Tamil Tigers illegally fundraising

[Armymedic]

So, there are no terrorist organizations operating in Canada?

http://www.cbc.ca/story/canada/national/2005/11/30/tamil051130.html

Tamil Tigers illegally fundraising in Toronto: community member
Last Updated Wed, 30 Nov 2005 10:50:18 EST
CBC News
Members of Toronto's large Tamil community say they're being hit up for money by door-to-door fundraisers for the Tamil Tigers.

Community members said they were told to make an immediate cash contribution of $2,500, and that those who didn't contribute would not be allowed to travel in Tamil-controlled parts of Sri Lanka when they returned for visits.

"They started giving each family a PIN number, so whenever somebody visited to the LTTE-controlled areas of Sri Lanka, they would be told to provide the PIN number, and only then would they be allowed to go into the territory," said one man who didn't want to be named for fear of retribution.

The Tigers, also known as the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, (LTTE), are listed as a terrorist organization by the United Nations. They are not banned in Canada, but it is illegal to fundraise for them or to give money to them.

FEATURE: Whose Truth?

The LTTE has been fighting a 20-year war of independence against Sri Lanka's Sinhalese Buddhist government. At times, the Tigers have used suicide bombers and child soldiers. The group relies heavily on fundraising in Tamil communities outside the country. It is estimated that one-third of the Tamil diaspora is in the Toronto area.

Many in Toronto's 150,000-strong community support the fight for Tamil independence. In the past, thousands have turned out to commemorate 18,000 Tamil Tiger fighters killed in the civil war.

Last January, the Canada Revenue Agency turned down an application by the Tamil Relief Organization to gain charitable status. The organizaton said it was because of assumptions that it's linked to the Tigers. The organization had raised $500,000 for tsunami relief and wanted to be eligible for charitable tax credits.

 

[noneck]

This is old news, they have been doing this foir years with the tacit permission of our Liberal government. In the book, "Cold Terror" by Stewart Bell, he goes into detail about these fundraising benefits for the LTTE that are well attended by scores of Liberal politicians.

In fact a few years back, two rival Tamil gangs in the TO area were involved in a series of drive by's. In one an innocent person was killed. Public opinion began to demand the police do more to crack down on the Tamil gangs,(The LTTE use these gangs as money/debt collectors). A senior Tamil official arrived from Sri Lanks and met with the leaders of both gangs at a local temple....problem solved.. The Tigers feared losing their #1 fund raising location Worldwide, which is here in Canada.

 

[zipperhead_cop]

The Tamils are getting a little more tricky.  They have gotten in to large scale debit card cloning and are making a bundle.  About a month ago I grabbed two guys that had 65 cloned cards and had managed to pillage just shy of $30,000 in four hours of bank machine withdrawls.  The cards had computer produced labels and had the PIN numbers right on them. 
DO NOT USE YOUR BANK CARDS IN GAS STATIONS OR VARIETY STORES!!!
Anywhere could be a compromise point, but these places are the Tamil favorites. 

 

[North Star]

Many members of the Liberal party are basically in bed with the Tigers, along with the NDP.

Perhaps they should look at this organization's record.

They've committed over 75 suicide bombings. The way they recruit some bombers is interesting. In Tamil culture, if a girl is raped, she is considered unacceptable as a wife. Since Tamil culture dictates a woman's role is mainly reproductive and that women are first and foremost mothers and wives, a raped woman encounters an additional trauma - she is considered a failure as a woman. LTTE recruiters play on this problem by offering victims of rape a way to "contribute to Eelam" other than motherhood by strapping on a belt bomb.

Consider this quote from a Tamil woman. "Acting as a human bomb is an understood and accepted offering for a woman who will never be a mother."

As far as I'm concerned, to hell with them.

 

[zipperhead_cop]

Boy, someone needs to get into those womens shelters and reorganize their crisis counselling program. ^-^

 

[TCBF]

"CO-AX!  ARSEHOLES IN OPEN !  ON!"

Tom

 

[The Gues-|-]

TORONTO - A Conservative government would add the Tamil Tigers to Canada's list of outlawed terrorist groups, deputy leader and public safety critic Peter MacKay said yesterday.

"The short answer is yes," he said when asked by the National Post if the Tamil Tigers would be listed if the government changed on Monday. "We would list them."

The Conservative party would also act swiftly to deport accused terrorists such as alleged former Tamil Tiger fundraiser Manickavasagam Suresh.

