CHOGM drama unveils Kangaroos with terrorist links: Will Australia move to prosecute them?

The group of Commonwealth nations on Sunday collectively pledged to fight terrorism by preventing the use of their territories for terrorist acts.

In a communiqué issued at the end of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Perth, the 54-nation bloc committed to “unequivocally preventing the use of their territories for the support, incitement to violence or commission of terrorist acts”.

They also agreed to work towards implementing the necessary legal framework for the suppression of terrorist financing, and preventing the raising and use of funds by terrorists, their front organisations, and transnational terrorist organisations. They also committed to “accelerate efforts to conclude negotiations on a Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism”.

If this is the agreed view of the Commonwealth Heads of Nations, then one needs to ask what their stand is on the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, the LTTE, banned in several countries, but not in Australia and most CHOGM nations. The question also should be asked why CHOGM, as a group of nations concerned about terrorism have not moved to ban the LTTE, and whether the latest communiqué is just empty rhetoric.

Further, the question has to be asked about Australia’s stand on “the necessary legal framework for the suppression of terrorist financing, and preventing the raising and use of funds by terrorists, their front organisations, and transnational terrorist organizations”? What is their stand on people and organizations that supported the LTTE, still do, and ipso facto, their methods?

Or is Australia, or at least some Australians, willing to support the end, turning a blind eye to the means that the LTTE employed, and potentially, still planning to employ, to seek their ultimate objective of a separate State, and are these Australians supporting the establishment of a separate State in Sri Lanka? Is the killing of Heads of State, Tamil politicians who wanted peace, the wanton killing of more than 100,000 people, mostly innocent civilians, religious leaders (Buddhist Monks and Muslim Imams) supported by these Australians? These are questions on the minds of many Australians.

Despite the LTTE being a banned organisation in Canada, some CHOGM leaders like Canada’s Stephen Harper appears to have ignored the means that the LTTE employed to win their political demands, and support the “grievances” of Tamils, although ironically, Canada says it does not grant residency to LTTE members on the grounds that they have participated in crimes against humanity.

Many Australians seem to take the view that it is time Australia stopped playing cat and mouse games and decided unequivocally whether they, like Stephen Harpers Canada, are going to ignore the means the LTTE used, and allow those who supported and are still supporting the LTTE, to operate freely, or whether they are willing to take a firm stand on recognizing that the means were foul and inhuman, and are without qualification, crimes against humanity that deserves appropriate punishment.

Besides the means that the LTTE used, there is universal international disagreement on the end objective of the LTTE and their Diaspora supporters, which is the creation of a separate Tamil State in Sri Lanka. Consequently, there cannot be any justification to support the end, and to pretend the means never existed. So, as far as peace loving people of the world are concerned, neither the end that the LTTE and their supporters pursued, nor the means used by them and funded by them, is justified, and therefore those who supported (and still support) the LTTE directly or indirectly, are liable for prosecution.

If Australia is to be serious about what they agreed at the CHOGM along with other member nations about terrorism and terrorists, their front organizations, and those supporting them, it must take steps to ban the LTTE, their front organizations, and prosecute people and organizations that had, and still have any association with the LTTE, and who are funding them.

Some Australian organizations that have had direct links with the LTTE, or have been part of the LTTE’s international operations, either as front organizations or even official arms of the LTTE, like the Australian Tamil Congress, The Tamil Youth Organisation, and several others, and personalities like Dr Sam Pari, Arunachalam Jegatheeswaran, Meena Krishnamoorthy, who are on record in the Sri Lankan Defense establishment as LTTE supporters or sympathisers, are potential elements that should face prosecution in Australia.

Others like Justice John Dowd, Greens Senator Lee Rhiannon, and organizations like the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, even the Greens Party of Australia, who has been supportive of the LTTE directly or indirectly through their bias, and/or participation at Tamil propaganda meetings depicting the LTTE leader as a deity rather than the cold blooded killer he was, may also be regarded as potential cases for prosecution.

In addition, authorities should examine the role played by the Catholic Church in Australia considering that the leading light of the Global Tamil Forum, an unashamed supporter of the LTTE, is Father Emmanual from the Catholic Church.

As the much hackneyed phrase goes, neither CHOGM nor the rest of the world can have the cake and eat it. Having anything to do with an orgnisation that engaged in terrorism, and most brutal and inhuman means to achieve an end, which itself is condemned internationally, necessarily endorses that brutality. The world cannot separate the end from that brutality.

In Australia, persons like Justice Dowd have addressed Tamil propaganda meetings that clearly had portrayed Prabakaran as some kind of deity and not the brutal leader of the LTTE who was a veritable killing machine. Dr Sam Pari herself has done the same. Greens Senator Lee Rhiannon has had a very close association with Dr Sam Peri, and also with several other Tamil persons associated with organizations and events supporting the LTTE.

Justice John Dowd addressing a Tamil propaganda meeting in 2005 with a large than life cut out of Prabakaran in the background

The Greens party fielded Brami Jegatheeswaran as a candidate to the Australian Senate. This candidate has had a close association with LTTE front organizations, and her father and uncle were not only LTTE supporters but reportedly close to Prabakaran himself. Her uncle was convicted for terrorist related crimes and jailed in the UK.

