This is the second botched assassination attempt by fanatical Tamil Tiger terrorist suicide bombers in just two weeks. On 18 October 1999, they attempted to assassinate President Chandrika Kumaratunga at an election rally. The President escaped with serious injuries to her right eye. CNN news dated today states that the suicide bomber who attempted to assassinate Sri Lankan President two weeks ago, has now been identified as a member of the LTTE "Black Tigers".

Soon after the attempt on the Prime Minister’s life, the Tigers hatched their master plan by shooting to death a prominent Tamil leader, Mr Kumar Ponnambalam based in Colombo. Mr Ponnambalam was the President of the All Ceylon Tamil Congress. LTTE is well known to target prominent leaders of alternative Tamil parties who do not agree to become mere rubber stamps of the LTTE. World renown Tamil academic, Dr Neelan Tiruchelvam of the Tamil United Liberation Front who was killed by yet another Tamil Tiger suicide bomber is a case in point.

The irony is, that Kumar was almost a rubber stamp of the LTTE who made a strong pro-LTTE statement only a few days ago. The statement, widely publicised in the pro LTTE propaganda web sites is considered by discerning analysts to be his unwitting self-passed death sentence: The Tigers wanted to sacrifice him (in any case, he was the leader of an alternative Tamil party) so that they could put the blame on the Sri Lankan state. The very same Tiger web sites which publicised his statement two days ago, gave wide publicity to his killing, insinuating that it was done by the state. Tamil Tigers are notorious on cannibalism: They even killed Lawrence Thilagar, chief spokeperson of the Tigers, who when he was in Australia a few years ago was interviewed widely by the Australian Media. Apparently, he had misappropriated Tamil Tiger funds. Kumar Ponnambalam, a man who was making a living as a not-so-successful lawyer in Colombo, could have succumbed to his dreams.

LTTE is the only organisation in Sri Lanka who use suicide bombers. They have never accepted responsibility to any one of their hundreds of horrendous crimes against humanity including the killing of former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv, for which their cadres have been sentenced to death by the Indian Federal Courts. LTTE and its agents world wide will try their very best to say that it was not them who attempted killing the Sri Lankan PM and killed Kumar Ponnambalam today.

As the leading Australian organisation that represents the Sri Lankan Community in Australia, and as an organisation that focuses its attention on the issue of separatist propaganda, we wish to request the Australian media not to be influenced by the propaganda of their agents on our soil.

We are surprised that some Australian media are very reluctant to use the word "terrorist" on heinous terrorist acts allegedly perpetrated by the LTTE. However, the word is freely used for acts committed elsewhere allegedly by others. You would no doubt agree, that suicide bombing, which targets a democratically elected leader and, more importantly, which kills scores of innocent people and maims a greater number of innocents is definitely a terrorist act designed to bring terror into the hearts of the general public. We believe that there should be no hesitation in using the word "terrorist" on such acts and the word "terrorists" on the perpetrators.

 Yours faithfully