Posted on 04/08/2006 6:50:49 AM PDT by Clive
TORONTO - The Tamil Tigers have been added to Canada's list of outlawed terrorist organizations, the National Post has learned.
The designation was to be finalized yesterday, a day after Cabinet met to accept a recommendation from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service.
An official announcement was scheduled for Monday.
The Tigers are the 39th terrorist group to be outlawed under the Anti-Terrorism Act, and the first added to the list by the new Conservative government.
The move was spearheaded by Stockwell Day, the Minister of Public Safety, who in opposition repeatedly condemned the Liberals for not outlawing the Tigers.
The decision means it will now be a criminal offence to participate in the activities of the Tamil Tigers, formally known as the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, or LTTE, a Sri Lankan separatist group responsible for more than 160 suicide bombings. For example, anyone convicted of financially supporting the Tigers could be imprisoned for up to 10 years.
But while the Tigers were placed on the list, the government stopped short of listing any of the terrorist group's Canadian front organizations.
The Cabinet order will likely have implications both at home and abroad. It will criminalize the Tiger "war taxes" that have long been paid -- both voluntarily and involuntarily -- by some Tamil-Canadians. Also, Canada has the world's largest Sri Lankan Tamil diaspora, estimated at 250,000, and the listing could deal a blow to the Tigers, who are heavily dependent on Canadian and other foreign donors.
"It is estimated that between one and two million dollars are raised annually in Canada, making it one of the largest contributors of funds to the LTTE worldwide," according to a classified CSIS report circulated in 2000. "The LTTE has traditionally raised these monies through the use of fronts groups."
The Tigers were formed in the 1980s to fight for an independent homeland for Sri Lanka's ethnic Tamil minority, but the guerrilla group quickly embraced terrorist tactics.
Buses, trains and office buildings were bombed by the LTTE's suicide squad, the Black Tigers. The LTTE is considered one of the world's leading practitioners of suicide terrorism, and has assassinated scores of political opponents, among them the late Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.
Peace talks and a ceasefire have been faltering in recent months, as the idyllic island nation off India's southern tip has tumbled back into ethnic warfare that has already cost more than 60,000 lives.
Last month, Human Rights Watch reported that LTTE supporters had been going door to door in Toronto since late 2005 extorting money from Tamil-Canadians to finance a "final war" for independence.
Although the Tigers are one of the most active terrorist groups in Canada, the Liberals had refused to outlaw their activities, some say because the party was afraid of angering Tamil-Canadian voters in Toronto.
The situation had proved frustrating for the RCMP, CSIS and local police forces, which have long been investigating the Tigers' Canadian fundraising and support networks.
During the federal election campaign, the Conservatives promised to add the Tigers to Canada's official list of terrorist groups, and they fulfilled their pledge yesterday.
No other terrorist groups are being added to the list at this time.
The decision is part of a hardening of Canada's counterterrorism policies that has been underway since the Conservatives took office.
Last week, the government also severed ties with the Palestinian Authority over the refusal of Hamas to moderate its platform.
The Canadian terrorist list was last updated on May, 24, 2005, when the Iranian Mujahedin-e Khalq, the Jewish extremist group KACH and Afghan warlord Gulbudin Hekmatyar were added.
Canada's closest intelligence allies, the United States and Britain, long ago placed the Tamil Tigers on their lists of designated terrorist groups, but the Liberal government resisted.
On three separate occasions, CSIS asked the Cabinet to list the Tigers, most recently a year ago, but the Liberals would not do so, saying they did not want to interfere with Sri Lanka's peace process.
The former Canadian ambassador to Sri Lanka, Martin Collacott, said the previous government's refusal to outlaw the Tigers left the LTTE relatively free to operate in Canada. He said that has actually hindered peace efforts.
"Once Canada designates the Tigers as terrorists and clamps down on their fundraising, they are much more likely to enter into serious negotiations with Colombo," he said.
He said the Liberal position that banning the Tigers would hurt peace efforts was based on partisan political considerations.