Then there is Bruce Haig and Gordon Weiss who have held a candle, or several of them, for organizations that are either part of the LTTE as front organizations, or are strong supporters of the LTTE. What about them? Should they also be charged for aiding and abetting terrorism? This should be considered as it is the likes of Haig and Weis who have helped the LTTE and their supporters to maintain a high world profile and even embark on a strategy to recast the LTTE as freedom fighters, not killers who caused the death of more than 100,000 people in Sri Lanka.

Two activists who spearheaded the move to suspend Sri Lankan membership of CHOGM were Dr Sam Peri and Meena Krishnamoorthy. The former has organized and addressed several propaganda meetings of Tamil Diaspora supporters of the LTTE, as evidenced from the presence of Prabakaran, albeit in cut out form, at these meetings. On 5 July 2009, Dr Sam Pari spoke to a gathering at Martin Place Sydney. The title of the meeting was “From ashes to Empires.. ..Tamil Eelam will rise. Uprising”

Top red circle identifies Sampari (Dr Sam Pari) spokesperson for Australian Tamil Congress pictured with Nediyavan and other LTTE cadre Dr Sam Peri’s close links with the LTTE has been meticulously documented by the Sri Lankan Defense establishment. In a file photograph, one can see Dr Peri in the company of one of the high rankers of the LTTE, its international head Nediyavan and other LTTE cadres.

The depiction of Prabakaran as a larger than life figure at the meeting addressed by Dr Peri, could be taken as supporting terrorism and violence practiced by him, as he did not pursue a non violent method to win political demands. A man who practiced violence throughout his political life surely cannot advocate non violence when he is dead.

Her speech could be interpreted as extremely inflammatory and an incitement for a return to violence. It could also be viewed as promoting further segregation amongst Australian Sri Lankans, and impacting on the cohesiveness of the Australian society.

Not once did she mention of a non-violent political struggle to win their demands. Not saying so could be taken as resorting to violence as a means to achieve their demands.

It would be interesting to ponder how the Australian public, their politicians and their law enforcement authorities would react if an Australian Muslim political activist made a speech at Martin place with a larger than life cut out of Abu Bakar Bashir, the alleged spiritual leader of Jemaah Islamiyah in the back ground?

Meena Krishnamoorthy is the other LTTE activists that the Sri Lankan Defense establishment has kept tracks on. In a file photo, she is seen with LTTE cadres after her training in Sri Lanka. Meena Krishnamoorthy was used by ABC TV in Australia to relate a sob story about her plight in Sri Lanka. She was cited by Justice John Dowd as the star witness in a dossier prepared by the International Commission of Jurists against Sri Lanka.

The likes of Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, the Bruce Haigs of the world, those giving wise counsel like Gordon Weiss, organizations like Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Channe4, UN agencies like the UN Human Rights Council, ABC TV of Australia, the Catholic Church, and even the UN Secretary General himself, have suffered from amnesia throughout the last 30 years.

They have suddenly woken to the happenings of the final war between the LTTE and Sri Lankan government forces, and they have filled the wave lengths and news papers of media organizations in the Western world, alleging human rights violations by Sri Lanka Armed Forces during the final war, when the LTTE has been committing them for 30 years.

None of these merchants of goodness uttered even a whimper then. Some of them however are now supporting the man who was responsible for such atrocities, by standing in front of large than life cut outs of him now clad in white clothing, (although throughout his political life, he wore military fatigues), and delivering lectures about human rights violations by others. If not for the blood of more than 100, 000 people who died due to terrorism unleashed by Prabakaran, this would have been a good comedy to laugh at.

The world cannot support a cause that employs means such as what the LTTE employed. Political demands arise from human beings and they impact on the political life of human beings, but they should not take the life of innocent human beings as a price to pay to win such demands. This is what the LTTE did, and may potentially do again if the world does not take decisive action against them and their supporters.

Sri Lanka will never have a separate Tamil State. Sri Lanka can always have a Tamil Head of State for the entire country if there is a Tamil who values and respects democracy, values all communities, religions and cultures, and who believes all communities should be equal and consider the entire country as the homeland of all communities.

Although these Tamil activists and their supporters launched a concerted campaign to discredit Sri Lanka, its Executive President, its Armed Forces and its High Commissioner, and tried their best to have Sri Lanka suspended from the Commonwealth, their moves backfired.

Instead in being able to discredit Sri Lanka as the perpetrator of human rights, these activists have been exposed as supporters or sympathizers of the LTTE which violated human rights in the most brutal manner for nearly 30 years. They have as a consequence of their association and open support for the LTTE, rendered themselves as liable for prosecution under anti terror legislation of Australia.

In addition, they have lost all credibility as Tamil activists who could articulate any genuine issues Tamils face in Sri Lanka. The vast majority of Tamils who only want to live in peace with all communities, and want a political solution that is mutually acceptable to all communities in Sri Lanka, have hopefully learnt from this experience that the future of Tamils in Sri Lanka is alongside the Sinhalese and Muslims and other communities within Sri Lanka and not in the manipulative hands of such activists and various Diaspora organizations whose only vision and mission is to further divide communities that are trying hard to reconcile and unite.

- Asian Tribune -