LTTE front funds Amnesty International

by a special correspondent

Participation of the Rudrakumaran Faction (TGTE) to raise funds for Amnesty International to promote LTTE interest

Participation of Canadian Tamil Alliance with the Eelam logo promoting the LTTE ideology

Amnesty International Secretary General addressing pro–LTTE lobbies

We know that ‘a picture speaks more than words’. This time Amnesty International (AI) that has showed its dubious role while campaigning for human rights. With the latest revelation by intelligence sources about AI’s connection with the Transnational Government of Tamil Eelam (TGTE) which is known as the Rudrakumaran faction led by the New York-based lawyer Visvanathan Rudrakumaran, is evident that AI is now the lifeline for the remnants of the world's brutal terrorist outfit.

There is no need for anymore evidence for AI’s links with the pro-LTTE group in Canada and how this human rights protector is violating the ‘rights’ of people by collecting funds through the group well-known for collecting money for the terrorist outfit as the pictures of the fund raising campaign was published by the Canadian Tamil Congress CTC on their website.

It is sad, that AI, which boasts of its commitment to protect human rights, has been the favourite ally of the world ruthless human rights violators who chopped and bombed innocent children, women and even their own people-Tamils, who crossed their path. It is questionable how this self-proclaimed human rights protector has forgotten heinous crimes committed by LTTE terrorists?

The harsh truth surfaced with the latest information about a fund raising campaign by the CTC, one of the strong pro-LTTE front organisations in Canada which is lobbying for the LTTE cause and collecting money from Tamils in Canada since 2005.

AI should be ashamed of its connections and also running their campaigns on funds collected by front organisations of a banned terrorist outfit. Alex Neve, Secretary General of AI in Canada has confirmed that AI had received its first grant of $50,000 in January 2012 from the CTC , which kicked off collecting funds for AI from September, 2011 by organising a Canadian Tamil Walk-A-Thon at Thomson Memorial Park, Scarborough.

The donation to AI had been officially announced by CTC Chief Suntharamoorthy Umasuthan at the 5th Thai Pongal dinner at Grand Baccus Banquet and Conference Center, 2155 McNicoll Ave., Scarborough at a gathering of over 500 guests, where each had to pay 100 Canadian dollars per plate. Among those present were politicians representing major political parties, including the ruling party. Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty was a special guest at the fund raiser, along with Tamil National Alliance (TNA) parliamentarian M. A. Sumanthiran.

The question demands an answer as to how ethical it is for AI to clamour for an international probe into accountability issues in Sri Lanka by dancing to the tune of Tiger terrorists.

It was reported that CTC was spearheading a campaign in Canada for a resolution against Sri Lanka at the UN Human Rights Council sessions in Geneva over accountability issues.

According to intelligence sources, the CTC’s President Suntharamoorthy Umasuthan, who made the donation to AI, is a close associate of Thavarajah Pratheepan, Deputy Chief of LTTE procurement, who is now in US custody, has been subjected to a multinational investigation launched by Canada to probe their contribution to arms, ammunition and explosives purchases from North Korea, the key supplier of LTTE weaponry.

AI cannot display their ignorance about the motive of the prominent pro-LTTE fronts such as CTC in Canada as these organisations openly promote LTTE ideology and raise funds.

The track record of CTC is not impressive as it has spread its tentacles to many illegal means of raising funds to keep the struggle of the defunct terrorist organisation going. The on-going investigations reveal that CTC had facilitated the multi-million dollar LTTE-run human smuggling operations by MV Ocean Lady, which carried 76 Sri Lankan asylum seekers and MV Sun Sea with 492.

Led by two former LTTE Sea Tigers, Ravishankar Kanagarajah of Canada and Shanmugasundaram Kanthaskaran of the UK, it facilitated over 200 LTTE leaders, members and their families to land in Canada. The LTTE renamed its arms ship MV Princess Easwary as MV Ocean Lady and purchased MV Harin Panich 19 and renamed it MV Sun Sea. The captain of the ship Kamalraj Kandasamy, who transported massive haul of arms, ammunition and explosives by MV Princess Easwary from North Korea to Sri Lanka from 1997 2009, lives in Canada today.

