Where Does US LTTE Operative Elias Jeyarajah get funds to lobby State Department against Sri Lanka

Sri Lankan expatriate domiciled in the U.S. Elias Joseph Jeyarajah, almost the second-in-command of the ‘Global Revival of the Tamil Tigers’ led by the New York attorney Visuvanathan Rudrakumaran, has spent US $ 120,000 in 2008/09 for lobbying the policymakers and officials of the United States Department of State and Congressmen.

Official documents the Asian Tribune managed to find declare that the Jeyarajah family has given US $ 10,965 to the Obama and Clinton campaigns in 2008. Dr. Jeyarajah himself has given $1,565 to the Obama campaign, $1,500 to the Clinton campaign and $500 to the North Carolina Democratic Party.

Elias Jeyarajah is the president of the Americans For Peace in Sri Lanka, a pro-LTTE advocacy group that is using a Washington K Street lobby firm CJR to lobby the policymakers and those who influence policymakers in the United States.

The organization was represented at the 08th April ‘dialogue’ the Sri Lankan Tamils in the U.S. who claimed to be representatives of the Tamil Diaspora in the U.S. had with then assistant secretary of state Richard Boucher attended by Dr. Susan Rice, and the August 11 ‘dialogue’ these representatives had with now assistance secretary of state Robert Blake attended by the new ambassador to Colombo Patricia Butenis.

Both Rudrakumaran and Jeyarajah attended these meetings.

Toronto Star newspaper quoting terrorism expert Singapore-based Rohan Gunaratne in late July 2009 said in the coming months the LTTE is expected to spend part of the collected millions of money in international lobbying against Sri Lanka.

The Star said, “In Washington, Tamil expats have formed lobby groups such as Americans for Peace in Sri Lanka and Tamils for Justice, whose efforts to curry favor with the U.S. government is led by Bruce Fein, a former lawyer in the Reagan administration.”

"This is how the Tigers are going to go forward," Gunaratna said. "They will be lobbying and investing in human-rights organizations, trying to convince foreign governments to pressure Sri Lanka to accept change."

Toronto’s Star newspaper said just a week before Selvarasa Pathmanathan was arrested by Sri Lankan authorities in Malaysia that the new Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam leader Pathmanathan alias KP, a most wanted man by the Interpol and wanted for the Rajiv Gandhi assassination in India, is a man believed to be in control between US $ 1 billion to 5 billion of LTTE’s ill gotten money.

On May 14, 2009 five days before the LTTE was totally defeated on the Sri Lankan soil with its entire leadership eliminated Lalith K. Jha of the Press Trust of India released the following dispatch to the international media: “Tamil Americans welcome President Obama's statement, bringing much needed attention to the plight of the hundreds of thousands of Tamil civilians in the conflict area and in internment camps in Sri Lanka," said Elias Jeyarajah, president of Americans for Peace in Sri Lanka,” confirming Jeyarajah’s position in the organization.

The pro-LTTE lobby both in Washington and Colombo seems to have had a breakthrough at an early stage with U.S. State Department officials when Robert Blake, former ambassador to Sri Lanka and now assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asian Affairs, said this to The New York Times correspondent Seth Mydans reported in its on March 21, 2009 issue: “The concern is that with military success there is a growing Sinhalese chauvinism and certain hard-line Sinhalese elements in government that say the government does not need to devolve any power to the Tamils,” Mr. Blake said. “Essentially, to the victor go the spoils.”

Visuvanathan Rudrakumaran,with other acolytes in the United States, is on a serious path of reviving the LTTE using his ‘dialogue’ with policymakers in the U.S. while coordinating pro-LTTE groups in European nations, Dr. Elias Joseph Jeyarajah is using his conferences with policymakers to block Sri Lanka’s efforts to resuscitate the economy while engaging a Washington K Street lobby firm CJR Group to rope human rights groups and through them to condition the mind-set of U.S. policymakers against Sri Lanka.

Elias Joseph Jeyarajah, 54, was in North Carolina State University Biochemistry department (1990-2000) researching lipoproteins using NMR spectroscopy. While at NC State University he enrolled in the graduate program in the Analytical Division of the Department of Chemistry to earn his Ph.D. He is currently employed at LipoScience, Inc., (Raleigh, NC) as Director of NMR Applications but continues to be a researcher in the NC State University. He was a graduate of the Jaffna University in Sri Lanka majoring chemistry before migrating to the United States.

As a serious researcher he is equally serious about resuscitating the LTTE globally with Visuvanathan Rudrakumaran using his dialogue with U.S. policymakers and engaging the lobbying firm CJR Group.

Asian Tribune has managed to have access to data that reveal how much Americans For Peace in Sri Lanka in which he is the president has spent, when the funds were spent and who the organization has used to lobby policymakers and those who influence policymakers.

The CJR Group was entrusted by Americans For Peace in Sri Lanka to engage in the issue ‘Foreign Relations’ and documents reveal that Jeyarajah’s organization has spent US $90,000 in the year 2008 for lobbying activities.