Mr. Suresh was arrested for deportation 10 years ago, but still lives near Toronto.

"In fact, we have in our platform that there's a need to move quickly on the reduction of the backlog that is there right now for unexecuted deportation orders, including Suresh," he said.

Mr. MacKay made the comments hours before the Canadian Tamil Congress was to host an all-candidates meeting in Scarborough, home to a large concentration of Tamil-Canadians, some of whom are sympathetic to the Tigers and call Mr. Suresh a political prisoner.

But Mr. MacKay said "we draw a very distinct line between the Tamil community, who are extremely peace-loving, productive members of society, and this very small terrorist group that has been listed, as I understand it, by many of our traditional allies, including the U.S. and the U.K.

"I think we have to be definitive in saying that we certainly support the Tamil community, but there is a very clear and distinct line that has to be drawn when it comes to terrorist fundraising that we feel is happening in Canada right now, based on CSIS reports."

National security has barely been mentioned during the election campaign. The Conservatives have pledged to end what they consider the Liberals' neglect of Canada's security responsibilities, while the Liberals are running on their track record of reforms introduced after 9/11.

The Anti-Terrorism Act allows Cabinet to compile a list of "entities" it deems to be involved in terrorism. Those on the list are subject to criminal sanctions. Thirty-eight groups have been listed so far, ranging from al-Qaeda to Hamas to Ansar al-Islam in Iraq.

A Canadian Security Intelligence Service recommendation to add the Tigers to the list has gone to Cabinet on several occasions but has been rejected each time.

The Tigers are one of the most active terror groups in Canada and the government's reluctance to ban them has become a source of frustration for police and intelligence investigators trying to stop terrorists from using Canada as a base for supporting overseas violence.

Also known as the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, or LTTE, the Tamil Tigers are a rebel group fighting for an independent state for Sri Lanka's Tamil minority. They are also one of the world's leading practitioners of suicide bombing. LTTE leader Velupillai Prabhakaran is listed on the Interpol Web site as wanted for murder, organized crime, terrorism and terrorism conspiracy.

Canadian police and intelligence agencies say the Tigers operate a series of front organizations and front companies in Canada that raise money and engage in lobbying to sustain the LTTE's campaign of violence.

Foreign Affairs Minister Pierre Pettigrew said last February that Canada did not want to take any action that could be counter-productive to Sri Lanka's Norwegian-brokered peace process, but Mr. MacKay called that an excuse. "CSIS has reports that have called upon the government to list the Tigers, but the age-old excuse that has been given is that it might somehow upset the fragile peace process in Sri Lanka," Mr. MacKay said. "I think we're overstating our own influence if that's the excuse that we're relying upon."

Intelligence reports estimate the Tigers were getting $10-million a year from Canada at one point. The open collection of money declined after a ceasefire was declared in 2002, but some in the Sri Lankan community are reporting a resurgence of fundraising and extortion efforts in anticipation of a return to war.

Last year, Sri Lanka's foreign minister was assassinated in a sniper attack the government blames on the Tigers. Several recent bombings targeting the Sri Lankan military have likewise been attributed to the Tigers. Supporters of the LTTE, who regularly hold large rallies in Toronto, argue that Tamils have no choice but to fight because of the way the country's Sinhalese majority has historically treated them.

A slide presentation circulated on the Internet early in the election campaign urged Sri Lankan Canadians to vote Conservative because "many countries banned LTTE" but the "Liberals did not."

http://www.canada.com/components/print.aspx?id=1f4d7889-519a-42ef-a081-b655df64347e

 

[The_Falcon]

The RCMP raided the offices of a Tamil fundraising org today after the Conservatives made good on their promise about adding the LTTE to the terrorist list (they were added a week ago).

The first story is about the LTTE being added (I know it happened a week ago but no one here posted anything about it so I am putting it up), the second is about todays events

Both articles are being shared in accordance with the "fair dealing" provisions, Section 29, of the Copyright Act (http://www.cb-cda.gc.ca/info/act-e.html#rid-33409)

http://torontosun.com/News/Canada/2006/04/10/1528520.html

OTTAWA (CP) — The Conservative government has made good on a promise to outlaw the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, despite some reservations within Canada’s large expatriot Sri Lankan Tamil community.

The LTTE, or Tamil Tigers, were formally listed as a terrorist group effective April 8, Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day announced Monday.

“The decision to list the LTTE is long overdue and something the previous government did not take seriously enough to act upon,” Day said in a release.

