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Thursday, March 10, 2005
Pinocchio Pettigrew
Pierre Pettigrew says the US State Department asked Canada not to add the Tamil Tigers to the list of terrorist organizations. Official US State Department response: "Say, what?"
Appearing before the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade he alleged that "the government of Sri Lanka themselves have not listed the Tamil Tigers as a terrorist organization ... Most of the people we've been consulting, including the United States State Department ... are demanding that we do not do it at this time."Unfortunately, the State Department won't back him up. When contacted by my group, the Canadian Coalition for Democracies (CCD), a department spokesperson was puzzled. "The U.S. government designated LTTE as a foreign terrorist organization in 1997," we were told. Applying a similar label, he said, "is a decision for the Canadian government to make alone." Officials at the U.S. embassy in Ottawa were likewise surprised by Mr. Pettigrew's claim.
Sri Lanka's Minister of Foreign Affairs, Lakshman Kadirgamar, was even bolder: "No. I can tell you for sure that this government has not asked any foreign government not to designate the LTTE as a terrorist organization ... It is not up to the Sri Lanka
Government to prescribe policy for them."Mr. Kadirgamar went on to note: "It [has been] reported that the LTTE raised approximately $200,000 a month from the Tamil community in Canada." Much of it, he told us, is reportedly extorted through violence and organized crime.
Posted by Kate McMillan on March 10, 2005 in International Politics | Permalink
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Comments
"the government of Sri Lanka themselves have not listed the Tamil Tigers as a terrorist organization ... Most of the people we've been consulting, including the United States State Department ... are demanding that we do not do it at this time."
What if this were in fact true? Since when does the Liberal Party claim impotence because of an American demand? I thought they took pride in sticking it to the Americans!
You're really spoiling my faith in this government, Kate. I suppose you'll be telling us next that Martin had it all wrong about Syrian peacekeepers in Lebanon!
Posted by: surly | 2005-03-10 4:33:28 PM
They've been in power so long they really believe they whip s--- in our faces and get away with it.
Maybe they're right.
Posted by: Occam's Carbuncle | 2005-03-10 5:33:11 PM
I hear Zahra Kazemi tripped and fell.
Yeah, I know that doesn't make sense...but it does if you think about it.
Posted by: Steven Martinovich | 2005-03-10 6:25:27 PM
Why just complain? Why don't 'conservatives' propose resolutions? Why is immigration a taboo subject for the CPC?
Why not (1) stop all mass immigration of Tamils/Moslems/Sikhs/Columbians/Kurds/Egyptians/Somalis (The Sikh group Babbar Khalsa has killed more Canadians in the last 25 years than all other terrorist groups combined) into Canada; (2) find and deport all Tamil/Moslem/Sikh/etc. illegal aliens;(3) deport all resident aliens who are supporters of terrorist groups; (4) strip the citizenship of all naturalized citizens who are supporters of these groups and then deport them); (5) renounce the liberal universalism which says that all people in the world are the same and so we should be equally open to all peoples and cultures; (6) renounce the leftist ideology of multiculturalism which says that Canada is a collection of many equal cultures and instead declare that Canada has its own culture and intends to keep it. These steps will lead to a steady net out-migration of dissident groups from Canada.
Posted by: DJ | 2005-03-10 7:14:34 PM
DJ -
Keep a mirror by your computer, that way you'll always know what a turd looks like.
But I guess you MUST engage in silly antics to avoid the truth - your beloved (and thoroughly corrupt) liberals are facilitators (benefactors?)of terrorism and you could not care less about the people in Sri Lanka who suffer the consequences (paying in blood) for the Liberals' steamy love affair with terrorist organizations (Hezbollah, Tamil Tigres, lets fund some Al Qeuda fronts...).
Just so you know, the big elephant to your south does notice your government's tacit support for terror - the US recently told the IRA in no uncertain terms to disband. What a stark contrast with Canada, the feeble frozen enablers of terror )or your government, at least).
THE issue is emphatically not one of immigration, it is one of preventing terrorist fundraising, and you know it.
Posted by: EmigrateYesterday | 2005-03-10 8:18:50 PM
The ticket agent who checked Muhammad Atta and his henchman onto their flight from Portland, Maine to Boston on the morning of September 11, 2001...
“I said to myself, ’If this guy doesn’t look like an Arab terrorist,...sorry, fundraiser... then nothing does.’ Then I gave myself a mental slap, because in this day and age, it’s not nice to say things like this,” Tuohey told the Maine Sunday Telegram. “You’ve checked in hundreds of Arabs and Hindus and Sikhs, and you’ve never done that. I felt kind of embarrassed.”
Only a simpleton could arrive at that logical position. If only Canada had a gun registry those Mounties would not be dead. Oops, I forgot, we do have a registry.
The simple fact is that if the US had stopped Muslim immigration after the '93 WTC bombings, those towers would be standing today.
Posted by: DJ | 2005-03-10 10:28:53 PM
When I was attending the University of Toronto, I happened to pick up a discarded Toronto Star in the cafeteria at Robarts and read about an extra curricular "event" staged at a local public school. This event was staged under the fuzzy rubric of "multi-cultural activities" and was little more than a thinly disguised recruiting and fundraising drive by the Tamil Tigers. Some emigre Tigers actually showed up in military fatigues and bandanas, toting imitation weapons - presumably to help stir up the passions of the partisan audience.
I called the school in question and expressed incredulity. The response was less than convincing ... the person responsible for overseeing after-school events claimed that it was meant to be a Sri Lankan "folk evening" and that the school had been cruelly misled.
The story died shortly after this, but it demonstrates the degree to which the Tigers and their supporters presumed more than a little latitude in making the most of Canadian largesse.
Posted by: raskolnikov | 2005-03-11 12:06:41 AM
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