Tiger foreign network intact

22 April 2010 12:00 pm

Sri Lanka has warned that although the top LTTE leadership had been eliminated during the military campaign last year, the international network of the Tigers is very much intact and active.

The Foreign Ministry quoted the Ambassador of Sri Lanka to Brazil, A.M.J. Sadiq as saying that a number of vessels belonging to the LTTE’s shipping fleet, which had been hitherto involved in drug trafficking and gun running, are engaged in the lucrative business of human trafficking. 

Ambassador Sadiq estimated that the overseas LTTE network has amassed assets worth anything between US$ 3 billion and US$ 5 billion through its vast range of illicit and nefarious activities over the last three decades. 

He called upon Member States of the UN, especially countries in which  the LTTE  and its various front organizations continue to operate  with impunity  to  pro-actively  go after the ill-gotten assets of the LTTE and  seize such assets and repatriate  the proceeds to Sri Lanka. 

He said that these funds could then be applied in an equitable manner by the Government to compensate the thousands of families who have been victimized by the LTTE in its three decade long terror spree as well as to rebuild the war ravaged infrastructure of the North and East of Sri Lanka.  (Daily Mirror online)