By Malinda Seneviratne

After May 18, 2009, i.e. after Prabhakaran met his long-deserved end, these very same people who said Prabhakaran would never be captured, spent a lot of time manufacturing an after-life for the LTTE outside Sri Lanka. This effort received a severe blow on August 7, 2009, when the head of the LTTE’s international operations (including arms-procurement, drug trafficking, smuggling, extortion and other fraudulent activities) and the newly crowned successor to Prabhakaran, a man known as ‘KP’ was captured in Malaysia and brought to Sri Lanka. KP has not stopped singing since, we are told.

unrelenting lobbying

The pro-Eelam sections of the Tamil Diaspora, we were told, were undeterred by these setbacks. The struggle was to take a different form. In addition to Rudrakumar’s convoluted missives we also get to see news features on new-age Eelam activists, twittering away and lobbying representatives in their countries of residence.

It is not all about espousing a just cause though this is what it is made out to be. It is about intense and unrelenting lobbying. Lobbying is ancient. Lobbying is also about money passing hands, or into bank accounts. Even Barack Obama (darling to some) and his (Obama’s) new sidekick, Hillary Clinton, both received money from one Raj Rajaratnam, one of six people arrested recently with regard to what the FBI said was the largest ever hedge-fund insider-trading case. Federal prosecutors in the USA have charged the man with securities fraud and related conspiracies. Obama, whose eloquence and rhetoric sways only wide-eyed innocents who have been tripping on messiah-arrivals all their adult lives, pledged to be above purchase but proved to be quite the common politician. And if Obama, so enlightened, so good, so trustworthy, so ‘Nobelesque’ (according to Obama junkies, at least) is up for purchase, need we dwell on known pilferers of public funds such as David Miliband and their ‘purchasability’?

Funding Tigers

Raj Rajaratnam financed the LTTE, through its well-known proxy the TRO (declared by the US Government as a fund-raising front for the terrorist outfit). What is interesting and important is that 30 victims of terror attacks perpetrated by the LTTE have also filed a suit against the man, accusing him of funding the Tiger’s crimes against humanity to the tune of US $5 million between 2001 and 2007.

The US Government has previously brought criminal charges against people accused of raising money to help the LTTE. Rajaratnam has not been among these individuals, but the petitioners, filing under the Alien Tort Claims Act which allows non-US residents access to US courts to seek justice for violations of ‘The Law of Nations’, claim that ‘Individual B’ identified in the above case was, in fact, Rajaratnam.

Michael Elsner, attorney for those bringing the lawsuit, said in a statement: “The defendants, we allege, have the plaintiffs’ blood on their hands because those who paid for murder are just as culpable as those who committed the acts.” Elsner who works for the law firm, Motley Rice, of Mt. Pleasant, S.C., has previously brought similar cases on behalf of victims of suicide bombings in Israel and victims of the September 11, 2001, terror attacks, and states, ‘We are seeking justice for the victims of LTTE terrorism, accountability for those whose money paid for the injuries and murder of our clients and their loved ones, and a strong deterrent against anyone who seeks to support terrorists of any stripe’.

The petitioners include Sagarika Priyadarshani, the widow of Olympic athlete K.A. Karunaratne (‘Marathon Karu’) who was killed when an LTTE suicide bomber attacked a marathon event he was at on April 6, 2008 in Weliveriya. Sagarika and the rest of the petitioners have done what should have been done years ago. For thirty years, the victims (i.e. those who were injured in terrorist attacks or who lost loved ones or had property destroyed) have been silent. The LTTE capitalised on this silence. The LTTE even managed to convince the BBC that the attack at the Sri Maha Bodhi in Anuradhapura was an assault by the Sri Lankan Army on innocent Tamil civilians. The BBC stuck to this line for months.

Supporters no longer feel safe

The importance of this action is that every person and organisation that has directly or indirectly supported the LTTE can no longer feel safe. They have screamed and lobbied, protested and funded for years, believing they are protected by distance. This case, however, will be a wake up call to all racist LTTE supporters wherever they may reside. From now on, let all those ill-informed, hate-spewing, un-moored from all that is beautiful and tender in Tamil culture, live with the knowledge that they will be pursued to the end of the earth and their lives for the part they played in the perpetration of horrendous crimes against humanity.

Those thugs who thought it was heroic and contributive to the Eelam cause to attack Sinhalese in the countries they resided in must now do a re-think and re-invent themselves pronto. Those who threatened patriotic Sri Lankans and stopped them from running the national flag after the LTTE was defeated will have to ask themselves, ‘if this happened to Raj, what of us?’

Sooner or later, all those who cooked up documents so they could convince naïve immigration officers in Western countries that they were being persecuted and therefore should be granted asylum, will be treated with suspicion. This too is what the LTTEs mad adventure has cost the Tamil community.

And it will not only be the misguided, racist Tamils who have to fret. Raj Rajaratnam’s task was to give money, used to purchase arms and ammunition, among other things. There are others who directly or indirectly supported the LTTE and not all of them can make claim to Tamil ancestry. Those who offered logistical and material support to the LTTE will also have to face charges sooner or later in some court of law (Eric Solheim comes to mind and so too Hillary Clinton). Those who helped are culpable, of this let there be no doubt.

It should not be limited to the US courts of course. The ‘enemy’ does not constitute only those who donned military fatigues in the Wanni jungles. There are many apologists who even today call for the blood of the Sri Lankan security forces. They’ve whitewashed the LTTE at every turn and sought to win for the terrorist breathing space whenever cornered.

Quite apart from all this, this case will no doubt provide a rallying point for all victims of LTTE terrorism. All those who lost loved ones, or had their property damaged, over the past 30 years can now come together. The voice of the victim has been suppressed. The victim has finally found voice. Let all voices rise in unison. That alone may silence all the hypocrites who’ve spared no pains to support the world’s most ruthless terrorists. Their time, as they say, has come.
(Malinda Seneviratne is a freelance writer who can be reached at malinsene@gmail.com)