TERRORISTS TAKE BBC FOR A RIDE

Children killed by LTTE

"Mr Vasantha-Raja, a former BBC producer and senior member of the LTTE appeared on a Channel 4 news programme as an "independent" spokesman after the bomb blast in Colombo early this year. During this interview it became apparent that Mr. Rajah was not prepared to condemn the bomb blast, instead he revelled in the fact that this was an "audacious attack" on an economic target in Colombo.A few weeks later Sunrise Radio in London had a phone in programme on Sri Lanka. The Radio station had contacted the LTTE office in London and requested a spokesman to represent them. Mr. Vasantha-Rajah was the LTTE nominee and appeared on the show as such. Even on this programme Mr. Vasantha-Rajah did not condemn the heinous act of the LTTE terrorists, who killed and maimed thousands of innocent civilians.

In a BBC programme Mr. Vasantha-Rajah stated that the unitary state was a creation of the British colonialists of the past and he depicted that there are two nations in Sri Lanka. Both these erroneous assumptions are claimed by the separatist terrorists - LTTE - in their propaganda and it may have beenconvenient for you, without any detailed investigations to accept this as a historical fact. The surprised BBC seem to accept Mr. Vasantha-Rajah’s statement as non controversial, while historical facts do not support this view. The Tamils in Sri Lanka, like the West-Indians and the Indians in the UK are a minority community and not a nation.

Mr. Vasantha-Rajah’s publications ( Tamil Exodus and Beyond, 3 Dogmas ) are pro-LTTE and are reproduced on the Internet by LTTE propagandists (http://uts.cc.utexas.edu/~janahan/tamil.html) and is for sale from the LTTE office in London ( 211 Katherine Road, London E6. Tel. 0181 470 8593).The US state department report which was released in April this year on Global Terrorism (gopher://dosfan.lib.uic.edu:70/OF-13a69693a1995 Report) mentions the World Tamil Association (WTA), World Tamil Movement (WTM), Federation of Associations of Canadian Tamils ( FACT ), the Ellalan Force as LTTE front organisations. It is known that the London Tamil Manram, Tamil Co-ordination Committee, Eelam Solidarity campaign, Tamil Information Centre, Tamil Rehabilitation Organisation, International Federation of Tamils and the World Saiva Council are also front organisations.

If the BBC think this programme would have had any credibility if the British public were aware that the "Sri Lankan expert" the BBC interviewed, Mr. Vasantha-Rajah was in reality one of the main propagandist for the LTTE terrorists, that they showed clippings from LTTE videos which could bepurchased from the LTTE London office and that the Tamil Information Centre, at the end of that programme is in fact a front organisation of the LTTE.

This programme showed film footage taken in Sri Lanka. The way this was presented (secret filming etc.) showed a very oppressive situation which normally exists in most dark corners of the world. It would have been informative to have stated that Sri Lanka is one of the few (at one point the only) third world democracies which is under siege by a group of Tamil terrorists who have assassinated democratic politicians ( Rajiv Gandhi, President Premadasa, Presidential candidate Gamini Dissanayake amongst others) including Democratic Tamil politicians ( Alfred Duraiappah, A. Amirthalingam amongst others) and claims itself to be the "main representatives of the Tamil people", " saviours of the Tamil people" etc.

The BBC interviewer also made several references to an Amnesty International report on Sri Lanka. Amnesty International has also criticised the UK and the US Governments for human rights violations. The US State Department report on Human rights on Sri Lanka (gopher://dosfan.lib.uic.edu:70/of-123406Sri Lanka) gives a more balanced view taking into account the security situation, commends the Sri Lankan Government on its attempts to improve the situation and points to human rights violations, and ethnic cleansing by the LTTE. As for the "Tipp-Ex" case the Home Office could not have considered Mr. VÕs case substantively because the part that referred to him residing in a third world country (Thailand) before coming to the UK was "Tipp-Exed" out. We are sure you know, that a refugee who has lived in a third world country before coming to the UK will have a weaker case when applying for refugee status.

Terrorism in Sri Lanka is sustained by funds raised in western countries by the LTTE and its sympathisers, defrauding social security systems (Computing (UK) 11th January 1996) and extorting funds from expatriate Tamil communities (refugees). The BBC programme may have inadvertently encouraged the British public to fund terrorism in Sri Lanka in the guise of helping refugees. The BBC’s motive in making this programme may have been to examine the British Government’s policy towards asylum seekers. But in doing so, the BBC have been used for propaganda purposes by one of the most ruthless and cunning terrorist organisations in the world.

Whose idea was it to choose Sri Lanka as a BBC case study, and not Nigeria, or another country which has far more refugees in the UK ?