[LINK] "Are the Tamil Tigers being declawed in Toronto?"

[rfmcdonald]

That's what Anthony Reinhart wonders in The Globe and Mail today.

The question now, as the rebels sit cornered and facing military defeat by the Sri Lankan army, is whether Canadian Tamils will keep supporting a diminished Tiger insurgency, or abandon the rebels for a more peaceable approach to a government many deeply mistrust at best, and accuse of anti-Tamil genocide at worst.

"They are in a panic over what to do," Mr. [Lenin] Benedict said, estimating that "99.9 per cent" of Toronto's Tamils support the Tigers' goals, if not always their methods. Many are "in a state of shock" over the Tigers' rapid loss of power after 25 years as the Tamils' self-proclaimed representatives, he said, and are awaiting instructions from a rebel leadership that is, to say the least, preoccupied.

If the notion of an entire expatriate community in Toronto taking its cues from a militant force overseas sounds like an exaggeration, Mr. Benedict insists it is not and he's not alone. Elusive though it's been, the promise of a Tamil homeland has been exploited so effectively by the Tigers that they enjoy "total control of the community," he said.

[. . .]

Comments like these echo findings of a joint police operation in 2006 in which Tiger documents were seized from World Tamil Movement [WTM] offices in Toronto and Montreal. The raids closely followed the federal government's ban on Tiger fundraising in Canada, which the WTM - also now banned - had allegedly conducted for the Tigers. A Human Rights Watch report at the time also documented the Tigers' use of coercion to secure donations from Tamils in Toronto.

The seized documents suggest the Tigers view the entire Tamil diaspora as an extension of the rebel group, and Toronto as its "Canada branch." A manual from the rebel group's "international secretariat" spells out how to operate foreign branches, and includes a directive to "make all necessary steps to receive monthly financial donations from each one of the Tamils of those who are living in every country."

It urges diaspora officials to enlist the support of all Tamil community groups - students' federations, women's groups, arts and cultural clubs, sports groups, educational centres and "general associations of Tamils" - and hold each to account for contributions.

[. . .]

"It's cracking," John Thompson, head of the Mackenzie Institute, a Toronto-based public-policy think tank, said of Tiger support. "And I think if the war in Sri Lanka ends or the [Tigers are] broken, it'll crack a lot further, but it hasn't disintegrated yet."

Mr. Thompson, who has spent nearly 15 years studying the rebel insurgency, said Tiger collectors have been running into more closed doors in Toronto as a result of the federal ban. While many still give willingly, "some of these families have been paying war taxes for decades, and they're tired of it," he said. There are other signs, he said. Moderate Tamil politicians have been visiting from Sri Lanka "to speak to Tamils and say, 'Look, there are other options besides the Tigers,' " while police, emboldened by the ban and growing co-operation from disaffected Tamils, have stepped up efforts to soften Tiger sympathies.

Most recently, members of a joint federal, provincial and local anti-terrorism force targeted Heroes' Day, the Tigers' annual Nov. 27 commemoration of war dead. Normally, the Tigers press Tamil shopkeepers to close for the day, and oblige people to attend. This time, police leaned on the Tigers, photographing licence plates at participating banquet halls. They even mounted the official platform and started "flipping the caps off the [heads of] uniformed Tigers onstage," Mr. Thompson said.

Authorities would not be so audacious, Mr. Thompson said, without high-level political support and backing from within the Tamil community.

For his part, Mr. Benedict moved last year to carve out space for moderate Tamil voices. His fledgling group, the Canadian Democratic Tamil Cultural Association, aims "to foster friendship and understanding with other Sri Lankan communities and the Canadian mainstream."