SIXTEEN MOSTLY US PRO-LTTE ORGANIZATIONS ISSUE STATEMENT ENDORSING TIGERS WILLINGNESS TO SECEDE

By Walter Jayawardhana

As the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam( LTTE) attacked US Ambassador together with his Italian counterpart following their announcement blaming the Western nations for not being ready to make concessions at the cost of Sri Lanka’s sovereignty and territorial integrity sixteen pro-LTTE Tamil organizations in the United States issued a joint statement echoing the LTTE statement that was issued by the terrorist group on the fifth anniversary of the tattered Ceasefire Agreement (CFA) declaring it would resume war.

The sixteen organizations mostly Ilankai Thamil Sangams have been mostly involved in fund raising activities for the LTTE or its front organizations.

The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam and some of its front organizations are listed as foreign terrorist organizations by the US Department of State.

But the pro-LTTE US organizations have been emboldened by the Califoria judgement that allowed these organizations to collect humanitarian funds opposed to funds that would buy weapons for the same organizations.

The sixteen associations in this statement hailed the victory of the proxy party of the Tamil Tigers, the Tamil National Alliance that has been alleged to have achieved by all independent observers under armed intimidation of the LTTE and virtual ballot box stuffing at the 2004 elections as an expression of the free will of the Tamil people to bifurcation of Sri Lanka into two states.

The statement also has refused to consider the fact that 54 percent of the Tamil people of Sri Lanka have selected to live outside the Northern and Eastern Provinces of Sri Lanka , the area the LTTE and its allies in the united States propose to carve out as a separate state from Sri Lanka.

The sixteen North American pro-LTTE organizations that issued the statement are as follows :

Association of Tamil Americans, Carolina Tamil Americans, Center for Women’s Development and Rehabilitation – USA

Ilankai Tamil Sangam – California, Ilankai Tamil Sangam – Florida ,Ilankai Tamil Sangam – USA ,

Ilankai Tamil Sangam - Vancouver-Portland – Washington, Midwest Tamil Sangam – Illinois, Ohio

Tamil Association - Ohio

Tamil Heritage International – USA , Tamil Refugees Rehabilitation organization - California, World

Tamil Organization - Illinois, World Tamil Coordinating Committee - USA, World Tamil Women Organization – USA .