Smuggling lethal cargo

Vinod, the Deputy Kamal, who is claiming asylum in Norway, captain of the MV Sun Sea Sivagnanam Sivaharan alias Kausi and others were involved in smuggling lethal cargo during their ‘voyages’ to North Korea. It was revealed that, CTC not only provided legal and financial aid to the LTTE crew and passengers but also projected that they were bona fide refugees and not terrorists. As these key LTTE cadres and their families arrived in Vancouver, the very next day Poopalapillai with his team flew to Vancouver to defend the LTTE infiltrators and counter Canadian efforts to develop tough legislation. CTC provided legal counsel.

The CTC, since its inception of forming the organisation, propagates the LTTE’s agenda and voices against the Sri Lankan government. Posing as a champion of human rights, a prominent member of the CTC travels to Geneva annually to campaign against Sri Lanka. Although this person calls himself as a human rights champion, it was he who masterminded the CTC campaign to against Jo Becker, the Children’s Rights Advocacy Director for the Human Rights Watch (HRW), who exposed LTTE extortion of the diaspora.

At a press conference on March 15, 2006, which was organised by the CTC to counter the allegations against the LTTE in the HRW report, Shanthela Easwarakumar, who was among a group of people including two university students, a family doctor, a settlement worker, a teacher and a lawyer, she said “ it has deep implications for us. It has exposed us to ridicule and hatred.

According to a data base about the LTTE members, Shanthela’s application, which was recovered from a LTTE hideout during the humanitarian operation in May 2009, states the involvement of her and her family in financing the LTTE. Filled with her own hand writing, she had written that she wanted to join the Tamil Eelam and work as a doctor. Shanthela had mentioned that her family make financial contribution for the LTTE and her parents and relatives were working for the LTTE in other countries.

Born in Jaffna in 1985, studied at Ramanathan Hindu Ladies College and a resident of Arali South, Vadukoddai, she had visited Sri Lanka in 2004 and took part in Heroes Day held in 2004 November 27. Motivated during her stint in the North she had written her opinion about the LTTE’s freedom struggle as : ‘ Need a separate state for Tamils. Even If it is a small piece, we need it”.

At this press briefing Neethan Shan, who had formed the vanguard at LTTE activities in North America, said the CTC was a supportive of LTTE.

How can the so-called international community who have now become a cat’s paw of the LTTE ignore the reality of the LTTE front organisations like CTC when youth in Canada, who were heavily involved with the CTC and serving jail terms for their connection in smuggling of arms, have openly revealed the CTC’s motive to propagate the LTTE?

Sahilal Sabaratnam, the former CTC Communication Director, writing from a US prison to the Tamil community in August 2011, said : “ Like many of you, I was very much and am still very much attached to my homeland people. As all of you, I did participate and contributed vast amount for our community based organisations such as Canadian Tamil Congress (CTC)”.

He was arrested in August 2006, with nine LTTE supporters, including four from Canada, by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in the US for trying to purchase Russian-made missiles and firearms for the LTTE. The US authorities had identified Sahilal as the financial mastermind of the operation.

He had written : We must learn to use alternative methods to violence if you choose to pursue any political agendas. I solely believe and know for a fact that the so-called well-wishers who had always stood behind the Canadian Tamil Congress are believers of a violent solution. Our beloved Tamil people have suffered the most in one form or another throughout the war. We must stop now. Stop propagating hate through Diaspora Tamil organisations”.

“Question such indirect or hidden agendas being carried out by LTTE related organizations such as WTM and CTC. We are all experienced and highly motivated people, we can work in any environment to bring happiness for our people. I ask you not to be a catalyst for someone to propagate hate crimes using organisations like WTM and CTC. I am fully aware that the same situation exists in such organisations today.

Prison-tern

Twenty-eight-year-old Sahilal is serving 25 years in a US Prison for procuring weapons for the LTTE. Sahilal was arrested in New York in August 2006 buying 20 SA 18 heat seeking missiles, 10 missile launchers, 500 AK 47 weapons and other military equipment. Sahilal operated together with his brother-in-law Thani Thanigasalam (38), who headed the cell and Satha Sarachandran (27), President of the Tamil Youth Organisation (TYO) Canada of the LTTE (2003 2005).

Sarachandran through his lawyer whilst serving his prison sentence in US clearly indicates the TYO LTTE links and its extensions to the CTC. In his letter to Tamil Leaders and Members of the Tamil community he said “ I was a highly motivated and emotionally active youth during my term as a president of the TYO Canada which operated as part of the LTTE. During these times, I was misled by many so-called community well-wishers. There was never a common understanding by these so-called local leaders to find a real solution to our cause”, he had written.

