The Special Report

20th August 2000

Swiss papers accuse Tamil Tigers of using drug money for fund raising activities

The newspaper reports

Canada's Tamils work for a homeland from afar

Swiss papers accuse Tamil Tigers of using drug money for fund raising activities

The leading Swiss French language daily 'Le Courrier' in a headline story poses the question to the Swiss tax payers whether the Tamil Guerrillas are raising nearly one million Swiss Fancs (US$ 600,000) per month in Switzerland, in addition to using 'drug money' to finance its 54 offices throughout the world and to buy weapons. Further elaborating on the far-flung Tiger operation, the article says that the "Tamil Tiger octopus has long tentacles".

The article comes only a few days after several other reports appeared in the leading Swiss journals questioning inaction by the Swiss authorities against Tamil Tiger fund raising in Switzerland following a strong demarche made by the Sri Lanka Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar to his Swiss counterpart, when the two Ministers met in Warsaw some weeks ago.

These developments take place as the Sri Lanka activist groups in Switzerland renew their own demand for the closure of Tamil Tiger offices in Switzerland and put a stop to their fund raising activities as recommended by a recent European Parliament Resolution. On 11th of August, the two Sri Lankan activist groups in Switzerland - the Committee for Peace in Sri Lanka, Geneva and the Committee for United Sri Lanka in Zurich held their anti LTTE agitation in front of the United Nations Headquarters in Geneva. This is the second time this year nearly two hundred Sri Lankans from several European countries staged a demonstration/peace vigil demanding action against Tiger fund raising in Switzerland.

This August peace vigil was organized by the Committee for Peace in Sri Lanka in Geneva with the assistance of the Committee for a United Sri Lanka in Zurich. The demonstrators from cities of Paris, Nice, Berlin, Milan, Basal, Zurich and Geneva congregated in front of the historic League of the Nation Building of the United Nations European Headquarters in Geneva.

The focus of the rally was to urge the Swiss authorities to take immediate action to stop LTTE fund raising and to close down the LTTE offices in Switzerland. In the back-drop of the damning evidence reported by the UTHR and UN Security Council action, the demonstrators also condemned the LTTE 'war crimes' of child soldiers and ethnic cleansing. The leading Geneva French daily "The Tribune de Geneve" carried a prominent report highlighting the main demand of the demonstrators where the newspaper asked the question "how can you accept the fact that people who commit terrorist acts come to your country (Switzerland)?" Quoting a spokesman for the rally, the newspaper said "the international community must act against Tamil rebels who are committing terrible atrocities in order to create an independent State in the North. According to the Tribune, the activists demanded "a multi-ethnic democracy in Sri Lanka where Sinhalese, Tamils, Muslims can live in community. The Tamil Tiger recruit children who are barely 10 years old and this is scandalous", they said. The participants told the journalists that so long as the LTTE operates offices and fund raising activities in Europe, the chances of having a peaceful solution to the ethnic problem in Sri Lanka are rather remote. Hence the focus of the rally on LTTE fund raising and the closure of offices in Europe including Switzerland, the organizers said.

In a petition addressed to the President of the Swiss Confederation and the Swiss Foreign Minister, the demonstrators ask the Swiss Government to close down the Tiger offices and money collection operation in Switzerland. The petition point out that the European Parliament had already requested EU countries to proscribe the Tiger front offices and 'free' the Tamil diaspora from the LTTE grip. While reminding that Switzerland is host to the United Nations European office, where a few months ago, the UN approved a Convention condemning the use of child soldiers as a war crime - an atrocity the Tamil Tigers are guilty of, the Tribune de Geneve newspaper also quotes the latest UTHR report denouncing the Tigers for enlisting kids between 9 and 10 years. The petition urged the Swiss authorities to ask Tamil Tigers to stop using child soldiers and to negotiate with all political parties in Sri Lanka to have a Federal State. If the LTTE is not ready to agree to these demands, the Swiss Government should close down their offices in the country, the demonstrators demanded.

