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Canada cancels Mahaveer Day

by Walter Jayawardhana from Los Angeles

Canada has cancelled the Mahaveer Day of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, which was scheduled to be celebrated on a grand scale at the National Trade Center auditorium in the city of Toronto.

Organised by the World Tamil Movement the organisers claimed of getting an estimated crowd of 30,000 Canadian Tamils for the annual event of the Sri Lankan terrorist group, The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. It is reliably understood that the National Trade Center refused to let the World Tamil Movement to hold what the organisers called a "Tamil cultural event" when the organisers failed to provide proof of hired policemen for the event under the contract.

This has come about, it is learnt, when the Toronto police refused to be hired for the event, a condition the organisers should fulfill under the contract they signed with the National Trade Center.

The organiser, the World Tamil Movement (WTM) has been recognised as a front organisation of the recently proscribed Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, by the Canadian Intelligence Service, the CISI.

Led by the Sri Lanka United National Association (SLUNA) of Toronto many Sri Lankan expatriate associations in Canada, the United States and Australia brought tremendous pressure upon Canadian federal government and the Toronto police to cancel the event claiming it was a fund raiser for the terrorist group, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.

SLUNA spokesman Mahinda Gunasekara said, last year the event was highly advertised as a Tamil cultural event but used as a fundraiser for the terrorist organization recently proscribed by the Canadian Federal government. At an event like this the spectators were coaxed and induced to contribute more than a million dollars, he said. A spectator last year of the same celebrations said funds were raised last year in barrels and the first were the organisers themselves who used to put what looked like thick gold chains inducing others to follow suit and some were not sure what were initially put in to the barrels were real or fake.

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