"The Tigers and their supporters in Canada and particularly Toronto had become adept at delivering votes from the Tamil community to Liberal candidates at election time," he said.
"And, as long as this support continued, the Liberals were prepared to let the Tigers have virtual free rein to carry out their activities in this country."
The decision brings federal counterterrorism policy in line with the Federal Court of Canada, which has already ruled that the Tamil Tigers qualify as a terrorist group.
The Anti-Terrorism Act allows Cabinet to designate not only terrorist groups but also the front organizations that support them, but none are named in the latest listing.
CSIS has claimed that eight front organizations support the LTTE in Canada, as well as several front companies that are used to harness financial and political support for the civil war effort in Sri Lanka.
CANADA'S TERROR LIST
- Abu Nidal Organization (ANO)
- Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG)
- Al Jihad (AJ)
- Al-Qaeda
- Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade (AAMB)
- Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya (AGAI)
- Al-Ittihad Al-Islam (AIAI)
- Ansar al-Islam (AI)
- Armed Islamic Group (GIA)
- Asbat Al-Ansar ("The League of Partisans")
- Aum Shinrikyo
- Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia (AUC)
- Babbar Khalsa (BK)
- Babbar Khalsa International (BKI)
- Ejercito de Liberacion Nacional (ELN)
- Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA)
- Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC)
- Gulbuddin Hekmatyar
- Hamas (Harakat Al-Muqawama Al-Islamiya) ("Islamic Resistance Movement")
- Harakat ul-Mudjahidin (HuM)
- Hezbollah
- International Sikh Youth Federation (ISYF)
- Islamic Army of Aden (IAA)
- Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU)
- Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM)
- Jemaah Islamiyyah (JI)
- Kahane Chai (KACH)
- Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK)
- Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LJ)
- Lashkar-e-Tayyiba (LeT)
- Mujahedin e Khalq (MEK)
- Palestine Liberation Front (PLF)
- Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ)
- Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine - General Command (PFLP-GC)
- Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP)
- Salafist Group for Call and Combat (GSPC)
- Sendero Luminoso (SL)
- Vanguards of Conquest (VOC)
-
Tamil Tigers are terrorists?!? I hope they have double checked to be sure! [sarcasm]
The article didn't mention that in 1998, Paul Martin and Maria Minna - both Chretien ministers at the time - attended a Tamil Tiger benefit dinner in Toronto.
SO -- if the Liberals had designated the Tigers as terrorist, they would have had some tricky explaining as to why two of their ministers were associating with a terrorist group. That was a real issue after 9-11, and I'm sure, at least part of the reason why the Liberals never acted.
Sri Lanka is about seven percent Muslim, and this seems to read like a typical Muslim MO. Anyone know if these 'Tigers' are Muslims?
BTW,, did you have my earlier post of this same article removed without a trace?
I did a search and found I could;
"Find bargains on Tamil Tigers Sri Lanka at thousands of Trusted on Line Stores"
Another site was a little more informative.
The tigers are mostly Hindu. They have no direct connection to Al-Qaeda but AQ did copy their suicide jacket apparatus. They did do some training with the PLO.
OK. Thanks.
IIRC all but three of the religion-based terrorist groups are Islamic. Only exceptions I know are IRA (not really religious), LTTE (Hindu) and the Sikh group. Mainstream Sikhs, even the militants, renounced terrorism after the Air India bombing.
No.
I had not noticed and if I did, I don't have the power.
When was your's posted?
My posting had stayed up for a few minutes then disappeared and when I searched for it I came across another posting that had not turned up in the search that I had done just before I posted the pulled article
It appears that my posting was the later one but only by seconds or a minute or two at most, so the two of us may have been editing our postings at the same time.
If this is a new practice, I prefer the older practice because it told why the posting was pulled, but this site does not belong to those of us who are using it.
Also bear in mind that the Tamil Tigers wrote the book on suicide bombing, if my understanding of history is correct (and disregarding those pesky Japanese in WWII).
The winds of change are clearly blowing in Canada. This is a great step forward. Terrorists deliberately target innocent civilians and are not to be tolerated.
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