Observers believe that the Tamil Tiger fund collectors may have 'over used' the goodwill of the Swiss authorities by openly advertising fund collection and using the recent LTTE military adventures to enhance fund raising. The LTTE organises open fund collection campaigns in Switzerland through advertisements in the LTTE newspapers published in Europe - the Eelamurasu and Elandadu and the Tamil Guardian in London. In fact, the recent issue of Tamil Guardian boldly claimed that the Tiger collectors have netted around SFr. 1.2 million at a fund raising event in Bern held immediately after the assault on the Elephant Pass Camp. The Swiss authorities and social workers are also concerned that the hate literature being distributed by LTTE will aggravate xenophobic tendencies in Switzerland, especially if the conflict in Sri Lanka gets prolonged without a political solution.

Another Geneva-based daily, Le Courrier raised the question as to why the Swiss authorities do not ensure that funds collected in Switzerland go only to humanitarian organization such as the ICRC. The demonstrators carried banners exhorting the Swiss tax-payers not to let their money fall into the hands of LTTE which is guilty of war crimes such as child soldiers.

The newspaper reports

Le Courrier - Geneva Front Page
Thursday 17 August 2000

Are guerrillas financed by drug money?

Colombo - The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) have been fighting since 1982 against the Colombo government to obtain their independence. Acts of piracy on seas, illegal immigration, traffic in arms and drug trafficking would help the political, military organization to fiance its 54 offices and units of propaganda throughout the world and would supply weapons and ammunition to a "war machine" some 17,000 men-strong. More over, the contributions, voluntary or not, from the Tamils diaspora make up a substantial part of their "war effort". For example, it is estimated that the amount of money collected monthly from the 30,000 or so Tamils in Switzerland reaches 600,000 US Dollars.

inside story

In Sri Lanka the Tamil Tigers are accused of financing the guerilla with drug money.

The Tamil "OCTOPUS" has long tentacles.

The liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam have been fighting since 1982 against the government of Colombo for their independence. They are using weapons that they are said to have bought with money obtained from acts of piracy and drug trafficking.

Solomon Kane returning from Sri Lanka

Money is the sinews of war, and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) know it too well. The contributions, voluntary or not, of the Tamil diaspora make up a substantial part of their "war effort". It is estimated that the amount of money collected monthly from the 25,000 to 30,000 or so Tamils in Switzerland reaches 600, 000 US Dollars.

Acts or piracy on seas, illegal immigration, traffic in arms and drug trafficking would help the political, military organization to finance its 54 offices and units of propaganda throughout the world and would supply weapons and ammunition to a "war machine" some 17, 000 men-strong.

The Underworld as an ally

One particular example of these illegal connections wars for instance a big story about drug trafficking raised in June of 1999 by a Tamil commando arrested in New Delhi after a shooting during which an accomplice was killed. His questioning led to the seizure of 14 . 5 kilos of heroin and the arrest of several drug traffickers. One thing led to another, and soon the Indian police were able to go back along the network to Ashwin Naik, one of the former drug-lord of the Bombay Mafia. He "served as an intermediary between the Pakistani cartel of the drug-lord named Ali Khan and the two LTTE members" explains Amodh Kant, the Indian police commissioner.

Following a standard plan, Ashwin Naik and his older brother "supplied the Tamils with heroin imported from Pakistan via the Indian Rajasthan."

The role played by the two Tamil commandos caught in the shooting, was to supervise the concealment of the drug into the legs of folding tables, then to organize the transit from Delhi to Madras (south of India). From there, the merchandise was carried by boat to Sri Lanka.

The retail reselling of the drug reduces the profits made by the Tigers while keeping the organization from being accused of "drug trafficking": if, in Europe, several LTTE members are behind prison bars for trafficking heroin, the seizure operated in the Tamil networks rarely reaches more than 500 grams.

Weapons from everywhere

With the profits made from selling heroin, both commandos were free to "purchase sophisticated weapons and ammunition directly either from the Indian traffickers or from their contract people in South East Asia and in the Middle-East", says the commissioner. Besides the submachine guns bought from Israeli arms dealers, the LTTE is said to have got supplies from Afghanistan (US and Soviet ground-air missiles) and in Ukraine (explosives), Cambodia and in Burma.

