Tamil Tigers added to terror list

The federal government has added the Tamil Tigers to it's list of terrorist organizations - from the National Post

Lot's in this article about the Liberals obstructing this addition for example:

Last month, Human Rights Watch reported that LTTE supporters had been going door to door in Toronto since late 2005 extorting money from Tamil-Canadians to finance a "final war" for independence.

Although the Tigers are one of the most active terrorist groups in Canada, the Liberals had refused to outlaw their activities, some say because the party was afraid of angering Tamil-Canadian voters in Toronto.

If any of my readers have read Stewart Bell's book 'Cold Terror' you'll read on page 56 & 57 that Paul Martin ignored the CSIS signet to refrain from attending a fundraising dinner thrown for the Liberals by the Tamil Tigers in Toronto.

When concerns about Canadian - in particular Toronto - extortion and fundraising was fueling continued violence in Sri Lanka, Martin and the Liberals used the race card.

From The NP's article:

On three separate occasions, CSIS asked the Cabinet to list the Tigers, most recently a year ago, but the Liberals would not do so, saying they did not want to interfere with Sri Lanka's peace process.

The former Canadian ambassador to Sri Lanka, Martin Collacott, said the previous government's refusal to outlaw the Tigers left the LTTE relatively free to operate in Canada. He said that has actually hindered peace efforts.

"Once Canada designates the Tigers as terrorists and clamps down on their fundraising, they are much more likely to enter into serious negotiations with Colombo," he said.

He said the Liberal position that banning the Tigers would hurt peace efforts was based on partisan political considerations.

"The Tigers and their supporters in Canada and particularly Toronto had become adept at delivering votes from the Tamil community to Liberal candidates at election time," he said.

"And, as long as this support continued, the Liberals were prepared to let the Tigers have virtual free rein to carry out their activities in this country."

The decision brings federal counterterrorism policy in line with the Federal Court of Canada, which has already ruled that the Tamil Tigers qualify as a terrorist group.

Here is a list of terrorist group profiles with links from the Dudley Knox Naval Post Graduate School in the U.S.

Here is a good article from the CSIS on passive terrorist activities in Canada that governments like the Liberals have allowed to proliferate. And this one is a list of the CSIS's priorities including transnational criminal activity.

James Judd, the CSIS director, gives a good talk to the YMCA in Ottawa about the role of CSIS and includes discussion how their errors have undermined its credibility.