LTTE international
IN the wake of the Dehiwala train bombing, there is renewed pressure on the Sri Lankan government to ban the LTTE as a terrorist organisation. India proscribed the Tigers after Rajiv Gandhi’s assassination in 1991, and renewed the ban last month.
Sri Lankan politicians are split on the move, some saying it will block potential peace moves while others believe it will spearhead a crackdown on the Tigers’ ever-growing global network. The five Tamil political parties oppose the ban saying the Tigers are already too powerful and well organised internationally. Rauf Hakeem of the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress says the Tigers must be defeated militarily and to ban them will only drive the movement further underground.
Sri Lankan Foreign minister Lakshman Kadirgamar has frequently called on Western countries to proscribe the LTTE. The diplomatic response has been that it is difficult to do so while the Tigers are not banned in Sri Lanka.
To the Sri Lankan press this is "anti-terrorist hypocracy" as a blistering Island editorial dismissed the 40-point package, agreed at a global summit to combat terrorism in Lyons in late July. If groups like the Tigers are not banned says the Island, then terrorism will flourish through the generous doles paid out to sympathizers granted asylum status.
Three days earlier, Colombo newspapers reprinted an Asia Week article headlined "LTTE international" which details the Tigers arms-buying network across Asia and claims its $2 million a month income comes from taxing the Tamil refugee community in Western countries.
Fundraising takes various forms says Asia Week, including extortion, threatening relatives who remain back home in Tiger-controlled areas. But hard evidence implicating the Tigers in the international drugs trade is lacking says the article.
A second series of articles reprinted from McLean’s magazine highlights growing LTTE dominance of Canada’s 120,000 Sri Lankan Tamil refugees and claims over 10,000 Tamil guerrillas have entered Canada under false pretences - claiming they are refugees fleeing persecution.
Two Tamil gangs vying for control of lucrative drugs and arms markets fought a pitched battle leaving three wounded in late July in Scarborough which now has over 35,000 Tamil residents.
Canadian police are investigating key Tiger suspects but as Colombo’s Tamil political parties imply, it may be too little or too late.
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