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The organizers tried to get Usha Sri-Skanda-Rajah to calm down, but she just kept shouting louder. Fed up with all the media interest in Tamil "terrorists," she said it was the Tamils who were being terrorized. "Sri Lanka, a terrorist state, dropped between 10 and 15 bombs on innocent Tamil schoolchildren," the 55-year-old told reporters, referring to an attack earlier this month.
"The Prime Minister of Canada and his government should condemn this act of state terrorism," she yelled. "I ask the Sri Lankan Army to vacate the Tamil homeland." As the threat of a renewed race war threatens the Indian Ocean island nation, the ripples have spread back to North America. Counterterrorism agents in Canada and the United States rounded up more than a dozen men in the past week, accusing them of trying to obtain missile launchers, assault rifles and other arms for outlawed Tamil guerrillas.
Stung by another round of bad press, the Canadian Tamil Congress convened a news conference yesterday. The six suspects rounded up in Southwestern Ontario should be viewed as "loose cannons," organizers insisted, not representative of Canada's 300,000 Tamils.
CTC spokesman David Poopalapillai stood his ground as journalists pointed out that most of the suspects had recently held leadership positions in Tamil community groups, including one with the CTC. He insisted the suspects are no longer members of any such groups. When asked if Canadian Tamils give money for separatist rebels to buy arms, he said that "as far as I know" no money is sent. His calm contrasted with the outrage of Ms. Sri-Skanda-Rajah, a prominent Canadian Tamil. Yet Mr. Poopalapillai also took time to catalogue atrocities suffered by Sri Lankan Tamils. He spoke of long-ago pogroms, continuing allegations of rape, and last week's bombing of dozens of school-aged children by Sri Lankan fighter jets. (The government has denied targeting civilians.) Absent of any mention were the equally well-documented atrocities committed by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. Formed 30 years ago, the separatist guerrillas who are more simply known as the Tamil Tigers, are notorious for recruiting child soldiers, using suicide bombers, and committing political assassinations. World governments are increasingly blacklisting the group as terrorists. Asked whether Canadian Tamils would condemn Tamil Tiger tactics, Mr. Poopalapillai said that "we are not spokespersons for the LTTE . . . we have no ties with the LTTE whatsoever." Mr. Poopalapillai said Canadian Tamils are law-abiding and will obey all laws, including ones precluding lending any material support for Tamil Tigers. But it is being alleged that certain individuals and groups are crossing the line. In December, New York-based Human Rights Watch released a report condemning LTTE operatives for strong-arming Toronto Tamils into giving them "donations." In April, the RCMP raided the offices of an alleged LTTE front organization. No arrests have yet resulted from the World Tamil Movement raids, but in search warrants the Mounties assert they've discovered attempts to destroy evidence and have turned up secret Canadian-government voters' lists that are illegal for private groups to obtain. This week's arrest of six young Tamil Canadians has been a further black eye. Last year, many of the suspects were publicly appealing for funds for tsunami relief in Sri Lanka. Now it's being alleged that they have links to top LTTE commanders, and had tens of thousands of dollars at their disposal to purchase weapons. The latest suspect to be arrested is Piratheepan (Peter) Nadarajah. The 30-year-old mobile-phone salesman is accused of being "the scientist" -- or the fourth man in a carload of Canadian suspects who travelled to New York to buy $900,000 worth of missiles and assault rifles. Police say he was turned away at the Canada-U.S. border, as the other three suspects went on to be arrested in an arms-sales sting in Long Island this past weekend. Mr. Nadarajah was arrested on Wednesday.
National
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