“Our government is clearly determined to take decisive steps to ensure the safety of Canadians against terrorism.”

The Tigers are notorious for having pioneered the use suicide bombers during their 23-year fight for an independent Tamil state in Sri Lanka.
 

More than 64,000 deaths are attributed to the quarter-century conflict, and some 300,000 Tamils have moved to Canada — almost half the estimated 600,000 to 800,000 Tamil diaspora worldwide.

Vincent Veerasuntharam, a Tamil businessman from Toronto who ran unsuccessfully as a Tory candidate in the January election, said the Tamil community “is quite confused and disappointed” by the terrorist designation.

Tamils want the Canadian government to assist the peace negotiations, which are set to begin a second round next week in Geneva, said Veerasuntharam. They are also concerned about the impact the terrorist designation may have on their ability to see their extended families in their homeland. “They’re Canadians first, law-abiding citizens, hard-working people, paying their taxes, raising families,” Veerasuntharam told The Canadian Press.

“But they have a lot of families left there (in Sri Lanka). They just want justice and peace for their folks.”

The former Liberal government barred the LTTE from raising cash in Canada as part of anti-terrorism efforts following Sept. 11, 2001, but Liberals who rely heavily on Tamil support in Toronto stopped short of formally declaring it a terrorist organization or outlawing membership in the group.

An internal Tory e-mail during the election campaign revealed the Conservatives were also attempting to keep their promised LTTE ban out of the media for fear of alienating Tamil voters in several Toronto ridings.

The full ban follows a report released last month by Human Rights Watch that claimed the LTTE continues funding its terrorist activities by extorting cash from expatriot Tamils in Canada, Britain and elsewhere.

“Obviously, listing the Tigers as a terrorist organization will go a long way to pushing the police in Canada to address these issues,” James Ross, senior legal counsel for Human Rights Watch in New York, said Monday.

“We would hope it would have a real impact on the Tigers using intimidation and extortion against Canadian Tamils.”

The terrorist listing, the 39th of its kind, means it is illegal for anyone in Canada to support or participate in Tamil Tigers activities.

And todays events

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1145742614985&call_pageid=970599119419

Tigers outlawed as a terrorist group
Apr. 23, 2006. 01:00 AM
SURYA BHATTACHARYA AND MICHELLE SHEPHARD
STAFF REPORTERS


Royal Canadian Mounted Police officers raided the Scarborough and Toronto offices of the World Tamil Movement yesterday, sealing off the building with yellow police tape and carting off boxes of documents.

Police hit offices at 39 Consentino Dr. in Scarborough, and later yesterday the community Tamil radio station reported a similar raid on the Toronto office on Eaton Ave., near Wellesley and Parliament Sts. in downtown Toronto. The World Tamil Movement maintains a third office here at 1231 Ellesmere Rd. in Scarborough, but it's not known if police searched it.

The raids come after Canada outlawed the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam — popularly known as the Tamil Tigers — earlier this month and formally listed them as a terrorist group.

The World Tamil Movement has often been called a front for the Tamil Tigers.

A call to the World Tamil Movement office was answered by an RCMP officer, directing the Star to the police force's Toronto spokesperson. But the RCMP's spokesperson, Michele Paradis, said she was unable to comment on the case and that the search warrant for the WTM office remained sealed.

A movement spokesperson had no comment on the latest developments.

"I have nothing to say at this stage but I will comment in a few days," said Sinnathamby Sittampalam, the 72-year-old president of Toronto's World Tamil Movement.

Sittampalam said he doesn't belong to the LTTE, but to assist Tamil people, he added, he "cannot help but support the LTTE, because LTTE is the one fighting for this struggle."

The United States has banned the WTM, denouncing it as a front for the LTTE. But Sittampalam said he had no ties to Sri Lanka, instead raising money for local Tamil interests.

Just two days after the Conservative government listed the LTTE as a terrorist organization, a Montreal-based RCMP anti-terrorism team assisted by local police raided Montreal's WTM office for more than 12 hours. The police said they were investigating offences related to financing terrorist activity.

Meanwhile in Sri Lanka, the Tamil Tigers have refused to continue with peace talks in Geneva, planned for April 24-25, raising concerns about the country sliding back into a civil war.

