RCMP exposes Tiger terror activities in Canada

Last April, the RCMP raided WTM's headquarters in Scarborough, known as Little Jaffna as part of a four-year terror financing investigation under the code name Project Osaluki, whatever that name signifies. It appears more than a thousand items were seized which indicated that this organisation has been raising money for arms. In an affidavit submitted to court, it has been stated that the WTM has been actively raising funds for the LTTE and the searches had yielded a plethora of evidence in this respect.

Siva Sunderam in Toronto

Canada: Canada woke up on Saturday morning, July 20, to shocking revelations about a nearly two decades of activities by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) among the Sri Lankan Canadians milking them with threats and intimidation and also planning the wherewithal in millions for the purchase of arms and missiles for terror operations in Sri Lanka. These operations were carried out systematically under the supervision of a Tamil-Canadian organisation, the World Tamil Movement (WTM) registered as a non-profit group.

"The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP)," writes Stewart Bell in the National Post (July 22, 2006), "is investigating how the suspected Canadian front organisation for the Tamil Tiger terrorist group managed to obtain Elections Canada voters list used in the last federal elections."

"The voter lists, along with manuals on missile-guidance systems, books encouraging suicide bombing and paperwork that police say is evidence of terrorist fund raising were seized from the World Tamil Movement."

Stewart Bell of the National Post has single-handedly challenged the bona fides of the LTTE front organisation, the WTM along with those linked to them apparently innocent as far as the Canadian public was concerned but laced with the terror concepts and goals of the LTTE and aggressively involved among the Canadian Tamils in many spheres of activities.

Stewart Bell was threatened many times with dire consequences and there were even efforts made by a group of Tamil university students headed by Harini Sivalingam, a daughter of a prominent Tamil temple man, Kovil Sivalingam, a founder of the Tamil Eelam Society, to file a million-dollar damages action against him. Threat to one's life from the LTTE sources is one that no one should take lightly because murder comes naturally to this most brutal terror outfit in the world.

The now-defunct Tamil Eelam Society founded as a welfare organisation for the Canadian Tamils and supported by public funding unashamedly supported the LTTE. In fact, the Tamil Eelam Society employed strong-arm thugs from the LTTE whenever they had their annual general meetings to ensure persons opposed to the LTTE were kept out.

Along with the Tamil Eelam Society and the WTM there were a few others that came under an umbrella organisation called the Federation of Associations of Ceylon Tamils (FACT) that called the shots in the community as if every Canadian Tamil should have total loyalty to their dictates.

People like Stewart Bell would be an obvious obstacle for whatever plans the LTTE may have had to develop its own terror outfit in Canada. In fact, some of the Tamil gangs have had the support and encouragement of the Tigers and there was one in particular that came to be known as the Valvettiturai or VVT Gang, that adored Prabhakaran, the Tiger chief as god reincarnated to liberate the Tamils from Sinhala oppression and set up an independent state exclusively for the Tamils in Sri Lanka.

It was an arrogant minority that supported the LTTE in Canada; it was a group that believed in sheer domination even if it had to use thuggery for the purpose. This group through sheer threats and intimidation controlled the ethnic media, the grocery shops and how they run it, gold jewellery marts and there are many of them in Toronto, imports of ethnic goods from textiles and vegetable to seafood, take-away restaurants with the principal ones being Babu Catering and Ambal Trading and even a pizza franchise named after Reggie, one of the heads of the WTM.

It was Reggie along with some of his WTM colleagues who took forcible control of the Canada Kandasamy Temple at Birchmount Road, the only publicly administered Hindu temple of the Canadian Tamils. This temple with its many facilities for public functions has become a cash cow for the LTTE and continues to function as one even now. The premises are also used indiscriminately for the LTTE and WTM propaganda and other meetings overlooking the fact that it is a place of worship.

But for the manner in which Stewart Bell addressed himself to this plague that was destroying the integrity of the Tamil community, a majority of whom are opposed to the activities of the LTTE but were silenced, the Canadian public would have been largely oblivious to the cancer that was taking roots in the community. The Canadian Tamil Silent majority has looked up to Stewart Bell with gratitude and appreciation for his courage and guts against this deadly force. He has proved effectively that the pen indeed is mightier than the sword.

Last April, the RCMP raided WTM's headquarters in Scarborough, known as Little Jaffna as part of a four-year terror financing investigation under the code name Project Osaluki, whatever that name signifies. It appears more than a thousand items were seized which indicated that this organisation has been raising money for arms. In an affidavit submitted to court, it has been stated that the WTM has been actively raising funds for the LTTE and the searches had yielded a plethora of evidence in this respect.

