Malaysian link to Tigers

http://www.mmail.com.my/content/46428-malaysian-link-tigers

Malaysian link to Tigers

Submitted by Najiah on Monday, August 16th, 2010

Monday, August 16th, 2010 11:17:00

SMUGGLED: Tamil refugees leaving the MV Sun Sea escorted by Canadian authorities
A MALAYSIAN-TRAINED ship captain of Sri Lankan origin has been linked to the Tamil asylum boat mystery in Canada where the authorities are furiously trying to unravel the secrets of the MV Sun Sea, supposedly owned by the resurgent Tamil Tigers.
Interest in this refugee ship mounted here over the weekend as the for-sometime-now asleep Tamil Tigers were said to have cram-smuggled some 500 Tamil souls — about 400 men, 60 women and 30 children — to Canada after almost 90 days half way around the globe.
The plot thickened when reports emerged that two more Tamil refugee ships were in the Pacific en route Canada. The number aboard both vessels is not known.
And today, terrorism expert Professor Rohan Gunaratna heightened the attention to the Tamil Tigers when he identified the commander of the 59-metre Sun Sea as Captain Vinod who studied at the Malaysian Maritime Academy in Malacca during its early days.

Gunaratna said by telephone from Singapore that while in Malaysia Vinod stayed in close contact with local financiers of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), or Tamil Tigers. He said Vinod had from the 1990s to 2009 worked with another Tamil Tiger cadre, Captain Kamalraj Kandasamy alias Captain Kamal, to ship several tons of arms, ammunition and explosives from North Korea to Sri Lanka for the outlawed group to wage and sustain its terrorist campaign.
Gunaratna, a terrorism expert and professor at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore, described the pair as a “deadly combination” that stayed together after the North Korean voyages and switched to people smuggling.
Gunaratna says Kamal skippered the first Tamil refugee ship, Ocean Lady, to arrive in Canada last October. The second, Sun Sea, arrived off Canadian shores last Thursday.
Last October, the Ocean Lady, a rusting cargo ship carrying 76 Tamils, was intercepted by the authorities in Victoria. It was actually the Tamil Tiger ship Princess Easwary masquerading as Ocean Lady.
It was the same ship that Kamal and his deputy Vinod had used for North Korea-Sri Lanka arms voyages.
While Kamal captained Ocean Lady, Vinod stayed put in Thailand to purchase Sun Sea from a Thai company, on behalf of the LTTE, to take advantage of Canada's weak response to Ocean Lady to bring a larger shipment of Tamils this month.
By bringing Ocean Lady, the LTTE tested the resolve of the Canadian political will to fight crime and terrorism. The LTTE realised that the Canadian government was soft on human trafficking.
Despite claims that 25 onboard Ocean Lady were Tamil Tigers, the Canadian Border Service Agency was forced to release all 76 migrants, including the organisers of the ship, for a lack of evidence. Most are now living in Toronto.
International law prevents Canada from simply turning away would-be refugees from its shores.
The LTTE leadership wasted little time investing in their largest people smuggling venture — bringing Sun Sea to Canada — with 498 passengers.
Although the amount the LTTE earned from this shipment has yet to be assessed, Western intelligence services estimate the figure to top US$10 million (RM31.6m).
Gunaratna said most of those who boarded Sun Sea in the Gulf of Thailand made the journey from Singapore-Malaysia-Thailand by sea. The ship reportedly crossed the Pacific after Australia turned it away.
After Ocean Lady, Canada gathered sufficient evidence on the LTTE international network now engaged in criminal activity ranging from narcotics, bank, credit card and cheque fraud, human smuggling and terrorist support activity.
In addition to Canada, several other governments are now investigating the LTTE shipping and procurement network that is now engaged in human trafficking operations.
Human smuggling was one way the Tamil Tigers funded their 25-year war with the Sri Lankan government, a conflict that claimed tens of thousands of lives. The Tigers were crushed in a final May 2009 assault amid accusations of war crimes on both sides.
As it stands now, the almost 500 Tamil souls may have made the painstaking journey to Canada but they are, so far, nothing more than ghosts on the doorsteps of Canadians. The country has been given few detailsabout who their house guests are and cannot be blamed for thinking that human smugglers and terrorists are in their midst.
We have problems too. Remember the 32 Afghans and the four Myanmar nationals who escaped from the KLIA Immigration Detention Depot early this month and late March while being sheltered as victims of human smuggling?