Sri Lankan Tamils in Canada ravaged by war in homeland

The picture of a fallen top commander of Sri Lanka's Tamil Tigers is neatly plastered on the wall of a shopping center.

Not far away, a food outlet peddles a crispy savory pancake, "dosa," named after Tamil Eelam, the independent state aspired by the Tigers.

No, you are not in the stronghold of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in northern Sri Lanka but in Scarborough, the eastern part of Toronto.

This largest Canadian city is home to about 250,000 ethnic Tamils who left Sri Lanka for Canada to escape the country's 25-year civil war.

They make up the largest diaspora from the South Asian country, with Toronto itself reportedly home to the biggest number of Sri Lankan Tamils in the world.

Though actively involved in the business, academic, political and social fields in their new home, many are still sympathetic to the Tigers' cause for an independent Tamil state in Sri Lanka.

Some display their support openly despite the group being labeled terrorists by the Canadian government, which earlier this year for the first time charged a man with terrorism financing for soliciting cash for the Tigers.

Many of the Tamils in Canada have families and relatives in the north and east of Sri Lanka, where the Tigers were experiencing one of their worst setbacks since waging an armed struggle in 1972 to carve out a homeland for minority Tamils in the majority-Sinhalese nation.

"We are psychologically devastated and traumatized by the war because it is in our homeland and there is genocide going on there," charged Canadian Tamil Usha Sri-Skanda-Rajah, the owner of a real estate firm in Scarborough.

"We want the international community to help bring about a settlement to the conflict so that our statehood is recognized," said Usha, 57, who is among an informal group of "concerned" women attempting to highlight to the Canadian authorities what she called "humanitarian catastrophe" in northern Sri Lanka.

Several members in her group have parents and other family members displaced by the fighting and their whereabouts remain uncertain, she said.

Usha's husband, a retired senior banking executive, went on a six-day fast recently to draw attention to the plight of tens of thousands of civilians displaced by the fighting in Sri Lanka.

The Canadian Tamils grasp at any opportunity to highlight the bloody ethnic strife in Sri Lanka.

Recently, when Sri Lanka played Pakistan in a cricket match in Toronto, Tamil groups hired a plane carrying a banner "Stop the genocides in Sri Lanka" to circle the cricket grounds in an aerial propaganda blitz.

Sri Lankan Tamils are "one of the largest growing visible minorities" in Canada, said David Poopalapillai, spokesman for the Canadian Tamil Congress, touted as the largest Tamil group in Canada.

Catering to the bustling community, which has a municipal councillor as its first elected representative, are three 24-hour Tamil cable television networks and about half a dozen radio stations, he said.

The Tamils are aspiring for higher elected offices.

"We consider ourselves as part and parcel of the Canadian fabric and always encourge our people to actively perform their civic duty," Poopalapillai said.

For some however their assimilation in Canada will not be at the expense of foregoing the elusive dream of a Tamil homeland in Sri Lanka.