Mahinda Gunasekera Tambrook Drive  Agincourt, Ontario Canada  M1W 3L9

By E-mail

March 30, 2015

Hon. Mangala Samaraweera, MP
Minister of Foreign Affairs
Colombo 1, Sri Lanka

Dear Minister,

Your statements relating to de-proscription of banned LTTE organizations and key supporters

It is with deep apprehension that I read statements made by you in the Sri Lankan media about moves by the present regime to lift the proscription imposed on 16 LTTE organizations and 424 key supporters in terms of the UN Security Council Resolution 1373 of September 2001and UN Regulation No. 1 of 2012 with effect from March 21, 2014.  It is apparent that you have failed to assess the background data and the threat to national security by the named groups and individuals who engaged in a hate based unending propaganda campaign to demonize Sri Lanka and at the same time funded the armed terrorist warfare over three decades from their safe havens overseas.

Even after the military defeat of their proxy forces comprised of the internationally designated terrorist group known as the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), aka the Tamil Tigers, they continued to target Sri Lanka using the vast funds raised through extortion and other illicit means to buy media personnel, INGO and vote hungry politicians in their respective jurisdictions to denounce Sri Lanka on heaped up bogus claims and charges.  They have no genuine grievances other than their egoistic dream of establishing a separate mono-ethnic Tamil racist state to be carved out of the sovereign territory of Sri Lanka by whatever means.

These pro-LTTE organizations and key supporters who earlier operated under the guise of cultural or charitable bodies whose main goal was the break up of Sri Lanka and creation of a separate Tamil state have all metamorphosed into defenders of Human Rights (of Tamils only), whilst pursuing the same goal of breaking up Sri Lanka. Despite the freedom to operate overseas, they are without doubt on the ‘watch list’ of the respective intelligence services.  Today, they harp on their wrongly perceived right of self-determination to influence the major western powers to seek a referendum in the predominantly Tamil areas of the north and east only to achieve their separatist objective, following in the footsteps of the creation of South Sudan, Kosovo, and East Timor. The Northern Provincial Council’s recent resolution alleging genocide of the Tamil community by the Sri Lankan state is also an outcome of the funding of TNA politicians, plus the influence and pressure brought to bear on the Sri Lankan Tamils by the separatist elements within the so called Tamil diaspora.

It is foolish to play politics in matters of national security in the hope of merely winning the next election with the support of Tamil votes overlooking the lurking dangers to the territorial integrity, and the enormous risks that the nation would confront with the establishment of hostile borders and a complete breakdown in the hard won peace. Whilst reconciliation within the island with members of the Tamil and other minority communities willing to co-exist in peace as members of one nation to which we too have contributed in large measure should proceed unhindered, while the threat factor from other quarters must not be overlooked or ignored.

Although, you may want to take rash decisions in pursuit of political objectives or to please powerful western governments that permitted the pro-LTTE groups to function and fund the terrorist violence in Sri Lanka violating their own laws, the people of Sri Lanka cannot be fooled on the subject of threats to their lives and livelihoods having experienced over 33 years of terror which was ended at great cost in May 2009. You should closely study the matter before you rush into decisions which will harm both the state and the people of Sri Lanka.  I am taking the liberty to copy this letter to the Sri Lankan media and others.

Yours sincerely,

Mahinda Gunasekera

Copy to:  H.E. Maithripala Sirisena, President of Sri Lanka

          Hon. Ranil Wickremasinghe, Prime Minister of Sri Lanka

          Sri Lankan Media