A prominent Canadian MP was denied entry to Sri Lanka on Wednesday and deported for allegedly supporting the defeated Tamil Tiger rebels, officials said. Bob Rae, a Liberal member of parliament, former Ontario prime minister and outspoken critic of the Sri Lankan military's offensive against the rebels, was detained after flying into Colombo's Bandaranaike International Airport."He was put in the next available flight and sent back," an airport official told AFP. He said Rae was sent aboard by Sri Lankan airlines flight UL503, which flies direct to London's Heathrow airport.
Sri Lankan immigration chief PB Abeykoon said Rae was blacklisted over his alleged links to the separatist Tamil Tiger rebels, who were defeated last month after a massive military onslaught in the north of the island. Rae had added his voice to widespread international condemnation of the offensive, which according to the United Nations left thousands of civilians dead in indiscriminate shelling.
"He is barred from entering the country. He is being deported ... we have intelligence information that he is supporting the LTTE (Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam)," Abeykoon said.
In postings on his website, Rae had said he was planning to travel to the island's devastated northern Wanni region, where hundreds of thousands of Tamil civilians are being held under guard in government camps. He said he wanted to press the Sri Lankan government to be magnanimous in victory.
"The war is over, the crowds will shout. But there is a difference between a war ended by agreement and a war ended by death and destruction. If there is no magnanimity in victory there is no victory," he wrote. The MP was involved in failed peace attempts in Sri Lanka following the February 2002 Norwegian-brokered truce between troops and Tamil Tigers, and worked on proposals to create a federal state as a means to peacefully end decades of ethnic bloodshed. The peace process, however, collapsed 18 months ago with both the rebels and the Sri Lankan government choosing to return to war.
Guilty: In the US, meanwhile, four American supporters of LTTE pleaded guilty on Tuesday to terrorism charges.
The defendants included Karunakaran Kandasamy, identified by federal prosecutors in Brooklyn as the Tamil Tigers' top US representative and mastermind of a covert campaign that raised and laundered millions of dollars through a charity front organisation.
Kandasamy, 51, "has accepted full responsibility for his actions in this matter", defence attorney Charles A Ross said outside court.
Ross said he would argue that the complexities of the civil war and Kandasamy's poor health make the former cab driver a good candidate for a "merciful sentence". His client faces up to 20 years in prison at sentencing on November 11.
| We can be merciful: give him 19 1/2 years ... |
Another was charged with trying to bribe US officials to remove the group from the terrorism list. Earlier this year, four other defendants pleaded guilty to similar charges on the eve of their trial in Brooklyn.