According to Stewart Bell's report, the investigation has also found evidence that the WTM collects 'taxes' for the Tigers, methodically controls the Tamil media, produces propaganda materials to raise money and specifically promotes and commemorates the activities of the LTTE operatives including suicide bombers.

The seized items included combat books on anti-armour warfare, torpedo design, naval weapons systems, missile design and military strategy. Among the items that shocked the investigators was a list of voters from the Scarborough-area voting sites. According to Stewart Bell's report, all Tamil-sounding names had been highlighted and their home addresses were identified.

Canadian voter lists are protected by the Privacy Act and are only supposed to be used for election purposes; improper use of them is illegal. LTTE or WTM fund raisers have been systematically calling on Tamil homes and have indulged in persuasion that went beyond the confines of options into the realms of threats and intimidation.

It is also generally believed that addresses were collected from some real estate agents and in the Tamil community there are over a one hundred and fifty of them.

It is these people who fund liberally the Tamil tabloids that are all, without exception, pro-LTTE. This applies to the radio stations like Gitavani, CTR, 1430 and CMR/TVI. Any voice against the LTTE would be stifled straightaway.

The CMR/TVI has employed a special political analyst for its weekend discourses on the LTTE usually denying Tiger violence in Sri Lanka and generally twisting and contorting stories that are not complimentary to it. These Saturday and Sunday broadcasts are chaired by S. Thiruchelvam, a man known for giving some kind of annual awards for people of his choice, have the character of Joseph Goebbels to interpret Nazi terror as a human movement.

Thiruchelvam has a rather sketchy record in Sri Lanka and his integrity is suspect. It is indeed tragic that CMR/TVI broadcasts give a totally false account of events in Sri Lanka by pampering to terrorism, fostered by the WTM.

Another LTTE organisation that was raided by the RCMP was the Tamil Academy of Arts and Technology. In addition to the seized documents there were others that confirmed that the WTM methodically attempted to control Tamil media in order to suppress and intimidate Tamils with dissenting views.

The National Post report further stated that the police seized photos and videos of young children in a Toronto High School auditorium acting in plays that glorified the Tamil Tigers and paid reverences to the LTTE leader Prabhakaran, who is wanted by Interpol for murder.

What was more disturbing from the point of view of brainwashing children and young people, something that is systematically done to children in Wanni and render them as human bombs, were numerous materials and other images that were seized indicating that the WTM encourages Tamil Canadian children to develop cult-like devotion and obedience to Prabhakaran.

The comprehensive nature of the activities of the WTM was further emphasized when the investigators found equipment used to produce LTTE-themed CDs including more than 4,000 labels showing Tamil Tiger themes, including suicide operations and indicating that they were being released by the WTM.

What is going to worry many innocent Tamils who were coaxed and cajoled into contributing towards the forced fund raising are the comprehensive lists that were seized of Canadian Tamils that showed the amount of money they had donated and the forms signed by those who had visited LTTE-controlled areas in Sri Lanka that allowed money to be deducted from their bank accounts. "Lists of business donors and cancelled cheques were also found and many, it was reported were in excess of $10,000."

There are 21 organisations that are "fully co-mingled" with the WTM. Among them are the University Students Organisation, Women's Organisation, Tamil Academy of Arts and Technology, World Tamil Movement Sports Division, Vanikam Business Directory, Ulagath Thamilar Newspaper, Political Division of the LTTE Sea Tigers, LTTE Propaganda Division and the LTTE.

The National Post stated that in April this year, the Federal Government of Canada placed the LTTE on Canada's list of designated terrorist groups because it uses suicide bombings, assassinations, recruitment of children and ethnic cleansing of Muslims as part of its fight for an independent homeland for Sri Lanka's Tamil minority.

Sitha Sittampalam who was president of the WTM at the time it was raided has had a colourful record as president of the Tamil Eelam Society earlier. He has been at the centre of many controversies especially over the activities of Suresh Manickavasagar now under deportation who was president of the WTM at that time. Manickavasagar was alleged to have had a free run of the Tamil Eelam Society office at Broadview including harassment of married women of the staff and was arrested by the Metropolitan Police in the premises.

On questioned about the RCMP raid of the WTM office, Sittampalam who was an ardent supporter of the SLFP in Sri Lanka and became an LTTE enthusiast in Canada, stated that the matter is under investigation by the police and before court and he has no comment. The Silent Majority of the Canadian Tamils are greatly relieved by this development and believe they can now get on with their lives in Canada free from any harassment and intimidation by the LTTE and its agents.

They are grateful in particular to the Federal Minister of Internal Security, the Honourable Stockwell Day for taking far-reaching measures to ban the LTTE and to Stewart Bell for his relentless campaign to expose this terror outfit that was beginning to nurture homegrown terrorism in Canada.