Canada must deal with volatile issue of Tamil Tigers
by Haroon Siddiqui, The Toronto Star
THE INTERNATIONAL Conference on War-Affected Children, hosted recently by Canada, provided yet another occasion for berating Tamil Canadians for funding the terrorist Tamil Tigers of Sri Lanka. Such news is usually followed by breathless commentary featuring hand-wringing or a ringing call for some unspecified action, by somebody, somewhere. A more honest reaction would be sadness and irritation.
Sorrow that the world, including Canada, remains oblivious to a vicious war, worse than Kosovo or East Timor and which has claimed more than 60,000 lives in the last 17 years and displaced 1 million people.
Irritation at the vacuity, even the intellectual dishonesty, of our public discourse. It rarely rises above maligning a new immigrant minority, while absolving our political, security and police establishments of any responsibility in the mess.
The spectre of Canadian bagmen enriching the war chest of a ruthless militia halfway around the globe prompts revulsion all right. It should also raise some questions:
How is this abuse of Canadian hospitality any different than past Irish Canadian funding for the IRA? Or, the countless other foreign causes, some worthy and others not so benign, supported from here throughout our history, and even today?
Should such activity be banned, especially when it can be reasonably shown to be aiding and abetting a bloody civilian conflict?
If so, and it's said to be so with Tamils, what are the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), the RCMP and police forces doing?
The Tamil diaspora in Canada, centred in Toronto, is the largest outside Sri Lanka. Between 150,000 and 250,000, it consists mostly of refugees. Their migration parallels the Sri Lankan civil war, and fits the historical pattern of immigration to Canada from the world's trouble spots.
The Sri Lankan conflict centres on minority Hindu Tamils - 3.2 million in a population of 18 million - rebelling against majority Buddhist Sinhalese oppression. The resistance began under a democratic political party but was taken over in the early 1980s by the militant and separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.
The LTTE has waged a campaign of terror, recruiting child soldiers and teenage girls who are brainwashed into becoming suicide bombers. (See the movie now playing in Toronto, The Terrorist.) It has blown up hundreds of civilians, dozens of Sinhalese politicians and scores of moderate Tamil leaders.
In 1994, President Chandrika Kumaratunga offered the LTTE a devolution package. It refused.
Last December, she was re-elected, barely escaping an assassination attempt in which she lost an eye. More Tiger trouble is expected in the days leading up to the Oct. 10 parliamentary election. But regardless of who wins, no government is ever likely to agree to separation. Radical devolution is the best possible outcome.
Asia's bloodiest and longest running war remains inconclusive. Colombo spends nearly $1 billion a year. The LTTE procures small arms from the black market, and reportedly from the governments of Ukraine, Bulgaria and North Korea.
Sri Lanka accuses the 500,000 Tamils abroad, particularly those here, of funding Tiger terrorism.
This echoes past protests by Britain, South Africa and India about fundraising drives here by the IRA, the ANC and the Sikh movement for Khalistan, to cite three examples.
But Colombo's complaint is echoed by CSIS, the RCMP, Toronto police and several Canadian diplomats.
Funds are collected by an umbrella organization called FACT, the Federation of Associations of Canadian Tamils, especially one of its constituent members, the World Tamil Movement. Both are listed by the U.S. State Department as front organizations for the LTTE, which is branded a terrorist organization.
It is illegal in the U.S. to raise funds for the Tigers. But not in Canada. In fact, FACT has received government grants to do legitimate immigrant settlement work. This prompted critics to accuse Ottawa of naveté, of legitimizing the Tigers' political arm, helping it raise between $12 million and $22 million a year.
Tamils say they are not fomenting violence in Canada; their giving is no different than other groups funding their favourite foreign causes; that they donate for orphans, victims of rape, and other humanitarian causes.
But the argument is circular, as always in such situations. Money given for good works frees funds for arms.
Why not follow the U.S. model?
People can get around the ban. American Tamils give to a charity that is not banned. Also, American enforcement is highly political and selective; witness Cuban Americans.
The Canadian legal preference is not to go after groups but individuals. Changes to the Criminal Code are in the works. But even that may not stem the tide of informal money transfers that are becoming the norm. Money deposited at a shop here is delivered in a Somali village the next day.
A bigger problem is that existing laws are not being enforced.
It has been alleged that 6,000 to 8,000 Tamils trained in guerrilla camps have slipped into Canada. If so, this is not so much an indictment of the Tamils as CSIS and the RCMP.
Aren't these agencies supposed to do security checks? Why were they asleep at the switch?
And what of now? Why aren't they initiating deportation proceedings, as against the Nazis who entered the country under false pretenses?
Toronto police also allege that Tiger supporters raise funds through welfare scams, drugs, credit card and passport frauds, and human smuggling. Why are police not cracking down on such illegal activities, as they did with the Russian mafia?
A common complaint in the Tamil community is that Tiger supporters frighten people into giving. High-pressure salesmanship and guilt-tripping may be the fundraising norm these days. But when it crosses the line into extortion, with threats of ``repercussions at the other end,'' suggesting harm to relatives in Sri Lanka, then police must intervene.
Many Tamil refugees got asylum claiming persecution not by the Sri Lankan government but Tamil Tigers. They did not escape their homeland to be frightened by the same force on Canadian soil. They are as entitled to the full protection of the Canadian law as any other citizens.
Many want to be left alone to get on with their new lives. Many others support the cause but not the Tigers. They cringe at seeing Tiger leader Vellupillai Prabhakaran idolized here. But they won't abandon their people's struggle either. Such is the dilemma of a Canadian Tamil.
To sum up:
Where no Canadian law is being broken, not much can be done until the law is changed - and perhaps not even then. The ripples from Sri Lanka will continue here so long as the conflict continues there.
Where Canadian law is broken, not much is being done but should be.
Not all of what you read and hear about this complex issue is true. Some of it is part of the propaganda war between the Sri Lankan government and the Tamils. And some of it is plain mudslinging and good ol' Canadian buck-passing.