Sri Lanka government, in an attempt to malign and discredit the Tamil struggle for freedom and to hide its own barbarous human rights record, has stepped up its "Dirty Tricks" propaganda campaign.

A PR firm in the US was hired in June 1997 (cost-US$ 2.5 million) to spread the lies. In addition, several journalists were posted to its diplomatic offices in countries with large Tamil refugee populations for this work.

One of the first attempts to discredit LTTE, the de facto Tamil leadership, has already backfired.

A rumor planted by the Sri Lanka government, that LTTE extorts money from Tamil expatriates, has forced a prominent Canadian newspaper to recant one of its lead stories.

A Prominent Canadian Newspaper
"Ottawa Citizen"
Retracts Anti-Tamil Report

Ottawa, Aug 21,1997 (SAMS). The Ottawa Citizen, the most popular newspaper in the national capital region of Canada, last week retracted a defamatory report, which appeared on the 14-August-97, which Tamil leaders suspect was commissioned by the Sri Lankan High Commission.

The report titled "Canadian Tamils terrorized, official says" was filed by Salim Jiwa and initially appeared in the Vancouver Province newspaper on 13-August-97. The report quotes an unnamed "top immigration department source" as saying that the Tamils living in Canada, especially in Toronto, are subject to extortion by the members of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. It also said that those Tamils who refused to part with their money suffered broken limbs and vicious beatings.

The report outraged the Ottawa-Carleton Tamil community and people started calling the Ottawa Citizen office at Baxter Street as early as 6.00 a.m. Many also sent letters to the editor. Bala Balasingam’s letter was typical:

"Your report’s suggestion that one can extort money from the Tamil community at will is an insult to the whole community... It is also an insult to the Canadian law enforcement authorities, and calls into question the credibility of the Canadian judicial system...it implies that the system is incapable of dealing with criminal activities."

She added "I have been in Canada for 12 years and never been subjected to any type of extortion. Neither have I heard of anyone from the Tamil community forced to contribute to any organizations. In fact, the only organization that extorts money from me at will is Revenue Canada."

These protests prompted the chief editor, Scott Anderson, to investigate the matter and resulted in the retraction of Salim Jiwa’s report. The retracting article, titled "Police, Tamil emigres dispute extortion stories" was published on the following day and quotes Insp. Roy Teefe of the Metropolitan Toronto Police Department as saying that "he had not heard of any incidents in which Tamils were forced to contribute to the separatist war in Sri Lanka." The report also quotes the press liaison for Immigration Canada, Huguette Shouldice, who contradicted Salim Jiwa’s report by saying, "the immigration department was not aware of large number of people being charged with criminal activity."

Tamil community leaders say that unlike in the past, they are now better prepared to handle such reports. "We are monitoring most media outlets and will take stern legal action against any reporters who write such lies" says an Ottawa region Tamil community leader.

Tamil leaders accuse that Salim Jiwa’s report was commissioned by Sri Lankan government agents as part of its anti-Tamil propaganda. They point out that, recently, the Sri Lankan government allocated $2.5 million (US) for its propaganda effort in north America and said that during the last two years, Sri Lankan agents had commissioned several unscrupulous reporters to file false and misleading reports against the Tamil expatriate community which, they say, is actively campaigning against the gross human rights violations by the Sri Lankan military in the north and east of the island. "To cover-up the atrocities committed by the armed forces, Sri Lankan government is waging an international propaganda war against the Tamils living in the west. We are determined to expose the activities of the Sri Lankan government," one said.

However, the Vancouver Province newspaper news editor, Fabian Dowson, denied any involvement of Sri Lankan agents in the report. "Our crime reporter Salim Jiwa was assigned to this investigative report" he said in a telephone interview with SAMS. He also said that his newspaper is closely following the story and has made contact with local Tamil community leaders. "We had a long and fruitful discussion with the head of the Tamil society and listened to their side of the story. We also explained our position.," he added.

A Tamil community leader, L. Pathmayogan, acknowledged that a meeting took place but said many of his questions were not answered satisfactorily. "We wanted to know why the reporter did not contact any law enforcement agents nor any of the alleged victims but based his report solely on an anonymous ‘top immigration official’". Pathmayogan said that Vancouver Tamil community is meeting soon to discuss future action and he expects a large turnaround.