British Tamils Are Intimidated Into Giving Money To Terrorists

Taken from The Times, UK, 05 Feb 2007
By Tom Whipple

Sri Lankan Tamils living in Britain say that they are being intimidated into handing over “donations” of up to £50,000 to support rebel operations in their homeland.

Tamil immigrants in London told The Times that they had been approached by representatives of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), better known as the Tamil Tigers, and asked for funds. Some of those who refused were harassed and warned about the safety of relatives in Sri Lanka.

In Britain the Tigers are proscribed as a terrorist organisation, blamed for prolonging Sri Lanka’s bloody civil war. They are banned from raising funds or holding meetings.

The Sri Lankan High Commission has raised the matter with the Home Office and the Serious Organised Crime Agency. A High Commission spokesman said: “We know the LTTE are coercing money from Tamils but it seems that, unlike with al-Qaeda-linked terrorist groups, the police do not have the resources to act.”

This is despite the Tigers being generally open about the purpose of the money, even down to the specifics of what it will buy – whether helicopters, missiles or guns. Sources in the police confirmed that they were investigating, but they would not offer official comment on investigations.

Tamils began migrating to Britain in large numbers in the early Eighties when the Tigers started fighting the majority Sinhalese Government for a homeland. Tamils in Britain now number about 150,000, mostly in North London.

A ceasefire was negotiated in 2002, and since then the Tigers have run a de facto government in the north of Sri Lanka. However, since the arrival of a new president in November, tensions have risen, bombings have increased and the peace has all but collapsed.

Tamils are easily identified from the electoral roll by their surnames. Some have endured repeated house calls from Tiger members, and been asked for donations ranging from £1,000 to £50,000. Most were scared to contact the police. A Tamil shopkeeper told The Times: “They said they were collecting for the LTTE. I told them, ‘We have helped in the past but we are unable to do anything at the moment’. People are very scared to deal with them. If they find that you are not committing, they harass the family back home.”

Once collected, funds find their way back to Sri Lanka through various channels.

Nicholas Pillai, of the opposition group the Tamil United Liberation Front, said: “The LTTE has influence in a number of organisations, which work directly or indirectly for them. In this way, for years Tamils have been giving money directly or indirectly to people in the North and East.”

In the past, one of the oft-cited front organisations was the charity the Tamil Rehabilitation Organisation (TRO). In 2005 the Charity Commission removed the TRO’s UK charitable status on the ground that it “had not been able to account satisfactorily for the application of funds”.

After the closure, the TRO director Navasivayam Sathiya-moorthy has founded a new UK charity, White Pigeon, which denies having any links to the LTTE.

Thaya Idaikkadar, a Labour councillor in Harrow, spoke at a rally in Hyde Park last July, sharing the stage with a banner depicting the LTTE leader Velupillai Prabhakaran. Mr Idaikkadar told The Times: “I may have certain sympathies with them [the LTTE] but there is no direct link. I would support cracking down on funding for the LTTE in the UK but only if other governments also stop supporting the Sri Lankan Government. If I say the LTTE should be funded, I am breaking the law. So I can’t do that.”