SRI LANKAN NATIONAL DAILY ATTACKS BRITAIN FOR ITS DOUBLE DEALING OF TRAINING TERRORISTS IN BRITAIN

(By Walter Jayawardhana)

The United Kingdom which has proscribed the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) as a terrorist organization breaking its own laws trained 12 cadres of the group in police work in an act of double dealing in Northern Ireland charged the Sri Lankan national daily , The Island in a hard hitting editorial.
There is 'damning evidence that the British government has been involved in training a proscribed terrorist organization,' charged the independent daily after the newspaper on the previous day published a news story of a confession as its lead story of an arrested LTTE cadre who has served as the chief of the separatist group police station in Sampur, in the island nation's Eastern Province , now taken under the control of the Sri Lanka security forces.
Kalimuttu Vinodkumar (29), who was arrested in Trincomalee recently, has admitted that he was among 12 LTTE cadres trained in Northern Ireland by British government for three months before being posted as the separatist group's head of the police station at Sampur , the editorial said.
'How do the countries,' queried the editorial, ' which rightly bring pressure to bear on this country to uphold the rule of law conduct themselves'' and said, the recent confession by the LTTE cadre has revealed that Britain, which is in the forefront of a campaign to protect democracy here, does not respect her anti-terror laws.
Bringing forth some more serious allegations of hypocrisy and double dealing the editorial added , 'That the British government turns a blind eye to the activities of the LTTE, which is proscribed in the UK, is only too well known. The outfit is permitted to hold rallies and raise funds on the British soil to finance a war to dismember a Commonwealth member state.'
The editorial further charged that some of the British lawmakers are being openly supportive of it for reasons best known to themselves. 'But, the confession in question is proof that the British government has gone beyond mere connivance.'
Referring to the Cease Fire Agreement (CFA) signed between the United National Front government of former Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and LTTE supremo Velupillai Prabhakaran the newspaper said, ' The CFA certainly served a useful purpose at the initial stages, however flawed it may be. It helped minimise killings. But, the subservience of the UNF government enabled the LTTE to abuse the truce to the hilt, ably assisted by the Norwegians, to train its cadres abroad and smuggle in war related material besides gaining a great deal of legitimacy for its cause.'
Calling the parallel administration the terrorist group claims to run in some parts of the country as 'treason' the editorial further said, 'Had the LTTE been allowed to perpetuate its illegal rule in those parts of the country in the name of the now moribund CFA, the outfit would have certainly used its 'police' presence to bolster its claim of running a separate state.'
The editorial further said, 'Remember a few years ago a World Bank chief in Colombo got into the soup over a statement that the LTTE was running a de facto state in some areas. The British Navy, it may be recalled, even entertained an LTTE area leader on one of its warships off the Eastern coast in the aftermath of the tsunami disaster under the Kumaratunga regime that carried forward the UNF's appeasement policy.'
The editorial reminded Britain how sensitive it was to foreign help for its own terrorists in Norther island and said, 'How does Britain react when its terrorists are trained abroad' It has been instrumental in dislodging two regimes and bombing two sovereign nations'Afghanistan and Iraq'into the Stone Age to protect its national security interests and in retaliation for sponsoring its terrorists. Prime Minister John Major, as we have pointed out earlier, once, boycotted telephone calls from the White House for one week in protest against permission granted to Sinn Fein leader Jerry Adams to enter the US to attend an IRA fund raiser.'
A thorough investigation into Vindokumar's confession is called for as it is likely to shed more light on the British-LTTE relations, said the editorial and concluded it by expressing sourly, 'Sri Lankan government obviously cannot sway the British policy towards terrorism but at least it can expose Britain's nudity in its small way.'