Lanka pressures UK to ban Tamil rebels’ groups

Colombo, Jan 21: Sri Lanka today urged Britain to ban the Tamil rebels groups operating in UK under new Anti-terrorism Laws.

Making a strong call to proscribe the LTTE, Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar in an interview to the the Sunday Observer said ‘‘the LTTE’s record of terror is long and horrible. The people of Sri Lanka will simply never be able to understand the failure on the part of the British government to proscribe the LTTE.’’ Following the enactment in the UK of the new Terrorism Act of 2000, speculation has mounted in recent months that London would move quickly to curtail the activities of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in that country.

Reports from London indicate that several charitable organisations run by Sri Lankan Tamil expatriates known to have links with the LTTE are now being probed by the authorities for possible clandestine support for the tigers’ separatist insurgency.