Failure to ban would be 'unfriendly act': Foreign Minister makes strong call for UK ban on LTTE

by a special correspondent

As speculation mounted in Britain of moves to curtail LTTE activities there, Foreign Affairs Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar has made a strong call on the United Kingdom government to proscribe the LTTE in the UK under new anti-terrorism laws.

"The LTTE's record of terror is long and horrible. In the light of this record, the people of Sri Lanka will simply never be able to understand the failure on the part of the British government to proscribe the LTTE, now that it has the power to do so," Minister Kadirgamar said in an interview last week with the 'Sunday Observer'.

Following the enactment in the UK of the new Terrorism Act of 2000, speculation has mounted in recent months that London would move quickly to curtail the activities of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in that country. Reports from London indicate that several charitable organisations run by Sri Lankan Tamil expatriates known to have links with the LTTE are now being probed by the authorities for possible clandestine support for the Tigers' separatist insurgency.

In addition to a large network of organisations functioning under various 'social service' labels, the LTTE also has a political propaganda base in the UK. It has an 'international secretariat' functioning in the British capital which regularly issues news bulletins and carries out international propaganda campaigns.

The Foreign Minister pointed out in his interview that Sri Lanka had long pressured London to act against LTTE activities in the UK.

Following the implementation of the new UK anti-terrorism law, the failure of the British government to act against the LTTE would be "an unfriendly act that would impose a considerable strain on our relations", Mr. Kadirgamar said in what appeared to be the strongest ever Sri Lankan pressure on the UK for action against the Tigers.