Tamil charity shut over links to arms buyer

At a New York warehouse, a Canadian named Thiruthanikam Thanigasalam watched as a wooden crate was pried open to reveal the tubular frame of a Russian SA-18 missile launcher.

An engineer from Toronto and a weapons buyer for Sri Lanka’s Tamil Tiger rebels, Thanigasalam had agreed to pay almost $1-million for 10 of the launchers, 20 Igla missiles and 500 AK-47 assault rifles.

“This is all excellent stuff,” he told the two young Canadians who had accompanied him by car from Toronto to close the illicit arms deal on Aug. 19, 2006. “We will be able to give a good thrashing.”

But it was Thanigasalam who got the thrashing; the married father of two is now serving a 25-year prison sentence in the United States after pleading guilty to his role as a rebel arms purchaser.

The fallout from the weapons deal continued on the weekend as the Canada Revenue Agency shut down the Tamil (Sri Lanka) Refugee-Aid Society of Ottawa, the charity with which Thanigasalam was loosely affiliated.

Yesterday, the CRA released 33 pages of documents explaining why it had taken action against the charity. They allege that Thanigasalam’s name appeared on the charity’s letterhead as the representative of its “Toronto office” and that he was the director of the charity’s tsunami relief fundraising campaign.

“The government of Canada has made it very clear that it will not tolerate the abuse of the registration system for charities to provide any means of support to terrorism,” reads a letter signed by Cathy Hawara of the Charities Directorate.

Two of the charity’s directors have resigned.

The revocation of the Tamil refugee society’s charity status is the government’s latest strike against the Canadian fundraising network of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, or LTTE, separatist rebels who fought a three-decade war for independence until they were defeated just over a year ago.

In 2008, police seized the assets of the World Tamil Movement, a Toronto-based group implicated in fundraising for the rebels. In May, B.C. Supreme Court sentenced Prapa Thambithirai to six months for collecting money for the Tamil Tigers. Canada has also ordered the extradition of three Canadians charged by the U.S. with aiding the rebels.

But the Tamil refugee society may be the first Canadian registered charity to lose its status over allegations of funding the rebels (although the CRA had earlier refused to grant charity status to the Toronto-based Tamil Rehabilitation Organization).

The CRA action comes a month after the release of the report of the Air India inquiry, which devoted a volume to terrorist financing. “If Canada had listed the LTTE earlier, the group would likely have moved its fundraising activities to a country where it was unlisted,” the report concluded.

The head of the Tamil refugee society, Reverend Philip Ratnapala, is an elderly Catholic priest who has lived in Canada since 1972, according to a biography on the website of the National Capital Region Tamil Association, which gave him a humanitarian service award in February.

“He was one of those who were instrumental in the creation of Tamil Refugee Program in Canada by Hon. Brian Mulroney. This program enabled Tamils in their thousands to enter Canada as refugees,” it reads.

It says the society “collects funds and helps poor and the needy in Tamil areas in Sri Lanka.” But when federal auditors examined the charity’s books, they developed “serious concerns” about how the money was spent.

In particular, the CRA said the group had sent $713,000 to SEDOT (Social and Economic Development of Tamils), which was headquartered in the rebel capital, Kilinochchi. The CRA says was SEDOT created by the late Tamil Tigers leader Velupillai Prabhakaran and “is or was a front organization” for the rebels.

The CRA said SEDOT had accounted for less than two-thirds of the money it received from the Canadian charity. “This leaves $249,716 unaccounted for,” the CRA letter says. The agency noted that most of the money was directed to Chundikulam Village, which it said was “the home of a LTTE naval base for the Sea Tigers.” The Sea Tigers were the naval wing of the Tamil Tigers.

In an interview conducted on Jan. 26, 2009, the CRA asked: “How does the charity exercise control and accountability over the use of its funds and activities, if involved with a foreign organization?” The reply did not inspire confidence: “No control, given in trust.”

Rev. Ratnapala could not be reached yesterday. Those who know him say he is in bad health. The CRA does not suggest Rev. Ratnapala was aware of Thanigasalam’s involvement with the Tamil rebels or arms dealing.

Thousands were killed during the final months of the Sri Lankan civil war. The United Nations is looking into a possible war crimes investigation of alleged abuses committed at the end of the conflict. – (The National Post, Canada)