SRI LANKA UNITED NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF
CANADA
Box 55292, 300 Borough Drive,
Toronto, Ontario M1P 4Z7
Media Release
January 18,
2005
Grim Fairy Tales by TNA's Sampanthan
The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam
(LTTE) and their propagandists were raising a storm after the tsunami disaster
to
point out that there was discrimination
in the distribution of relief aid to areas of the north and east of Sri
Lanka. They
had to admit to Prime Minister Martin
that adequate relief was reaching all areas. In meetings with Mr. Martin
and the
Canadian media, the pro-LTTE
R.Sampanthan of the Tamil National Alliance, described earlier as an elder
statesman
of the extremist group, has tried to
sell 'grim fairy tales' (not Grimm's Fairy Tales) to the visitors, which we
quote from
reports carried in the Canadian print
media:
" We don't think the LTTE is
either terrorist or vicious". Well, they have only exploded
around 255 human bombs
using their Black Tiger suicide bombers against mainly civilian
targets. They have used prisoners held in dungeons as
blood banks for blood transfusions. They have carried out ethnic
cleansing massacres of Sinhala villagers in remote
hamlets and killed Buddhists and Muslims while performing religious
observances. They have killed only a few
thousand of their own Tamil people whom they want to liberate, and continue to kill
those whom they consider
dissidents in order to become the sole representatives of the Tamils. In
Sampanthan's view, these are not terrorist or
vicious acts, but merely boisterous behaviour on the part of a bunch of armed
kids.
Sampanthan said the civil war has left
many children homelesss and poor, or their parents unable to feed
them. " In
that type of a situation it is possible that the LTTE lends
a helping hand to some of these children. It could
very well be that when such
things happen, that is being described as child recruitment.
" Mr. Sampanthan,
go tell it to the marines, do not
mention it to UNICEF or Human Rights Watch.
There is also talk of Canada being asked
to play a bigger role in Sri Lanka's stalled peace process and share the
facilitation role with Norway.
Canada will not be acceptable as an impartial faciliator as could be seen
even from the
posturing and rhetoric on the part of
the Liberal Party Government led by Mr. Martin, which was apparently
tilted
towards the extremist Tamil Tigers, and
mainly wanting to please this group to hold on to the Tamil votes in the
Toronto area ridings. The vast majority of the Sinhalese, Tamils, Moors, Malays and
Burghers making up the nation
of Sri Lanka who peacefully
co-exist in the rest of the country were ignored by the Martin entourage. Canada permits
the known front, cover and sympathetic
organizations of the LTTE to freely function in
Canada, and has failed to prevent
the flow of Canadian funds into the
LTTE's war machine making Canada a part of
the terrorist problem in Sri Lanka.
Yours very truly,
Mahinda Gunasekera
Honourary
President