These weapons and the fuel go through the same roads as heroin. As for the dispatching of weapons coming from South East Asia, it is entrusted to the "Sea Tigers" as proved last May when the Burmese Navy intercepted a fast motorboat belonging to the LTTE in the Andaman Sea. The armed motorboats of the LTTE are also used to commit acts of piracy, as confirmed by Noel Choong, Director of the International Sea Bureau; last June, a ship transporting weapons intended for the Sri Lankan Army was sunk.

A fleet at disposal

Here is another one of the tricks from the Tamil Tigers: in January 1996, an attack had killed 91 people and wounded 1400 others in the centre of Colombo. The 400 kgs of explosives that were used were only a small part of the 60 tons embarked in August 1994 in the Ukrainian port of Nikolayev in the Black Sea. Destination: Bangladesh. That is at least what was indicated on the official document signed by the Minister of Defence of that country. But the document was forged, and the merchandise had been diverted to Jaffna.

The "KP Department" (for Kumaran Pathmanathan, a businessman who is wanted in Colombo, the capital of Sri Lanka, for half a million Dollars) is in charge of the supply of Weapons for the "Tamil war machine" and is also the "nerve center" of an important sea network. A report of the London -based insurance company, Lloyd, lists 11 merchant ships belonging to some Asian front companies but in fact managed by the elusive "KP". Operating under flags of convenience and staffed with a Tamil crew, these cargo ships are carrying out their activities legally, between Asia and Europe whilst regularly transporting illegal immigrants or doing any kind of traffic on behalf of the organization, says the report.

The Tamils responding

We would have liked to get the point of view of the LTTE in respect of the facts for which they are blamed. But its international secretariat based in London, did not answer our calls. The Chairman of the Swiss Federation of Tamil Associations, Anton Ponrajah, deplores a " collection of articles without analysis" and "unfair". According to him, the people mentioned in the above stories were involved as private individual and not as members of the Tigers. The latter in fact, prohibit the use of drugs, insists Mr. Ponrajah.

A" secret base" of the LTTE

When, on 9 April of this year, police officers from the Thai Navy who were investigating on some fuel trafficking on the island of Phuket intercepted a suspicious truck, they were far from guessing that they were about to uncover one of the link of the secret network of the LTTE in the South of Thailand.

The driver was by no means involved in that fuel trafficking. But a search of his offices and those of his associates ended up in a much more interesting discovery. In the navy shipyard of Koh Si Rae, the coast guards seized a seventeen-meter-long motorboat. A short distance from it, in an adjacent corner, the marine officers discovered a pocket sided submarine under construction, of a similar type as the one used by the LTTE during some previous operations of acts of sabotage. The evidence according to which the Tamil Tigers would have set up a "secret base" in the South of Thailand goes back a long time. It is said to have been set up in 1996, the year another base was shut down in Twante, a Burmese island in the Andaman Sea, by a Burmese military junta, weary of the pressure put on by Colombo.

Thailand has become a major tourist attraction in South East Asia, and because of its open policy, is indeed the perfect place for organizations such as the LTTE. Taking advantage of the perviousness of the borders in the current conflict areas (Burma) or older ones (Cambodia), they are able to get supplied in weapons and munitions either from guerrilla movements or directly from high ranking officers of the national armed forces.

In 1994, Kumaran Path-mahathan, "KP" a businessman, had thus bribed a Cambodian General in order to obtain ground-air missiles from the army. Light weapons such as Kalachnikov, were also bought from the former Khmer Rouge. Missiles and light weapons were dispatched through the Khmer- Thai border then driven to Phuket. There, small powerboats either directly transported the weapons to Jaffna, or sailed on high seas to transfer the merchandise onto one of the cargo ships from the "KP Department."

However, the Tigers could very well be "evicted" from their Thai hideaway. In July, a Sri Lanka delegation headed by the Ministry of Defense has indeed obtained from the Thai Prime Minister Chuan Leepkai, the assurance that his country would not tolerate being used as a base by the LTTE. Meanwhile, the Thai intelligence service claimed that the Tigers had open a new base some 200 km to the North of Phuket....

