|
Tamil Tigers feted on Waterloo campus
Student club held events to celebrate Tamil group
Adrian Humphreys
Courtesy National Post
Tuesday, August 29, 2006
WATERLOO - Martyrdom celebrations that praised Tamil Tiger soldiers
and suicide bombers were held openly in the student centre of the University
of Waterloo, where the FBI alleges a "procurement cell" for
the terrorist organization was centred.
Last November's event -- where a large flag of the Tamil Tigers, showing
AK-47 assault rifles and a roaring tiger, makeshift tombstones and posters
celebrating "Our Fallen Heroes" were displayed -- was held
in the Student Life Centre despite the club being under suspension by
the school at the time.
The university had suspended the Waterloo Tamil Students Association
(WATSA) after a similar ceremony was held in 2004, one in which large
cutouts of armed men were featured and the Tiger flag also prominently
displayed.
The club was suspended on Dec. 13, 2004, specifically for flying the
Tigers flag, said Martin Van Nierop, spokesman for the university. The
club's status was returned in January, 2006.
It is not known whether any of the men who are facing terrorism charges
in the United States attended the meetings, but at least four of the
men charged last week in a joint FBI-RCMP probe aimed at the Tamil Tigers
were students or recent graduates of the school. Some were former executive
members of WATSA.
"They weren't supposed to have these kinds of events on campus
and if they did it was against the bylaws that had been set up,"
Mr. Van Nierop said.
The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, commonly called the Tamil Tigers
or the LTTE, are fighting for a Tamil homeland separate from Sri Lanka
and are notorious for their use of suicide bombings and assassinations.
The group was declared a terrorist organization in the United States
in 1997 and in Canada this year.
The use of the university's facilities, particularly while the club
was suspended, will be part of a wide-ranging internal investigation
announced yesterday. The school has hired a national accounting firm
to conduct a forensic audit of WATSA. It is also reviewing how overseas
placements for students in co-operative education programs are run.
Suresh Sriskandarajah, a 26-year-old electrical engineering graduate
among those arrested, completed a co-op term in Tiger-controlled areas
of Sri Lanka.
Mr. Sriskandarajah was doing the co-op on behalf of a group that appears
to have been created by Mr. Sriskandarajah himself.
Most of the school's co-op students do work placements with well-known
firms in Canada and the United States.
A small number do overseas development work in Third World countries,
the university said in a statement. The internal review is to determine
whether there are sufficient controls on foreign placements.
"These are steps we believe will complement the ongoing police
investigation, with which we are also co-operating," said David
Johnston, Waterloo's president.
"We need to do this to ensure that nothing, including the matters
now under investigation, will diminish [the school's] good name and
reputation," he said.
Dozens of photographs of WATSA's "Maaveerar Naal" events,
often called "National Heroes Day" in English, suggest deep
support and sympathy by many of the participants for the Tigers. Three
such celebrations were hosted by the club, according to the association's
Web site, at least two of them on campus.
|
