White Tamil blends into suburbia

STRIDING out towards the local shops in neat, casual slacks, former Victorian country nurse Adele Balasingham last week looked like the average 50-something woman on the suburban streets of London.

Fifteen years earlier, she wore guerilla garb in the jungles of Sri Lanka as "The White Tamil", the only foreigner among the leaders of the Tamil Tigers, the feared separatist group that pioneered suicide bombing and is now proscribed as a terrorist organisation in 32 countries.

For years she and her husband, Anton Balasingham, the Tigers' chief negotiator and ideologue, were hunted by the Sri Lankan Government in a savage war that has, so far, claimed 70,000 lives and shows no signs of ending.

Her husband's diabetes and kidney problems eventually forced the couple to shift to London, where they continued to work for the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam as the best-known couple in the 700,000-plus Tamil diaspora around the world.

The former Adele Anne Wilby, whose husband died of kidney failure eight months ago, now finds herself in a delicate situation in London amid an unprecedented crackdown by Western governments against supporters of the LTTE. Since her husband's death, she has played no visible role in the LTTE but Sri Lankan diplomats told The Weekend Australian yesterday that at the first sign the 57-year-old had resumed work for the rebels, they would press British police to arrest her -- and they were confident Scotland Yard would do so.

For years, Britain allowed the Balasinghams to operate openly in London on behalf of the Tigers, despite British laws introduced in 2001 that made it an offence to support the group.

But in recent months Britain, Australia, Canada, France and the US have all laid criminal charges against alleged supporters of the Tigers and their 24-year struggle for a Tamil homeland.

"Western governments are ... waking up to the need to act against the LTTE and she is the best-known LTTE supporter ... outside Sri Lanka," a Sri Lankan diplomat said this week.

"There is not one Tamil expatriate in the world who does not know who she is -- and we want her arrested if she sets even one foot wrong." Balasingham told The Weekend Australian earlier this year that she had no intention of replacing her husband in his official capacities, despite earlier speculation that she would take over as the group's international "voice".

In an email exchange last week, she refused a request to discuss her future or her remarkable journey from growing up in Warragul, in Victoria's Gippsland, to being a player in international peace negotiations via a long stint in the Sri Lankan jungle, where she took part in Tiger ceremonies presenting teenage girl fighters with cyanide capsules so that they could kill themselves rather than be captured.

She left Australia as a 21-year-old nurse with two girlfriends to travel around Europe and work in London. It was while studying sociology in London that she met and married Balasingham, a charismatic academic who later became a key player in the Tigers.

In a rare interview in the early 1990s, she defended the practice of giving young Tamil Tiger fighters suicide capsules. "The cyanide capsule has come to symbolise a sense of self-sacrifice by the cadres in the movement and determination, their commitment to the cause and ultimately of course their courage," she said.

And in her 2001 book The Will to Freedom, Balasingham said she had carried weapons in Sri Lanka without ever firing in combat. "Undoubtedly, my life has been unusual for a village girl and extremely interesting," she said in an email last week.

"I was one of those fortunate people who had the rare experience of an exceptional partner with whom to share an unusual life."

Giving interviews "is just not something I do", she said.

Sri Lankan Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama told The Weekend Australian during a visit to London in March that his Government was not concerned about her activities.

But a Sri Lankan diplomat said his Government was closely watching for any breach of British laws making it illegal to be a member of the Tigers or to "provide or show support" for them.

"We know the LTTE still pays her rent and supports her," he said.

"That may be out of gratitude for the past or it could be because they think she is still useful to them. She has better foreign connections and more experience in international negotiations than anyone else they have and she could be a valuable asset for them."

The diplomat conceded there would be a downside to having her arrested, because her husband had been a useful conduit for diplomatic talks with the Tigers and she could play a similar role.

"Her husband understood the need for political progress while the other LTTE leaders think victory can come through military struggle alone," he said. "But there is no sign of any peace talks anyway, and we would expect Scotland Yard to act against her."

Rahul Roy-Chaudhury, a South Asia specialist for the International Institute for Strategic Studies, said yesterday that he believed British authorities would be reluctant to take action against her because she and her husband had been useful contact points for past peace talks.

"My sense is the Government would warn her against becoming active again, and would give her a choice, saying, 'Stop or we will have to arrest you'."

(http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22186348-601,00.html)