Colombo increasing its pressure

For the time being, only the US and India agree with the official Sri Lankan opinion on the terrorist nature of the LTTE. But the wheel is turning... against the Tamil separatists: the European Parliament voted a resolution last May, inviting the government of the Union to " take measures in order to forbid on their territory the active organizations which continue to supply a financial help or any other terrorist actions in Sri Lanka." The recent accusations on the enrolment of child soldiers are also tarnishing the image of the Tigers.

Even outside the EU: Switzerland is not forgotten by Colombo. " Le Temps" reported last July on the request made by Sri Lanka to the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs.

Switzerland has already investigated on the activities of the LTTE, in particular on the financial contributions of the Tamils of Switzerland. Suspected of money extortion, the former boss of the LTTE in our country , was cleared of wrongdoing for lack of credible testimonies. He is now asking the canton of Zurich for SF 700 000 in damages. As far as the drug and human trafficking in which members of the LTTE are involved, the Federal Police indicates that no investigation is being carried out.

Canada's Tamils work for a homeland from afar

By Somini Sengupta

At Queens Park, a swath of green in front of the legislative building downtown, thousands gathered one recent Saturday for a festive celebration. A band played. Children danced. Volunteers bearing cardboard piggy banks trolled the crowd for donations. Wads of cash were enthusiastically stuffed inside.

But these were no ordinary festivities. The revelers had come to celebrate the latest ''victory'' of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, the guerrillas embroiled in one of the world's bloodiest secessionist wars, in Sri Lanka.

A colossal effigy of the cherub-faced guerrilla leader, Vellupillai Prabhakaran, stood on the stage. Videos of the rebels' latest exploits were on sale. And, of greatest concern to the Sri Lankan government, the donations collected here by Canadian Tamils, it is believed, would ultimately find their way to support the Tamil insurrection.

Fund-raising for the Tigers is illegal in the United States. But Canada has no such prohibition and Canadian intelligence officials and Sri Lankan diplomats say it has become an increasingly important source of support for the Tigers, who are seeking to carve a Tamil homeland out of Sri Lanka, an island nation off the southern tip of India.

Since it began in 1983, the war has claimed 62,000 lives and displaced a million people, including the 150,000 or so Tamil refugees who have poured into this city, making it home to the largest concentration of Sri Lankan Tamils outside Sri Lanka.

So oceans away from the mass graves and suicide bombers that have become hallmarks of the civil war, the Tamils of Toronto hold pledge drives on Tamil radio, fill tills on shop counters and solicit money door-to-door in Tamil neighbourhoods and workplaces. Experts estimate they send anywhere from $7 million to $22 million a year in direct and indirect support for the guerrillas.

Among the many seemingly improbable champions of the guerrilla cause is Sitta Sittampalam, 66, a former school teacher with a patch of silver hair and a gold pen tucked smartly in his breast pocket.

What much of the world might consider terrorism, Mr. Sittampalam calls a liberation struggle for Sri Lanka's Tamil minority, which he says has suffered years of repression by the island's majority Sinhalese.

If that struggle results in ''incidental'' civilian deaths, said Mr. Sittampalam, who now heads a Tamil immigrant aid agency here, it is part of the regrettable but inevitable logic of war. He regards the Tigers' suicide bombers, known for blowing up politicians and civilians alike, to be ''heroes'' of the highest order; indeed, the Black Tigers, as they are called, are commemorated here every July.

''I do all that I can to support Prabhakaran, to see that this struggle matures to the stage where we have one free nation recognized in the international community,'' said Mr. Sittampalam, who like many overseas Tamils became politically active long after leaving Sri Lanka.

Like other Tiger supporters, he insists his money goes toward a charity that provides relief aid, though that too, relief workers say, is controlled by the Tigers.

''It was the efforts of the Jewish diaspora that made Israel a free country,'' Mr. Sittampalam said. ''Why shouldn't Tamils do that?''

Fuelled by the potent idea of a homeland, overseas Tamils have been vital to drumming up political and financial support for the separatist cause — much like Jewish, Arab and Irish expatriates have for their own struggles. And while the Tigers certainly have other lucrative means of support, many scholars and Sri Lankan diplomats say the scope of the insurgency could not be sustained without expatriate aid.