Its about bloody friggen time!! I went to highschool in Scarborough during the time period when the VVT and the other Tamil gang (both of which where Tamil Tiger sympathy/recruiting orgs, they just had differences in ideology, and each wanted a bigger piece of the pie) were waging all out war in Scarborough and some parts of Toronto.  Hell there were reports of these guys conducting surviellance on 41 Division, and gathering intel on the officers working there (41 Division of Toronto Police being in Scarborough, with this particular division having a very large Tamil/Sri Lankan population for those who don't know), including following them home.

Despite some of the few missteps the Conservatives have had thus far, I believe this is one HUGE step in the right direction, regardless of what the inevitable backlass is going to be over this, which infact has already started (There were a number of supporters of the LTTE on the OMNI news airing, all of whom swore that the LTTE was a "peaceful" "liberation" group  : )  Its going to being interesting to see how the Liberals/NDP react to this.

 

[zipperhead_cop]

Its going to being interesting to see how the Liberals/NDP react to this.

Gee, if potential voters are to be sucked up to, it shouldn't be a big suprise.  I too grew up in Scarborough and saw the crap these guys got away with.  Also recall that the "Tuxedo Boys" is a fairly successful and violent gang in Toronto, with almost all Sri Lankan membership. 
If nothing else, it should be fun watching the A-Channel news and seeing the anchors trying to pronounce names like Jeyanthini Thanablasingan or Vijayakhumar Kulanthaivelu.  However, no matter what, Jim Crichton ROCKS!

 

[aluc]

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1151963410356&call_pageid=968332188492&col=968793972154&t=TS_Home


Tamil Tiger leader lectures Harper
Jul. 4, 2006. 05:17 AM
ANDREW MILLS
SPECIAL TO THE STAR

KILINOCHCHI, Sri Lanka—In a villa surrounded by tall jak fruit trees and a squad of cadres toting T-56 assault rifles, S.P. Thamilselvan, the political leader of the Tamil Tiger guerrillas, sits pondering the political missteps of Stephen Harper's rookie government.

"We know the complexity of the political problems any party would normally come across during a period of transition or a change from one party to another," he says.

Thamilselvan says he's been searching for a plausible reason Harper's government ignored Canada's 200,000-strong Tamil community and placed their "freedom-fighting organization" alongside Al Qaeda, Hamas and Hezbollah on a list of criminal terrorist groups.

Canada used to be well-respected here in Tiger land. It was known as a haven for thousands of Tamil refugees fleeing persecution by the Sinhalese-dominated government during a civil war that raged in the 1980s and '90s, leaving 64,000 people dead.

But since Ottawa's decision in April, Canada is now thought of as a country that turned its back on the Tigers' fight for a separate Tamil homeland.

In the first Canadian interview he's given since Ottawa's decision, Thamilselvan says he suspects Harper is playing a cheap game to score political points early in his minority mandate.

"These are things quite understandable in politics," he says. "But politics and freedom struggles are two different things. Politics has machinations."

Recent decisions by Canada, the European Union and the United States to list the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) as a terrorist organization could have great bearing on the tattered peace process in Sri Lanka, especially as the nation appears poised to return to all-out civil war at any time. Since April, more than 700 people have been killed in escalating violence.

With his crisp linen shirt and dimples, it's easy to forget Thamilselvan heads one of the most brutal guerrilla organizations in the world.

The rebels' "Black Tiger" suicide squad has been blamed for unleashing more than 150 suicide bombers against civilian and government targets alike. Most recently, they're thought to have been behind an attack that killed the third-highest ranking general in the Sri Lankan army.

Another favourite Tiger weapon is the Claymore roadside mine that hurls ball bearings in a deadly arc when it is detonated. A Claymore exploded two weeks ago, killing 64 bus passengers and injuring 70 in the deadliest attack on civilians since a 2002 ceasefire.

What's more, UNICEF says the Tigers have recruited thousands of child soldiers. And overseas, the rebels' fundraising agents use fear and extortion to extract significant sums from the Tamil diaspora, especially in Toronto.

All of that is reason enough, Ottawa argues, to add the Tigers to the Criminal Code's list of terrorist groups, making membership and participation in its operations illegal. (Fundraising for the Tamil Tigers has been illegal in Canada since 2001, when the government adopted a set of United Nations anti-terror funding regulations.)

"The decision to list the LTTE is long overdue and something the previous government did not take seriously enough to act upon," Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day said in April. "Our government is clearly determined to take decisive steps to ensure the safety of Canadians against terrorism."

But the implications of listing the Tigers as a terrorist group means Canada can no longer participate as an effective broker in the peace process, Thamilselvan says. Ottawa has clearly chosen to side with the Sri Lankan government and against the Tigers.

