Eelam Activists Murdered in Paris

Mr. K. Perinpanathan, head of financial section of the LTTE International Secretariat and Mr. K. Gajendran, the editor of the Tamil weekly Eela Murasu were gunned down at La Chapalle in Paris on 26 Oct 1996.

The LTTE has accused the Sri Lankan government of assassinating these two high profile activists stationed in Paris. The bulletin stated, "Knowing that the voluntary financial contributions by the Tamil Diaspora have strengthened the Liberation Struggle, the Sri Lankan government has made repeated attempts to curtail them... The Sri Lankan government has made every attempt to portray the myth to the international community that Tamil people are forced to give money, rather than giving voluntarily. The Sri Lankan Government’s repeated attempts to prevent the Tamil community world-wide from making voluntary financial contributions to the Tamil struggle have failed."

"Gajan used his skills to effectively communicate through his paper with many Tamil people who came to understand the issues and our struggle well."

"By killing these two remarkable individuals, the Sri Lankan government has not only tried to put barriers on the international work in which these two were involved but it also hopes to stop the international solidarity activities of the Tamil community, through creating fear, confusion and panic in their minds. It is significant that these killings were carried out during the preparations for the International Awareness week."

The Sri Lankan government has denied any role. However, there has been, in recent times, a redoubled effort to target expatriate LTTE supporters. Foreign Minister Kadirgamar and Prof. G.L. Peiris made several trips recently to Washington and to other major western cities to ask governments to curtail the activities of these groups.

The Foreign Ministry in Colombo, in a statement issued on Tuesday, has said that it had information that the LTTE is planning to arrange for the bodies of those LTTE cadres killed in Paris to be exhibited in various European capitals. The statement said, "The Government has already made the clearest and strongest possible representations to the European Governments concerned, with a view to preventing this. Those Governments have been unequivocally placed on notice that any such manifestation as planned by the LTTE would, if realised, constitute an encouragement to terrorism."