Tamil Tigers set for blacklist

By Cameron Stewart

The Tamil Tigers are soon to be listed as a terrorist organisation in Australia. Although the federal Government says it has made no formal decision to proscribe the Sri Lankan separatist group, also known as the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, preparations for the move are believed to be under way in Canberra.

The move would rank it alongside 19 other proscribed groups, including al-Qaida, Jemmah Islamiah and Lashkar-e-Toiba. It would bring, Australia into with other Western countries that have banned the LTTE, including the US, Britain, Canada and the 27 countries of the European Union.

However, any decision to proscribe the LTTE in Australia will spark an angry backlash from many of the country's 30,000 Tamils. Although not all Australian Tamils support the violent campaign waged by the LTTE in Sri Lanka, there is widespread support for its aims of an independent homeland for Tamils in Sri Lanka.

Australian overseas aid groups also fear that any move to proscribe it could cause them to pull out of Sri Lanka for fear of breaching the law in areas controlled by the Tigers.

"We would strongly urge the Government not to go down that path (of proscribing LTTE) because it would inevitably be used as a propaganda tool by the Sri Lankan Government," said Australian Council for International Development executive director Paul O' Callaghan.

Foreign Minister Alexander Downer has expressed alarm at the recent escalation of fighting between the Sri Lankan armed forces and the LTTE in a conflict which has killed more than 70,000 since the early 1980s. He accused both the Sri Lankan Government and the Tigers of human rights abuses and last week announced an extra $5.25 million in humanitarian aid to those affected by the fighting.

The Australian Federal Police has recently stepped up its investigations into illicit fund-raising by LTTE supporters in Australia. Earlier this month, two Australians, of Sri Lankan Tamil origin were charged in a Melbourne court with diverting tsunami relief funds to a terrorist organisation. There is widespread speculation in the Tamil community that other arrests will follow.

Sri Lanka has warned Australia that Tamil Tiger activists are using credit card fraud overseas to raise funds. In a written warning to the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, the Sri Lankan High Commission in Canberra said Australians could be ripped off by consumer scams perpetrated by the LTTE. In a recent submission to a parliamentary inquiry into terror laws, the Australian-Tamil Rights Advocacy Council argued strongly against listing the LTTE as a terrorist group.

"The objective of advancing Tamils' right to self-determination is shared by a large number of Australians," the submission says. "(If LTTE is listed) virtually any support in relation to these objectives leaves Australians open to prosecution. Thus the proscription of the LTTE will have a potentially devastating and disproportionately negative impact on Australians of Tamil origin."

- The Australian