The president of the World Tamil Movement's Toronto branch is denying Canadian police allegations that his group is a front for the Tamil Tigers, which Canada deems a terrorist organization – though he supports their aim of an independent Tamil homeland.
Earlier in May, an RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police) affidavit was released in federal court detailing an investigation that involved a 2006 raid of the movement's office in Scarborough and accusing the group and its executives of several criminal code offences under the Anti-terrorism Act.
The police accuse the World Tamil Movement of carrying out a well-organized system of extortion that forced local Tamil Canadians to donate to the LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam) – a secessionist group that has been branded as a terrorist organization by Canada and 30 other countries.
The affidavit's nearly 400 pages describe evidence seized in the raid and interviews with members of Toronto's Tamil community to make the case for a direct link between the two groups.
Sitha Sittampalam (known as Sittampalam Sinnathamby in the RCMP affidavit), the movement's Toronto president since 2004, says that if formal charges are laid he will fight them in court.
"We do not have any fundraising activities for terrorism," or any connection with the Tigers, Sittampalam told the Star yesterday during an interview in the Tamil movement's Scarborough office.
However, he said: "We consider LTTE as a movement to fight and liberate our people. We don't consider the LTTE as a terrorist organization.
"We feel that the (Canadian) government is really misplaced in doing this, in listing it as a terrorist organization.
"[LTTE] has the support of the people. It has a cause. It has an objective. It's not violence for the sake of it without any cause."
The Tamil Tigers currently control much of northeastern Sri Lanka around the Jaffna peninsula, an area dominated by Tamils, an ethnic minority among Sri Lanka's mainly Sinhalese population.
When asked about a letter included in the federal document from Tigers' head Velupillai Prabhakaran, requesting that Canadian Tamils raise more than $3 million by the summer of 2003 to help with a major offensive, Sittampalam said he had never heard of such a letter.
He acknowledged that his organization, prior to the 2006 raid, received $30,000 to $40,000 a month in donations, but said almost all of it went to a relief organization in Sri Lanka called SEDOT (Social and Economic Development of Tamils).
Asked if he knew of any connection between SEDOT and the Tamil Tigers, Sittampalam said he wasn't sure. Later, he said that because SEDOT is a registered non-profit non-governmental organization recognized by the Sri Lankan government, it could not have any ties to the Tigers.
The affidavit describes how Tamils in the Toronto area were targeted with the use of Elections Canada voting lists, then approached to donate to the Tamil Tigers through the World Tamil Movement.
From interviews with several GTA residents, the RCMP report details how people were coerced into a direct-deposit payment scheme while visiting Sri Lanka, where they were identified at Tamil Tiger checkpoints as Canadians who could afford to make regular donations.
According to the Mounties, when these visitors returned to Toronto they would be visited by men representing the World Tamil Movement, asking for either a lump sum or regular monthly donations.
In response to that allegation, Sittampalam said the World Tamil Movement publishes a newspaper delivered directly to subscriber's homes, and that people often voluntarily donate to the group at the door to help with the struggle back home.
"It appears to us that almost 99 per cent of the (Tamil) population is behind them (the Tamil Tigers), from what we see and hear," Sittampalam said, describing what he called a violent government strategy of ethnic cleansing.
"When the government deals with its own citizens like that, there is no surprise in an armed uprising as a last resort, thriving in that country supported by the entire (Tamil) population there. And almost all these people who were refugees when they came here, they were victims – they lost their property. They lost their land. They lost their relatives. We have no option. Politically we are in favour of that struggle – politically."
