LTTE not let off by U.S., says Sri Lanka

By Nirupama Subramanian

COLOMBO, OCT. 18. Following the LTTE's absence from the list of 27 terrorist organisations which have been notified by the U.S. President, Mr. George W. Bush, last month, the Sri Lankan Government has been at pains to stress that this in no way meant the group had been let off the hook in the current American campaign against global terrorism.

The Sri Lankan Foreign Ministry sought to emphasise in a recent press release that the U.S. executive order of September 24 freezing assets and prohibiting transactions with 27 groups applied equally to the U.S. State Department's list of terrorist organisations in which the LTTE figures.

A spokesperson for the U.S. Embassy here confirmed that for purposes of enforcing anti-terrorist legislation, the two lists would be treated as the same by the U.S. Treasury Department, which has the responsibility to block property, bank accounts and other transactions with such groups.

``The LTTE are still an illegal group,'' the spokesperson said. The State Department's 1997 designation of the LTTE as a terrorist group was renewed earlier this month after a review. The new list of 27 focuses exclusively on groups believed to have links with those who carried out the September 11 attacks in the U.S.

There was an undercurrent of resentment in Sri Lanka when the LTTE did not figure in the new list under the executive order, and newspaper editorials accused the U.S. of adopting a duplicitous stand on global terrorism.

One newspaper asked why the U.S. had ruled out negotiations with terrorists for itself but advocated it for the Sri Lankan Government with the LTTE, which was a terrorist organisation by its own book.

The U.S. Embassy spokesman told The Hindu that in this, the U.S. Government was only supporting the Sri Lankan Government's own policy of negotiations with the LTTE. ``It would be presumptuous of us not to support the policy of the Sri Lankan Government,'' he said.

The U.S. Government was opposed to the formation of an independent Tamil Eelam and was the first western country to ban the LTTE, he said. It had trained soldiers to fight the LTTE and, last year, had donated 300 trucks to the Sri Lankan Army, the spokesman added. Sri Lanka believes that even if the LTTE is not specifically targetted in the West's current campaign against terrorism, the mechanisms that are being put in place to combat and prevent terror in the wake of the September 11 attacks will automatically affect the LTTE.

For its part, the LTTE has continued with its pinprick attacks on military targets in the north-east, but has otherwise maintained a low-profile since its July 24 attack on the airport. The group might not want to attract undue attention by carrying out any major strike at this point.

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