‘Cracks in the wall of the silence’- Racket on LTTE front groups in Switzerland

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‘Cracks in the wall of the silence’- Racket on LTTE front groups in Switzerland
The federal plainclothes police arrested leaders of the LTTE terrorist in Switzerland in a raid on Tuesday (Jan 11). They are supposed to have extorted money from compatriots and thereby co-financed the war in Sri Lanka. The accusations come from Tamils themselves. - By Dario Venutti and Markus Brotschi
Nearly every one of approximately 40,000 Tamils in Switzerland donated money for the armed struggle of the Tigers in Sri Lanka: by conviction, as an obligation or because one was pressurized and extorted. According to the British ethnologist Christopher MacDowell, who knows theTamil Diaspora well, seven million franc flowed this way annually from Switzerland into the war chests of the Tigers.
The Federal Prosecutor’s Office now wants to find out which portion of this money came through criminal means. In the actions on Tuesday coordinated by federal plainclothes police in ten cantons, the top leadership of the Tamil Tigers of Switzerland was arrested: the local boss of the rebels, the predecessor, the finance boss and further cadres. They are being accused of extortion, money laundering, forging of documents and of being members of a criminal organization. According to Federal Prosecutor’s Office, eight of the ten arrested are to be put custody. According to the Lawyer Marcel Bosonnet from Zürich who represents the Tiger boss, they reject the accusations. Even some time earlier accusations had been made against the boss, but these could not be proved.
“Many lost the fear”
Already in the middle of the 90’s the Swiss authorities actually arrested 15 Tiger cadres. But after four years, the prosecution of the prominent head of the rebels in Switzerland at that time came to nothing - among other things, because witnesses of the prosecution withdrew their statements due to fear of repression.
Rajan Rajakumar, a cultural mediator and family therapist from Zurich, is convinced that this will not happen in the current criminal investigation. “Many Tamils have lost the fear of the Tigers” he says. The war defeat in the spring 2009 after nearly a 30-year struggle in Sri Lanka, the death of the terror lord Prabhakaran who was admired as ‘God’, and the presumed war crimes of the Tigers on their own population - all these have demystified the ‘liberation fighters’. According to Rajakumar Tamils today are ready to denounce the Tigers and make statements before court, because with the defeat also the social pressure has diminished. Last year in Germany and Holland several Tigers were taken before court because of the same crimes, in Canada one was even convicted.
The “Tages Anzeiger” is in the possession of information according to which several Tamils have made incriminating statements at the Federal Prosecutor’s Office in Berne. In two cases it concerns men, who are highly in debt: The two have taken credits under pressure to a value of 100,000 and 50,000 Swiss Francs respectively and given the money to the Tigers. The rebels issued the men falsified wage documents, on which the banks granted them credits. In truth the two men has a gross income of approximately 4200 Swiss Francs each.
Hundreds of Tamils in debt
According to TA-sources from the Tamil community, which takes a critical stand in relation to the Tigers, several dozen of their compatriots are indebted with ten-thousands of Francs. And hundreds of Tamils have taken up small loans. Possibly, these were arranged for them by two finance companies, of which the police likewise accomplished a raid on Tuesday and arrested the Tamil managing director: One has its office in Berne with branches in Zurich and Basel, the other one in canton Luzern. According to the Registry of Companies both are specialized in credit financing.
If one believes Tiger-critical Tamils, the structures of the rebel army are still intact in Switzerland. Thus, the admission fee for a celebration on 2nd January in Albisgüetli in Zürich is supposed to have gone in to their war chest. Despite the war defeat the goals of Prabhakaran are pursued further in Switzerland mainly by the generation of the 17- to 25-year olds.
However, the Tamil parliamentarian of canton Luzern Lathan Suntharalingam contradicts that. He is not aware of any pressure put on his compatriots by the Tigers or their front organizations any more. From the rebels and their representatives in Switzerland there is no more danger, which is why he is “surprised” at the raid of the federal plain clothes police of Tuesday. “One is stepping on a dead snake”, he says. Several Tamils belonging to the Tiger would have co-operated with the police on their own to weaken the accusations. The procedure of the authorities wakes painful fear among the Tamils.