SRI LANKA UNITED
NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF CANADA
Box
55292, 300 Borough Drive, Toronto, Ontario M1P 4Z7
Canada
Media
Release
February 6, 2007
LONDON
TIMES REPORT OF FEB 5,2007 ON EXTORTION OF TAMIL DIASPORA
BY THE
LIBERATION TIGERS OF TAMIL EELAM (LTTE) FOR PROCUREMENT OF
WEAPONS
Annexed hereto is
a report filed by Tom Whipple of the London Times detailing the heightened
level
of extortion
resorted to by the Tamil Tiger Terrorists seeking sums ranging from Pounds 1,000
to
Pounds 50,000
from members of the diaspora residing in Britain, for the purchase of
missiles,
helicopters and
other weapons to continue with their armed insurrection in Sri Lanka which
has
lasted over three
decades. Non-payment of the sums demanded would result in personal harm
as
well as attacks
on their relatives residing in Sri Lanka who will be dealt with by the armed
thugs
of the
LTTE. These extortion activities are being freely carried out by the
LTTE despite their
being an outlawed organization in Britain since
2001.
It has been
estimated that the armed insurrection launched by the Tamil Tiger Terrorists
including
the frequent use
of trained suicide bombers called Black Tigers who have struck over 264
times
mainly against
civilian targets, has cost nearly 65,000 lives plus damage to billions of
dollars of
valuable property
in Sri Lanka. The LTTE seeks almost 30 percent of the island's land
area in the
north, north
central
and eastern areas hugging the coastline taking up nearly 66 percent of the
surrounding
ocean and territorial waters, to
establish a mono-ethnic racist Tamil separate state for
Tamils numbering
less than 4.0 percent of the nation's population who reside in the
region. A larger
percentage of Sri Lankan Tamils who in total
make up around 8.5 percent of the island's population
now live outside
this region sought for their separate state, as they wish to distance themselves
from
the self declared sole representatives of the Tamil
community, the LTTE, which is responsible for
killing large numbers of their own community to
eliminate any and all opposing views.
Sri Lanka has
made as much as six attempts to reach a negotiated peace accord with the LTTE
by
entering into
direct talks, and using international mediators and facilitators from India and
Norway
respectively, but
have failed to get anywhere as the LTTE attends peace talks to merely buy
time
to re-group and
re-arm themselves to re-commence hostilities in pursuit of their goal of a
separate
state. They
have remained intransigent seeking their goal of dismembering Sri Lanka on
ethnic lines
that would only
lead to greater chaos, and have never been amenable to negotiate anything less
for
the past 20
years. No country, no government, would be willing to part with 30 percent
of the land
and 66 percent of
her territorial waters for a small minority of people amounting to less than
4.0
percent of the
population, for creation of a militaristic ethnic state in a
large part of her land plus the
added problem
of
policing a long winding hostile border that would become the dividing
line.
The international
community continues to ask Sri Lanka to talk to these terrorists with no
progress
whatsoever from such negotiations even though 20 years have gone by
since the Indian mediation
in the
mid-1980's. Sri Lanka has always been prepared to talk but not
agree to solutions that would
result in the
division of the country, nor one that harms the safety and security of all
the communities
including the
Tamil minority community that has lost faith in the LTTE. The LTTE
reneged on the
Indo-Lanka Accord
of 1987 mediated by Rajiv Gandhi, former Prime Minister of India, who too
became
a victim of a
LTTE suicide bomber who travelled to India to carry out this dastardly
act. Should Sri
Lanka wait for
the day the Tiger changes his stripes hoping to arrive at a fresh peace deal,
and
continue to bleed
and suffer, even though the international community which advocates
negotiations
with terrorists
have adopted a solely military approach of eliminating terrorists
everywhere.
Britain and other
western countries where the LTTE has established a network for fundraising
and
procurement of
weapons should do more to dismantle their operations to safeguard ordinary
Tamils
who have migrated to their midst, and also meet
their obligations in terms of the UN Convention on
the Suppression of Financing of Terrorism of
which they are signatories.
Yours very truly,
Mahinda Gunasekera
Honorary President
Encl.
