one of the world's first women presidents, pursued a dual strategy to tackle the Tiger insurgency - defeating them militarily while offering constitutional guarantees of autonomy to the Tamils.
Vellupillai Prabhakaran
As the elusive but ruthless leader of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, he has fashioned a highly disciplined and gritty army from the ranks of the intellectual and agrarian Tamils. Revered as a freedom fighter by his people, he is seen by the rest of the world as a leader who brooks no opposition. The ban by the international community, which has dubbed the LTTE a terrorist organisation, is a huge blow both to his status and his ability to sustain and arm his guerrilla movement.
Junius Jayawardene
President and prime minister, known as JR, he became the country's first president after amending the constitution. An implacable enemy of the Tigers, he is known to have allowed the Black July pogrom against Tamils in 1983 - the majority of them hapless civilians - that set the stage for the civil war that still rages on the island nation. He also signed the Indo-Sri Lanka peace accord that brought Indian troops into the country and promised devolution of power to Tamils. The accord fell apart after the Tigers rejected it and JR turned on his Indian ally.
Anil Wickremesinghe
The leader of the opposition, Ranil Wickremesinghe, as prime minister, pursued the only successful peace initiative with the Tamil Tigers which resulted in a landmark ceasefire agreement in 2001. Amid intense criticism from President Kumaratunga's party, the ceasefire came into force in 2003 and held until hostilities following the election of SLFP leader President Mahinda Rajapakse.
Mahinda Rajapakse
He will go down in history as the man who became the first non-Bandaranaike to be named president of the SLFP. But as a staunch ultra-nationalist, Rajapakse is also seeking to re-write history in other ways by pushing the Tigers to the wall militarily and whittling down the size of their homeland. Critical of the concessions made by opposition leader Ranil Wickremesinghe, he is backed by the Buddhist clergy, the communist Janata Vimukta Perumana and much of the Sinhalese majority, in his strategy of using overwhelming force against the Tigers while mouthing the mantra of autonomy.
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