For the first time, the Europol devoted two days to discuss the activities of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) at a workshop held in The Hague, Netherlands last week.

The seminar brought together representatives from 15 EU Member States, as well as from Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Sri Lanka, USA, Switzerland and Interpol. There were also representatives from other European Institutions; Eurojust and SitCen (the European Union Joint Situation Centre), for an assessment of the activities of the LTTE and its front organizations.

The Sri Lanka delegation to the seminar, included representatives from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Attorney General’s Department and Defence Ministry.

Speaking at the workshop, Sri Lanka’s Ambassador to Belgium, EU and Luxembourg Ravinatha Aryasinghe said that successive Sri Lanka Governments tried to talk to the LTTE and solve the problem amicably but failed.

He said negotiations were held with the LTTE in 1985, 19867/87, 1989-90, 1994-95, 2002-2003 and 2006 but to no avail. "These periods have been used by the LTTE to merely re-arm and re-group and to resume hostilities at a time of their choosing.

For instance, the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM), during the period between 22nd February 2002 to 30th April 2007, had ruled that the Government armed forces had committed 351 violations of the CFA while the LTTE had committed 3,830 violations. The Ceasefire Agreement which in any event was non-operational and defunct since mid July 2006, was terminated by Sri Lanka on the 17th of January 2008", he explained.

He noted that the Government has shown terrorism can be defeated by clearing the entire Eastern Province from the LTTE by July 2007 and restoring normalcy.

Aryasinghe said that a concerted military campaign has been launched to wipe out the terrorists from the North and the troops are on the verge of regaining Kilinochchi, the so-called capital of the LTTE and the President Rajapaksa has made clear that the LTTE too is welcome to join in the development effort of the region, provided they lay down their arms, and join the democratic process.

He said banning LTTE in the Europe was not effective since all the propaganda work and fund raising are done by the front organizations. Therefore, he urged the European Governments to ban these front organizations as well.

He asserted that there is enough evidence to prove that the Tamil Rehabilitation Organization (TRO), White Pigeon, the World Tamil Movement (WTM), the Tamil Coordinating Committee (TCC), the British Tamil Association (BTA) and the British Tamil Forum (BTF), Tamil Youth Organization (TYO), and International Tamil Rehabilitation Organization (ITRO) are directly controlled by Veerakathy Manivannam aka Castro who is the Head of LTTE’s ‘International Secretariat’, based in Wanni in Sri Lanka.

"They fool the European Governments saying they work towards charity".