Home
BRITISH SHAME
On the night of 30 August 1999, the Warren Farm Sports Center in Southall, UK suddenly turned into a third world battleground with gun toting, machete wielding men attacking each other. The combatants belonged to two gangs who extorted money from the London's Tamil community. Ironically, both gangs work for the Tamil Tigers of Sri Lanka and the money is for supplying guns and explosives to the terrorists. These gangsters, former "refugees" who allegedly fled the violence back at home, are now brazenly introducing their "culture" to the very society that naively provided them a haven to base their operations. The incident was reported in both the London Times and the Daily Telegraph.
The past decade saw a great change in the attitude of the western powers towards conflicts in other countries. Whether the main reason for this marked change was the dismembering of the alternative Eastern power bloc or not, the position changed from that of mere issuing of passive statements to aggressive participation in the conflicts themselves. This "new world order" was evident in the Gulf war and the Balkans conflict and is right now manifesting itself in the East Timor crisis. The same change of attitude, albeit to a lesser degree, was exhibited towards the issue of terrorist organizations which until then freely used foreign lands to base their outfits without much ado. Again, USA took the lead to tighten the screws on international terrorism and other countries followed suit by curtailing, to various degrees, activities of foreign terrorist organizations operating from their lands.
However, notwithstanding the fact that UK had been a faithful follower of US in the international arena in the recent past, the British leaders remain largely apathetic towards the issue of international terrorism.
A glaring case in point is the British attitude towards terrorism in Sri Lanka, its
former colony where most of the burning present day issues are attributed to the then
British divide-and-rule policy. Sri Lankan separatists - the Liberation Tigers of Tamil
Eelam (LTTE), better known the world over as Tamil Tigers - have to their credit a lengthy
list of ghoulish crimes against humanity. It includes bombing of civilians in crowded city
centres, air liners, air ports, buses and trains as well as regular massacres en-masse of
inhabitants of remote villages. Both former Indian Prime Minister Gandhi and former Sri
Lankan President Premadasa were murdered by the LTTE for their attempts at realizing a
negotiated settlement. In scale as well as in the degree of hideousness of their crimes,
Tamil Tiger terrorists easily make the IRA pale into insignificance. Recognizing the
strong connections the Sri
Lankan terrorists had with other international terrorist organizations and crime
syndicates, USA placed the LTTE on the list of 30 most dangerous terrorist organizations
in the world and banned all their activities on US soil. After experiencing gun battles
and several violent deaths in feuds between Tamil terrorist clans in the streets of
Scarsborough and Toronto, the Canadian Federal Court declared the LTTE a terrorist
organization and the government appointed a special high powered "Tamil Task
Force" to curb their activities in Canada. On their part, India, Malaysia and Sri
Lanka have totally banned the LTTE.
However, for a reason best known to themselves, the British government not only turn a Nelsonian eye but also continue to provide a hassle-free safe haven for the the Tamil Tigers to base their international operations. Gradually getting jostled out of many countries, the Tigers rightly consider London the safest place on earth and even have located their "International secretariat" there. They quite openly operate throughout UK with the declared head office at 211 Katherine Road, London E61 BU, and the actual operational command at Eelam House, 202 Long Lane, London. Their front organization called the "United Tamil Organization (UTO) is also headquartered at the "Eelam House". This is also the address given on the recent Amnesty International appeal to Tamils around the world pleading them to send their protests against forcible conscription of children into the Tiger terrorist machine to be used as cannon fodder and suicide bombers.
Sri Lanka's ambassador to the USA, Warnasena Rasaputhram did not mince his words recently when he addressed a seminar on terrorism at the Potomac Institute for policy studies. He said that London is a base for the Tigers, and that UK allows the Tiger cadres free transfers of millions of pounds to and from London. He had also requested for pressure from the United States on Britain in curbing international terrorism.
He is not alone; several speakers at the recently concluded UN sub-commission on human rights in Geneva accused "certain developed states" of providing safe havens in their countries to international terrorists while on the other hand selectively condemning human rights violations and terrorist acts by other parties. Juanita Olivier of European Union of Public Relations, said: "It was important to take a closer look at the participation of non-State players involved with terrorism. The international community and the media had been lax in discharging their responsibilities towards curbing terrorism. Apartheid seemed to apply to combating terrorism. When a white person was killed by a terrorist group, retaliatory action was swift. Yet groups that routinely massacred innocent civilians in developing countries were allowed to function overtly from offices set up in developed countries". In this regard, one might recall the British efforts taken with regard to the Lockerbee bombing.
Britain's hypocrisy regarding Sri Lankan Tamil terrorists is far more damaging and palpable than duplicity exhibited by any other nation. The lame excuse of the British Government is that they do not want to act unless the terrorists violate the British Law. However, they do not explain which British Law did Milosevic or Sadam breached!
The recent Tamil terrorist violence unleashed in Southall would have indeed breached
the British Law as armed police swiftly moved in with dogs and riot gear and made several
arrests. It could certainly serve as an eye-opener if only the British government chose
not to turn the blind eye!
Report from Spur Australia