Tiger Terrorist Run Havoc in Melbourne

The Melbourne-based office of the Serendib ^ | 30 January

[Calpernia]

LTTE terror stalks Australian media

Melbourne, 30 January: The Melbourne-based office of the Serendib - a nation-wide community newspaper for Sri Lankans in Australia - was vandalized and three laptops, three PCs, CDs on which the backup information was stored were removed on Friday night(28). This vandalizing was aimed at crippling the production of this monthly.

The raid on the Serendib office occurred after the latest January issue carried an interview with Sri Lanka's High Commissioner, Maj-Gen. Janaka Perera.

In it the High Commissioner exposed the false propaganda of the agents of the LTTE in Australia accusing the Sri Lankan government of not distributing aid to the Tamil victims of the tsunami.

In the wake of the tsunami the LTTE agents in Australia launched a massive campaign to (1) raise funds through Tamil Rehabilitation Organization (TRO), a global network set up to collect funds from the Tamil Diaspora to buy arms, as reported in the latest report of the Washington Post of 29 January win back the sympathy the LTTE had lost as a result of its violations of human rights and forcible recruitment of children into the LTTE barracks and to accuse the Sri Lankan government of neglecting the Tamil victims of the tsunami.

The LTTE-allied website Nidharsanam based in Norway also attacked Serendib last December as an agent of the Sri Lankan government. The campaign against Serendib was launched after it celebrated its fourth anniversary last December with Maj-Gen. Janaka Perera as the chief guest.

The climax of this celebration was a ceremony in which Sri Lankans who had rendered services to the community were honoured with awards. Among the nominees was Dr. Noel Nadesan, the editor of Uthayan, the popular Tamil community newspaper in Australia. Uthayam paper has been critical of the LTTE.

Though Dr. Nadesan did not attend the award ceremony, the LTTE website accused him of receiving an award from Maj-Gen. Janaka Perera - the general who halted the march of the LTTE into Jaffna and drove them out into wilds of Vanni. Smarting under this defeat the LTTE propaganda machine has been carrying on a smear campaign against Maj-Gen. Perera from the time he assumed office with the usual accusations of violating human rights when he was in command in Jaffna.

Dr. Noel Nadesan has faced many threats from LTTE agents in the past. Earlier, in August 2000 LTTE agents grabbed 500 copies of Uthayam from a Tamil shop in Sydney and burnt them. Employees delivering copies to various suburban outlets too have been threatened by the agents of the LTTE.

The latest attack on Serendib, run by Suresh Perera and Geethika Perera, is in keeping with the global pattern of the LTTE raiding newspaper offices opposed to its terrorist politics, beating up or killing journalists to silence them, or threatening those linked to it.

In Canada the LTTE agents of LTTE burst into the flat of a leading Sri Lankan journalist, D. B. S. Jeyaraj, and broke his legs and beat him to within an inch of his life, for opposing the LTTE. Further more Sivasothi, who is popularly known as `ECIlayabarathi`EE a popular radio broadcaster and now the Managing Director of Candaian Tamil Broadcasting Corporation (CTBC) from Toronto was shot in the leg by the LTTE to terrorizing him and bring him subdue him. Another Tamil journalist facing serious threats from the LTTE is Selliah Nagarajah who is an academic. He was working for a community radio in Sydney but because of his critical attitude towards the LTTE he was forced out through heavy pressures brought upon the management by the agents of the LTTE. Despite threats to his life he continues to expose the terror tactics of the LTTE. He has, however, taken the precaution of not revealing his whereabouts or his phone numbers except to his trusted ones.

The LTTE cry high and low about the burning down of the Jaffna Library which we all condemn it as an atrocious act, but the very same LTTErs in Toronto did the same atrocious act of burning down the `ECThedal`EE library which housed thousands of rare books and reading materials and was located in the downtown Toronto, as it was run by members of the other Tamil militant organizations.

Tamil journalists, intellectuals, political dissidents who had refused to toe the LTTE line were shot dead in Sri Lanka.

Suresh Perera, MBA, and Geethika Perera, his wife who holds a master`EDs degree in mass communication, also run a Sinhala newspaper, Ayubowan. It did not carry the interview with the High Commissioner. The vandals did not touch any of the PCs or the software related to Ayubowan. Since December both Suresh and Geethika have been receiving anonymous threatening calls.

Sri Lankan journalists are now planning to take joint action against threats coming at them from all sources.

(Asian Tribune)

[Calpernia]

Thanks for the freep mail nw_az!

[Cindy]

Thanks for the ping Calopernia.

[nw_arizona_granny]

You are welcome.

Thank you for posting this.

[Larry Lucido]

Hmm. Good thing these places have gun control. No telling how bad it could have been otherwise.

/sarcasm