Tamil nationalist fervour was on full display a few weeks ago, after the Tigers captured the strategic gateway to the northern Jaffna peninsula, a part of Sri Lanka that the Tamils would like to see as their own.

One Tamil radio station, announcing its pledges over the airwaves like a public radio fund-raising drive, took in more than $600,000, said Nehru Gunaratnam, a spokesman for the World Tamil Movement, the group that sponsored the rally in June and is effectively the political arm of the Tigers in Canada.

Meanwhile, pro-Tiger activists went door-to-door, coaxing regular donors to make special offerings. They appeared at the home of one such donor, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of both Canadian law enforcement and World Tamil Movement organizers. He chatted with the solicitors over a cup of tea. They filled him in on the news from home and left with $250. That was in addition to his regular $100 monthly contribution, deducted directly from his checking account.

No, he chuckled, he does not claim it on his tax returns. And no, he does not ask how the money is spent. He would feel guilty asking, he said.

''We are here, having a good job, eating well, having a car, going for parties,'' explained the man, who came here after a mob chased his family out of their home in Sri Lanka in 1983. ''When we are living like this and giving a little money, to ask questions, it's not correct.''

Such voluntary contributions make up the bulk of the money raised for the Tigers, law enforcement authorities and Tamil Canadians say. But sometimes, they say, a bit of polite coercion is used, and occasionally Tamil gang members are deployed against Tiger critics.

The police say proceeds from immigrant smuggling and heroin trafficking may also make their way into the Tiger treasury. In recent years, dozens of Tamil street-gang members have been convicted on immigration and drug charges.

''Some of them we believe may be giving money to the Tigers,'' said Sgt. Fred Bowen of the drug section of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. ''Because it's not a criminal offence, we don't devote our resources there.''

That may soon change. Canada does not keep a list of proscribed terrorist groups as the United States does. But it is a signatory to a recent United Nations convention that urges countries to monitor and ultimately freeze the collection or deposit of money that may be used to buy arms or support terrorists abroad. Canadian lawmakers are currently considering how to amend their criminal code to comply with the convention.

Recently, Canada has also tried to deport known members of the Tigers, notably Manikavasagam Suresh, the former spokesman for the Federation of Associations of Canadian Tamils, an umbrella group that includes the World Tamil Movement, arguing that he posed a risk to national safety. The case of Mr. Suresh, a key fund-raiser, is being appealed before Canada's Supreme Court.

Meanwhile, the charity that the World Tamil Movement says receives much of its money, the Tamil Rehabilitation Organization, is itself controlled by the Tigers, according to officials with several independent non-governmental organizations in Sri Lanka. ''To my mind, and to most people here, they are basically the development wing of the L.T.T.E.,'' said Simon Harris, acting country director for Oxfam in Sri Lanka, using the Tigers' initials.

By law, Americans cannot contribute to any group linked to organizations on the State Department's terrorist list, like the Tigers. But those links are not always clear.

Tamil-Americans can and do raise money for the Tamil Rehabilitation Organization, which is not on the State Department's list. The group has a fund-raiser scheduled for next Sunday in Edison, N.J.

Estimates of how much money leaves Canada in support of the Tamil cause vary widely. Peter Chalk, a researcher with the Washington office of the Rand Institute, offers a ''very rough'' estimate of about $600,000 to $1 million each month.

Rohan Gunaratna, a research associate at the Center for Study of Terrorism and Political Violence at the University of St. Andrews in Edinburgh, says Canadians raise up to $22 million a year.

Some of it trickles out, Mr. Gunaratna contends, through a web of bank accounts that are used to procure arms. But much of it, he and others say, is dispatched through an informal, paperless money-lending system, through which money deposited at a Tamil shop in Toronto can end up halfway around the world in a matter of hours, leaving no record of the transaction.

For their part, those who take up the collection here, chiefly the World Tamil Movement, cannot, or will not, explain how the money they collect is transferred or spent.

''There are different avenues I can't talk about,'' Mr. Gunaratnam, the group's spokesman, said.

'Relief reaches there,'' he said simply. ''It is distributed.''

Rajpal Abeynayake's Column

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