Group slams Tigers' Toronto 'terrorism'

Sri Lankan Canadians accuse local Tamils of using extortion, intimidation tactics

Intimidation and extortion continues in Toronto's Sri Lankan community despite a government ban on fundraising for the Tamil Tigers, an impassioned group of Sri Lankan Canadians said yesterday.

"There is homegrown terrorism here against people. The collection of money is still going on," said Hasaka Rathnamalala of the Sri Lankan United National Association of Canada, which called a news conference to counter claims of Tamil genocide made last week during a massive demonstration in Toronto.

"The LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) has killed more Tamil people than anyone else," he said. "Sri Lankans are suffering. The only way to stop it is to finish the LTTE. They created the war."

Although Tamils, who are Hindu, are the minority in Sri Lanka to the Buddhist Sinhalese majority, they form the majority of the 200,000-strong Sri Lankan community in Greater Toronto. The 25-year war in Sri Lanka hit a new and bloodier stage last week as troops of the Sinhalese-dominated government cornered the Tigers in the northeast, the stronghold of the Tigers who have been fighting for a separate country.

The group showed a video shot outside Kaveri Supermarket in Mississauga last Nov. 27, a day the Tamil community designates as the annual Maaveerar Remembrance Day to honour "fallen freedom fighters" and which Rathnamalala says glorifies suicide bombers. Supermarket workers said they were told by Tamil organizers to close for the event.

Rathnamalala said intimidation tactics have included smashed car windshields, looted homes, computerized identity theft and threats to shut down businesses.

His organization helped lobby the Conservative government last year to ban the World Tamil Movement, a Canadian group that is alleged to raise money for the Tigers. In 2006, the Canadian government had declared the Tigers a terrorist organization. Human Rights Watch has documented intimidation tactics used on Tamils in Toronto to donate to the Tiger cause.

His face covered with a bandana and sunglasses, a 23-year-old Toronto student who is a Sinhalese Sri Lankan said he feared reprisals from Tamil students for his denunciation of the Tigers yesterday.

Sashya Karunanayake had no such qualms. The 17-year-old student at L'Amoreaux Collegiate in Agincourt, a Sinhalese Sri Lankan, said she has "loads of" Tamil friends. "I admire their enthusiasm, but I wish they weren't just taking their cues from their parents."

While the news focuses on the war, she said, she wanted to be on the side "of the people fighting to keep Sri Lanka together. Giving away the north would be just like Canada giving Quebec away."

The Star

Openion from different people about this article

Openion 1

Recently, LTTE sympathizers ask UN and International Community to intervene to stop the “genocidal war.” The word “genocide” is strategically used to evokes irk of the reader and relegate Sri Lanka to ugly status of Rwanda and Bosnia. This is not the case in Sri Lanka. An astonishing 47 percent of the Sri Lankan Tamils live in the areas out side the North and East (1981 Census) without having the protection of their so called “sole representative (LTTE).” If government or Sinhalese intent to annihilate Sri Lankan Tamils by genocidal war, why the heck they want to struggle in North and East risking the life and limb of our soldiers against the LTTE war machinery? They could kill as many as they want from this 47% outside North and East. Is Tamil civilian killing out side the North and East anything like genocide? Do not believe this propaganda by LTTE about a genocidal war. The LTTE hatred towards peaceful living among different ethnic groups is bred on this type of propaganda.

Openion 2

It's LTTE who started genocide Sinhalese & Muslims from the border villages of their dream Tamil Elam. LTTE brutally killed thousands of inncoent civilians. I hope LTTE and their symperthizers can remember this well. Government doesn't need to kill innocent civilans but needs to eradicate terrorist. Even the tamils civilians in North and East are now openly protesting against LTTE and terrorism. LTTE should allow all trapped civilians to move in to safer zones. LTTE and their diaspora supporters will have a money stream problem once the war is over and LTTE is crushed. So, they are worried about their livelyhood. NO FREE MONEY!! My dear Tamil fr

iends, do not get caought to LTTE tactics any longer

Openion 3

I appeal to Canadian citizens not to fund Tamil terrorists terrorizing Sri Lankans. Leave Sri Lanka to those who love it and live in it. The man in the street there only wants a better life.... not a mythical kingdom with a fancy name. The bizzare outcome of the Tamil terrorism... is that those self-appointed liberators of 'Tamils' are now asking civilians to protect them!!! What more proof one wants to conclude that Tamil terrorists are just an organization of murderes and criminals? Canada, beware... this misplaced 'Tamil' identity might raise its ugly head in Canada.