Americans For Peace in Sri Lanka Lobbying Activities for 2008:

Under the issue Foreign Relations the organization has paid The CJR Group INC.
$20,000 on March 31, 2008 Fourth Quarter Report
$30,000 on June 30, 2008 First Quarter Report
$30,000 on September 30, 2008 Second Quarter Report
$10,000 on December 31, 2008 Third Quarter Report

Americans For Peace in Sri Lanka Lobbying Activities for 2009:

Under the same issue Foreign Relations the organization paid The CJR Group INC.

$ 30,000 on March 31, 2009 First Quarter Report

Up to March this year Elias Jeyarajah’s Americans For Peace in Sri Lanka has paid $ 120,000 for lobbying activities of The CJR Group INC and for the progress reports which are submitted quarterly.

Those who are even at present carrying out the lobbying on behalf of Dr. Elias Jeyarajah’s pro-LTTE organization attached to The CJR Group INC are Steven Abbott, Laurel Dawson and Josh Rubin, according to the documents that Asian Tribune managed to have access.

The question is from where did these funds come to do these lobbying activities that are undoubtedly to resuscitate the Tamil Tigers globally and prejudice the minds of the policymakers and those who influence policymakers in the United States?

This question is well posed to Sri Lankan authorities in Colombo, Sri Lanka for them to use appropriate diplomatic channels to obtain data and facts and ascertain if there is a criminal prosecution involved in either in the United States or in Sri Lanka.

Elias Joseph Jeyarajah’s access to U.S. policymakers

Dr. Jeyarajah, the acknowledged advocate of the Tamil Tiger agenda and self-proclaimed representative of the Tamil Diaspora in the United States whose activities give a clear impression that he and his colleagues are on a serious path to revive the LTTE globally to build a parallel power center that will challenge the Sri Lanka Government, already has easy access to Obama Administration’s vital agencies such the State Department, Commerce Department and the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative.

How did he get that access along with Visuvanathan Rudrakumaran who is drawing the agenda for the global revival of the LTTE in a different form to build a parallel power center?

Nothing but political contributions to the Democratic Party campaign.

Asian Tribune has obtained the Federal Election Commission data, which is not classified information, to figure out the political contribution of Dr. Elias Jeyarajah to the Democratic Party campaign. The data does not indicate that he has made any contribution at all to the Republican Party.

2007 Fourth Quarter Jeyarajah contributed $ 500 to the North Carolina Democratic Party.
Second Quarter 2008 he contributed $ 1,500 to Hillary Clinton campaign.
Third Quarter 2008 Jeyarajah contributed $ 1,565 to the Obama campaign.

The Federal Election Commission report states that “$10,965 was given by people who identified their last name as ‘Jeyarajah’ – ZERO dollars to the Republican Party and $10,965 from 3 people to the Democratic Party”.

It is no secret here in the United States that political contribution, when it is a significant amount, comes with political favors. This reciprocity is always a significant feature in American politics.

And, Dr. Elias Joseph Jeyarajah seems to be getting dividends from officials who are close to the Obama administration especially from the Clinton State Department.

Concluding Remarks

There are three issues arise out of this investigative report:

(1) A massive amount of funds have been spent by a US-based organization which is clearly defending the LTTE agenda of self-determination which means to the pro-LTTE lobby is separation. With the presentation of facts in this investigative report if the Sri Lankan authorities do not pay serious attention as to how these funds emerged and where they came from then they are living in a fantasy world allowing the resuscitation of the global LTTE to take an easy path with the connivance of several officials of the State Department and elsewhere which is aimed at building a power center to challenge the legitimate government in Sri Lanka.

(2) The significant political contribution to the Obama campaign, and most significantly to Hillary Clinton who is now the Secretary of State whose office Rudrakumaran-Jeyarajah duo have approached to undermine Sri Lanka and bring the US-Lanka relations to a more complicated level seems to have brought dividends arising out of the behavior of the senior officials of the State Department, Office of the U.S. Permanent Representative to the U.N. and some Obama administration officials. Whether the refusal by the British High Commission in Colombo to issue the entry visa to former foreign secretary and now Sri Lanka’s envoy to the U.N. Dr. Palitha Kohona is connected to all these is another study itself.

(3) To combat this adverse atmosphere in the global arena Sri Lanka needs to seriously think of developing a public diplomacy strategy and strategic communication policy identifying the areas it is far behind to that of global LTTE campaign and take serious effort to assemble a group of professionals in Western nations to build a ‘Think Tank’ that can effectively outsmart the Tigers with its monitoring, research and analyses. And, connected to this Sri Lanka needs to establish a cabinet office that will handle ‘External Affairs’ to give guidance and leadership to this effort. Most importantly Sri Lanka needs to identify a political activists/strategist who could work with such a ‘Think Tank’, which needs many resources, to defeat the emergence of a ‘parallel power center’ envisaged by global activists of the LTTE.

There is a consensus among Sri Lankan expatriates living in Western nations, which Asian Tribune is very conscious of, that the best political strategist who has proved his mettle for a good number of years to coordinate this ‘External Affaires’ is senior presidential advisor and parliamentarian Basil Rajapaksa which has currently undertaken the task of nation building well connected to the issues that this investigative report has presented.

Pix shows - Dr. Elias Jeyarajah (left) handing over memorandum to Counselor Rahul Rasgotra after a rally early this year opposite the Indian High Commission in Washington on Sri Lanka issue

- Asian Tribune -