Sri Lanka Asks Nations to Prevent Fundraising by Tamil Rebels

Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa asked the international community to help stop fundraising by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam and said his government remains committed to a negotiated settlement to end the conflict.

Terrorism in Sri Lanka ``is nurtured by funds from overseas,'' Rajapaksa said during a visit to Los Angeles last week, according to an e-mailed statement issued by the government. ``We urge all the friends around the world to help us cut off funds to the terrorists in Sri Lanka.''

The conflict escalated last year after two attempts at talks in Geneva between the government and the LTTE failed to restart a peace process aimed at ending two decades of fighting.

The LTTE's estimated 12,000 fighters control areas in northern Sri Lanka after being driven out of Eastern Province in July following 14 years of conflict. The LTTE said Sept. 24 any peace settlement must be based on a homeland for Tamils.

``I see no military solution to the conflict,'' Rajapaksa told a gathering at the Los Angles World Affairs Council on Sept. 28, according to the government. The president has rejected any peace settlement that divides the country.

The U.K. will stop illegal fundraising by the LTTE, Foreign Office Minister Kim Howells said in May. Security agencies in the U.K. are moving to ``counter the bullying, threats and acts of fraud that are used regularly to extract money from the Tamil population and others in the country,'' he told Parliament.

Terrorism Charges

A court in Australia in May brought terrorism charges against two men for being members of the LTTE and raising funds for the group. Six Sri Lankans were convicted in Norway in April for credit card fraud, Sri Lanka's Media Center for National Security said on its Web site on April 30.

The LTTE uses intimidation and violence to extort funds from Tamils living in countries such as Canada and the U.K., Human Rights Watch said in a March 2006 report. Representatives pressed Tamil businessmen for money and threatened to harm their families if they didn't pay, it said. The U.K., the U.S., India and the European Union designate the LTTE as a terrorist organization.

As many as 600,000 Tamils have fled Sri Lanka to escape the violence, more than half of them going to the U.K. and Canada.

About 145,000 people were displaced when Sri Lankan soldiers freed the eastern region, Rajapaksa said. ``Approximately 110,000 people have already returned home,'' he added. ``The others will follow once land mines have been fully cleared.''

Eastern Region

Sri Lanka will provide schools, health care and basic amenities to the displaced people and countries such as France, Spain and Japan are helping to build a coastal highway in the Eastern Province, Rajapaksa said, according to the statement. About 54 percent of Tamils, who make up 8.5 percent of the nation's 20 million people, live in areas other than the north and east of the country, he said.

Military operations which are currently going on in the north are only intended to exert pressure on the LTTE to convince them terrorism cannot bring victory, Rajapaksa said.

``Our goal is to restore democracy and the rule of law to all the people of our country,'' he said.

Source: bloomberg

To contact the reporter on this story: (Jay Shankar in Bangalore at Jshankar1@bloomberg.net