LTTE’s Tamilnet struggling to comprehend the reality

“The LTTE faction controlled by Nediyavan in Denmark, TRO’s Regi, ROOT Ravi and former LTTE fundraising head Thanam in the UK are said to be using their financial muscles to control the Tamil Diaspora like they did before the military annihilation of the LTTE in Sri Lanka.”
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(Part 1)

By Pathy Theeran from Zurich

(November 21, Zurich, Sri Lanka Guardian) Post liquidation of the LTTE’s military might has put its powerful English medium Tamilnet in quandary. With the loss of LTTE mechanisms in Sri Lanka, the website has become a forum to reproduce news published elsewhere and occasionally publish its own news and views of pro-LTTE sentiments to reflect its allegiance to the LTTE’s lost cause.

Instead of playing consensus politics even with the LTTE support base, the net media run from Denmark by Jeya has taken the path of aligning with the financially resourceful faction of the LTTE in the Diaspora. Heavily backed by the financial heavyweights of the LTTE that control the significant proportion of the LTTE finances, the Tamilnet is said to be extending its mission to continue with the armed struggle in Sri Lanka.

The LTTE faction controlled by Nediyavan in Denmark, TRO’s Regi, ROOT Ravi and former LTTE fundraising head Thanam in the UK are said to be using their financial muscles to control the Tamil Diaspora like they did before the military annihilation of the LTTE in Sri Lanka.

According to sources close to these men, their financial resources are expected to play an important part to weaken the other LTTE factions. The source said these men have taken control of the British Tamil Forum (BTF) from behind the scene and using it as their steering wheel to exert their authority. A free circulation ‘London Kural’ monthly newspaper in the UK reported in its November 2009 issue that BTF’s effort to take control of the pioneering Kingston Tamil School has disastrously failed when the local authority investigation rejected the complain by the BTF. In another development the BTF had threatened another independent Tamil group currently campaigning to hold a referendum on the ‘Vaddukodai Resolution of the TULF’.

According to the London Kurral, in a meeting held on 1 November with the committee involved with the ‘Vaddukodai Resolution’, the BTF men had threatened that ‘organisations are functioning without their approval and some of those involved are campaigning against them’. They have demanded ‘these must be stopped forthwith’. They have even quoted Trans-national Government in their criticisms and threats.

In another interesting development, the former LTTE’s fund raising head Rupert Soosaipillai has stated that ‘he is tired of collecting funds and that he wants to play an activist role for the LTTE. He is said to be closely aligned to Nediyavan in Norway who is said to be against any political negations with the Sri Lankan government.

Tamilnet is understandably backed by this resourceful LTTE group and have been told to campaign against anyone working outside the core vales of the LTTE. Even the Trans-national government has been distanced by the Tamilnet headed by Jeya who is closely aligned with the financially resourceful LTTE faction.

In their headline news: ‘Tamil, Muslim political parties find their table in Zurich’ the Tamilnet drove through uncharted territories to ridicule and castigate a genuine effort to bring about reconciliation and consensus within Tamil political parties. A sincere and honest effort of two individuals to bring together the leaders of Tamil and Muslim political parties in Zurich was cynically portrayed as ‘a drama backed by high powers’.

The concoction of the Tamilnet news without mentioning the names of parties said: ‘Immediately after the war a group in London met to discuss to bring in ‘all non-LTTE political groups’ to come out with a political programme to achieve ‘minimum’ demands. This group is now disappointed that the effort has been ‘hijacked’ by some other elements in London.’ According to two organisers of the meeting, there was no basis in this news as they only wanted the Tamil and Muslim leaders to meet and hammer out an agreement.

A Tamil activist in London who was involved in the organisation of the Zurich meeting refuted the claim in the Tamilnet that ‘the meet in Zurich is now organised by Tamil Information Centre of London with the blessings of India’. This source said ‘Tamilnet is good at framing stories to serve its masters who are funding its operations’. According him even India would have been surprised that such meeting had taken place but knowing India’s position such move will be welcome by India. He said ‘the TIC had given the valuable helping hand to the two individuals like many others’.

Having failed to comprehend the purpose of the Zurich meeting, the Tamilnet went on to boast its own agenda that ‘when diaspora Tamils in Norway for the first time successfully demonstrated democratically elected polity for them upholding the independence and sovereignty of Eezham Tamils, instead of welcoming a pioneering democratic effort it was received with bias by sections of media trying to project Tamil nationalism as nothing but an LTTE agenda’.

The editor Jeya of TamilNet, instead of using his media privileges to gain access to the meeting in Zurich, went on with his ranting to mislead the readers about the purpose of the Zurich effort. Having castigated the Zurich effort the Tamilnet went on with its rant to prop-up segmented cause of few individuals.

-Sri Lanka Guardian