While over 50,000 LTTE supporters from the Tamil Diaspora took to the streets of Toronto protesting against Sri Lanka on May 13th, about 70 Sri Lankans with the help of Sri Lanka United National Association (SLUNA) held a counter protest over the busy Don Valley Parkway highway. Our mission was to hold our 40ft banner “PROTECT CANADA! STOP THE TAMIL TIGERS!” for long as we could and we ended up getting a positive response from media and commuters on the busy highway by give the “thumbs up”, while pro-LTTE supporters gave us the “finger”. Local TV channels that were covering the Tamil protests in downtown Toronto quickly drew their attention to a plane carry a similar message “PROTECT CANADA STOP TAMIL TIGERS” that flew over the Ontario provincial legislature area at Queen’s Park, both the media and protesters were stunned to the see the plane as their protest/demonstrations came to a halt for a few minutes.

Although we carried our protest peacefully without disruption to the public, at the end while we all were about to get into our cars and leave, across the road we were approached by seven or eight pro-LTTE Tamil men who threatened us with obscenities and tried to intimidate us by writing down our license plate numbers. These men were closely watched by under-cover police agents who were there for our own protection and within a matter of minutes their faces were slammed against the unmarked police cars.

We want to thank everyone who attended the protest for coming out and supporting us yesterday. We’ve created a lot of buzz around Toronto. Torontonians now know that there’s another voice against the Tamil Tigers.ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