According to intelligence sources, immediately after the arrests, the CTC Board met in Toronto decided to disassociate themselves with the LTTE procurement conducted in the US, in order to continue its uninterrupted activities. CTCs Director of Public Relations David Poopalapillai said that he did not know Sahil Sabaratnam, the CTC Director of Communications.

While Poopalapillai had denied Sahils involvement in the CTC, the intelligence agencies have found his links to the LTTE leader V. Prabhakaran. It was revealed that before David Poopalapillai travelled to Canada, he was one of the suspects who reported to have close links with LTTE hierarchy in Wanni. As the current National spokesperson of the CTC, Poopalapillai ensures that LTTEs interests are met. It is reported that Poopalapillai has visited Malaysia in August 2009 to meet Selvarasa Pathmanathan (K.P.), the successor to LTTE leader Prabhakaran. Wanted by Interpol for his role in the Rajiv Gandhi Assassination, K.P. was to meet with Poopalapillai to discuss LTTE CTC strategy. Today, CTC is guided by both Vishvanathan Rudrakumaran, LTTE Central Committee member, and the LTTE ideologist Father S.J. Emmanuel. Rudrakumaran succeeded K.P., the founder President of TGTE.

AI releasing its report on Sri Lanka has called for an independent international investigation and it stated that the government has failed to effectively address impunity for past human rights violations, and continued to subject people to enforced disappearances and torture and other ill-treatment.

In June 11, 2011, AI planned to screen the controversial Channel 4 video on ‘Sri Lankas Killing Fields’ at its office at the United Nations office in New York, but it was later cancelled.

Earlier Human Rights Watch had accused the LTTE of extorting money from over 250,000 Tamils living in Canada every year. Meanwhile, a Tamil, who was an active member of a Tamil organisation in Canada, told the Sunday Observer have requested the Tamils in Canada not to misled by the propaganda by the CTC as they still want to destabilize peace in Sri Lanka. “ We urge the AI not to get funds from the CTC as it raised funds forcefully and we were compelled to pay the money from our earnings.

The conflict is now over and we want our people in the North and East to live peacefully”, he said.

However, the CTC while attempting to hide its links and strong support for the LTTE, has denied accusations that they still raise funds by extorting money from the Tamils in Canada.

According to international terrorism expert, Prof. Rohan Gunaratna, the Head of the International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, the recent multinational police and intelligence investigations showed beyond doubt that the CTC supported the LTTE.

“It is now established that CTC office bearers and activists disseminated propaganda, raised funds and procured weapons for the LTTE. By continuing to disseminate disinformation and radicalising another generation of Tamil youth, CTC is damaging the reconciliation program in Sri Lanka”, he said.

Commenting on AI getting a grant from the LTTE, he said the news that a LTTE-front funded AI was shocking but not surprising. “ The LTTE had an account called the ‘Geneva account’ to bribe human rights organisations since the late 1980s. Terrorists are the worst violators of human rights and the LTTE is a prime example of it. LTTE fronts have funded and supported human rights organizations”, he said.

“After the LTTE was militarily defeated in Sri Lanka, LTTE front offices overseas assumed a new role as champions of human rights. Although the LTTE committed the worst human rights violations, today their surviving propagandists, financiers and procurement officers parade at the UN Human Rights Council in three piece suits. The LTTE activists that enabled, supported and participated in terrorism in Sri Lanka will be brought to justice”, he said.

International NGOs

International NGOs such as AI, is well aware of the finances belong to pro-terrorists groups, which have now spread its tentacles deep into the West. These ‘Cash rich’ terrorist groups and the INGOs need a co-existence for their survival. On the other hand these pro-LTTE groups need to keep the agenda of the terrorist movement alive with each international sessions like the UN Human Rights Council targeting Sri Lanka on war crime allegations.

Isn’t it a shame for AI, which attempts to show its concern on human rights violations, to run on funds collected by an organisation which made a peaceful country a killing field and played with human blood for nearly three decades.

How can they be the peace promoters and cry for lost human rights? What is the motive behind these organisations such as AI giving a fresh breath of life to these pro-LTTE terrorist fronts, while Tamils in Sri Lanka are trying to stand on their own through the rubble of destruction caused by the LTTE?