Sri Lanka bans Tamil Rehabilitation Organization

Sri Lanka Government has banned the Tamil Rehabilitation Organization (TRO) a rehabilitation arm of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, a separatist outfit fighting for a separate Tamil state of Tamil Eelam in Sri Lanka since the latter part of 1970s.

According to Media minister Anura Yapa, "The cabinet decided yesterday to ban the TRO and also ask other governments to do the same,"

Anura Yapa when contacted further said that ministers met on Wednesday and decided to proscribe the Tamil Rehabilitation Organization (TRO) whose bank accounts were frozen by the Central Bank of Sri Lanka last year.”

The United States last week froze TRO assets accusing the organization which has raised funds on behalf of the LTTE through a network of individual representatives. “According to sources within the organization, the TRO is the preferred conduit of funds from the United States to the LTTE in Sri Lanka.” U.S. Department of the Treasury announced.

Government sources alleged that the TRO under guise of a charity organization collected and directed funds to the LTTE for procurement operations. Those operations included the purchase of ammunitions, equipment, communication devices, and other technology for the LTTE.

Meanwhile the International Leader of the Tamil Rehabilitation Organization (TRO), Dr. Murugan Vinayagamurthi and his wife were taken in to custody in the US. He is believed to be a master mind behind LTTE naval strength. He is supposed to be involved with developing and the use of sea Submarines in their sea attacks.

Following the US Government naming the Tamil Rehabilitation Organization (TRO) as a front for the LTTE operating to obtain funds and procure weapons, Sri Lanka’s Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama has called upon the international community to follow suit.
The minister made this appeal especially to the governments of Australia, Canada, Denmark, France and the UK, pointing out 'the continuing ability of the LTTE's numerous front organizations to pose off as charities undermined the ban imposed on the Tigers by India, USA, the UK, and EU member states and Canada'.

The US has frozen TRO assets and banned her citizens from engaging in any transactions with this organization and other LTTE fronts. This measure carried out under Executive Order 13224 has been described as aimed at financially isolating terrorist groups and their support networks.

The Minister also stated:

"The Government of Sri Lanka has in recent times emphasized that the proscription of the LTTE by India, US, Canada and the EU member countries has been undermined and diluted through the continuing ability for numerous front organizations of the LTTE which posed off as charitable fronts - under the guise of rehabilitation, educational, social, religious, and economic groupings - to continue collecting funds to bolster the LTTE arsenal. The TRO has been the most prominent among them and in September 2006, following investigations into its financial transactions by the Financial Intelligence Unit of the Central Bank under Sri Lanka's Financing of Terrorism Law, the Government of Sri Lanka froze TRO accounts in Sri Lanka.

In this context, that I wish to place on record the deep appreciation of the government of Sri Lanka and this entire house, to the US Administration, especially the Treasury Department, for the speedy investigation carried out and for the action taken yesterday against the TRO. In doing so the US Government becomes the first foreign government to take tangible action against an LTTE front organization. . It must be recalled that besides India which proscribed the LTTE in the aftermath of the assassination of Shri Rajiv Gandhi in 1992, the U.S. was the first Western government to take action against the LTTE, when the Department of State designated the LTTE a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) on October 8, 1997 and on November 2, 2001, named the LTTE a Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT)."