National Post - Friday, June 16, 2000

Tamils threaten to sue the
Post
Articles denounced: Deny alleged
connections with terrorist groups

Charlie Gillis
National Post 

TORONTO - Members of Canada's Tamil community say they
plan to sue the National Post over a series of articles chronicling
alleged connections between Tamil organizations here and terrorist
elements in Sri Lanka. 

Representatives of Tamil student groups -- as well as one from an
organization cited in the Post's reports -- announced their intention
at a news conference yesterday. They described the stories as "a
calculated attack on Tamil-Canadians that is causing severe harm to
our community. 

"We will not be denigrated. We will not be silenced," said Harini
Sivalingam, 21, speaking for the Colleges and Universities' Tamil
Students Union. "We will not be denied our basic, fundamental
rights to freedom of expression, assembly and association." 

Martin Newland, deputy editor of the Post, confirmed that the
newspaper has received a letter of intent to sue for defamation from
Federation of Associations of Canadian Tamils (FACT), an
organization identified by the U.S. State Department and a report
published by CSIS as a front organization for the Tamil Tigers. 

But the paper is standing by its stories, which Mr. Newland said
could not be characterized as racist, or as attacks on Tamils in
general. 

"We are not in the business of arbitrarily sectioning off part of the
Canadian populace and painting them all as terrorists," he said. "We
recognize that the Canadian Tamil community as a whole represents
a rich and important part of the tapestry of ethnic communities that
make up Canadian society. 

"We have no argument with the Tamil community, but we do believe
that reporting on how Canadian dollars are being diverted to help
fight a civil war in Sri Lanka, in part using terrorist methods,
represents basic public-interest journalism." 

The paper has received several hundred letters of support from Sri
Lankan Canadians for the articles, many of them from ethnic Tamils,
Mr. Newland said. 

The articles, which have run over the last two months, identify
specific groups and individuals in Canada that have been linked in
reports published by the U.S. State Department, the RCMP and the
Canadian Security Intelligence Service to the Liberation Tigers of
Tamil Eelam (LTTE). 

The Tigers are a terrorist group that has been waging a 17-year
campaign for independence for Sri Lanka's ethnic Tamil minority.
The conflict has claimed more than 60,000 lives, and it is believed
the Tigers are sustaining their campaign with financial support from
sympathetic groups in Canada, the United States, the U.K. and
Switzerland, among other countries. 

Nehru Gunaratnam, a FACT spokesman who attended yesterday's
news conference, denied the allegations. 

He said any fundraising was being done only to bankroll
"humanitarian efforts back home in Sri Lanka." 

Ms. Sivalingam added, "FACT is an umbrella organization that
represents the interests of the entire Tamil community. So branding
it in this way, and questioning FACT's legitimacy to operate in
Canada, is denying Tamil-Canadians the right to associate,
assemble and express themselves." 

Among other things, the Post has reported that a former
co-ordinator of FACT, Manickavasagam Suresh, 44, is currently
facing a deportation order for allegedly fundraising in Canada for the
purchase of weapons to be sent to the Tigers. 

After Mr. Suresh was arrested in 1995, the Federal Court of
Canada accepted the Crown's argument that he was "a dedicated
and trusted member in a leadership position with the LTTE." 

The Federal Court of Appeal upheld the decision and Mr. Suresh
has been released while he awaits a hearing in the Supreme Court of
Canada. 

The Tamil representatives also questioned the Post's use of a
photograph, which the paper said was taken last year at a
fundraising rally held at a Toronto school. The picture showed a
group of Tamils on stage in camouflage and carrying replica assault
rifles. 

Mr. Gunaratnam said the photograph was taken five years ago in
Ottawa or Montreal and was actually of a play. "It was a work of
art, where people were expressing the reality they were facing." 

But Mr. Newland said that the paper had reconfirmed with its
sources yesterday the time and place the photo was taken and that
its initial report was accurate.