"The extremist elements in the south" — which Thamilselvan euphemistically calls the government in Colombo — "always get encouraged when somebody outside gives them a pat on the shoulders that they're doing a good job and that the LTTE is a terrorist organization," he says.

The result is that the government has "accelerated the pace of violence let loose on the Tamil people."

"This ban," he adds, "has only helped the extremist elements to fan the flame of communalism and racism."

Some observers worry Thamilselvan may be correct, saying that the Sri Lankan government has become more brazen in its acts of violence since the international community appears to have endorsed its position.

"It also gives an opportunity for the government to try to use the war on terror to engage in violence. There's a danger in that as well. It kind of releases pressure on the government in that it can feel like it has the right, in a way, to do certain things," says Mirak Raheem, a peace and conflict researcher at Colombo's Centre for Policy Alternatives.

Some also worry that, by effectively alienating the Tamil Tigers, Canada has thrown away any leverage it once had to influence the group.

"They have nothing much to lose when they attack, because they have lost the international recognition they were aiming for and I don't see a lot of things that could prevent them from going on with those attacks," says a Western diplomat in Colombo. "There are no incentives we can really offer them."

Thamilselvan's parting plea to Harper is to "address the issue justly and reasonably" and reconsider.

"We have under no circumstances engaged ourselves in any acts of, call it terrorism or violence or whatever, in any other nation," he said. "All our acts are intended to drive the enemy away from our homeland. This does not, in any way, impact life in Canada."

Andrew Mills is a Canadian freelance journalist

 

[George Wallace]

:  Go figure.....

 

[zipperhead_cop]

Sounds like the Tigers have a quality spokes person.  I imagine lots of weeping hearts in Toronto will be begging to send them money now.

 

[The_Falcon]

Sounds like the Tigers have a quality spokes person.  I imagine lots of weeping hearts in Toronto will be begging to send them money now.

I dunno, even the writer showed a little bias against them calling them "rebels" instead of insurgents.

 

[Centurian1985]

Are they 'terrorists' or 'freedom fighters'?  Either way, failing to stop their activity puts our nation at fault as supporting the actions of a group trying to overthrow the government of another country.  Either way, about time something was done to shut down their activities here...

 

[paracowboy]

Are they 'terrorists' or 'freedom fighters'? 

terrorists. Neither side is innocent. Both are guilty of horrific acts. Much like the Israel/Palestine scenario, I sympathize with the Tamils' original cause, but their actions since have lost them any goodwill on my part, and I'd as soon put lead into them, and their supporters, as any other terrorist organization.

 

[Centurian1985]

Are they 'terrorists' or 'freedom fighters'? 

Paracowboy - Sorry, poorly worded rhetorical question.  Yes, I agree, by any other name still qualifies as terrorism and we should have shut them down years ago.

 

[noneck]

Fresh of the Press-

Vancouver Sun 08-03-18
Accused raised funds for Tamil Tigers, RCMP says
Vancouver, BC - The RCMP says an Ontario man who was scheduled to appear in a Vancouver courtroom this morning to face Canada's first terrorism financing charge was collecting money for Sri Lanka's Tamil Tigers. Prapaharan Thambithurai is accused of collecting money from ethnic Tamils in British Columbia's Lower Mainland that was destined for the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, or LTTE, a foreign terrorist organization under Canadian law. A senior B.C. counterterrorism officer said Mr. Thambithurai, a.k.a. "Prapa," was soliciting donations for the World Tamil Movement (WTM), which police say is the leading Tamil Tigers front organization in Canada. "There's no doubt he was collecting funds for the WTM, ultimately with the linkage to the LTTE," said Superintendent Lloyd Plante, head of B.C.'s counter-terrorism squad, INSET.  He called the charge a "first for Canada." Mr. Thambithurai is a resident of Maple, Ont., north of Toronto. A spokesman for the Canadian Tamil Congress, David Poopalapillai, said he did not know the 45-year-old, who police said was a Canadian citizen. "Collecting money for the Tigers is unlawful activity," said Mr. Poopalapillai, who speaks for one of Canada's most prominent Tamil community groups. "The Canadian Tamil Congress, we don't condone any illegal activity," Mr. Poopalapillai said.[...] Canada is home to the world's largest expatriate Sri Lankan Tamil community. Both the RCMP and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service have long alleged that front organizations based in Toronto have been secretly sending money to the Tigers to help the group buy weapons.[...]