Oprah Winfrey, Say No to Tamil Tiger Terrorists

Dear Ms. Winfrey:

We are greatly concerned over published reports that the Oprah Winfrey show is being co-opted into supporting the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) by way of a publicity stunt launched by its supporters in Canada. (www.oprahgiveusavoice.com)

Sri Lankan Tamil men, said to be students living in Canada, are walking from Ontario to Chicago with the purpose of appearing on the Oprah Show to air their views of the situation in Sri Lanka. Your producers may already be aware of this and they may have done their own research into this group and its motives. In which case they would realize that the real purpose of the walk is to motivate foreign intervention in Sri Lanka in order to rescue the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE, Tigers), a brutal terrorist group, from inevitable defeat at the hands of the Sri Lankan military. While the Sri Lankan community in the US has the highest
confidence in your good judgment, we wish to inform you of the following.

The LTTE has committed gross crimes against humanity, including child molestation, recruitment of child soldiers, and indiscriminate suicide bombings as part of its strategy to carve out a separate fascist, mono-ethnic state, purely on racial lines. Designated a terrorist organization by the US and banned in several countries, it has a vast network of drug runners, human traffickers, and money launderers. It has assassinated a Sri Lankan president, an Indian prime minister (Rajiv Gandhi), several Sri Lankan leaders, and many Tamil leaders opposed to it. All Tamils working abroad MUST pay dues to the LTTE (or face the consequences of having family members killed in Sri Lanka). Even the proposed walk to the Oprah Winfrey show bears all the hallmarks of such organization: a website with a manipulated poll to show theres overwhelming public support for the appearance on the Oprah Show; wide press coverage; and, very likely, lobbyists working to gain access to the Oprah Show.

Having turned its back on numerous opportunities for peace talks and opted to use nothing but violence, the LTTE is now on the verge of being totally wiped out. Currently, the remaining fighters in the group have crept into the designated No-Fire Zone (NFZ) and are holding an estimated 40,000 civilians as hostages. The Sri Lankan military has launched a massive humanitarian operation to rescue these hostages, putting the lives of thousands of soldiers at stake to save these civilians. Already, about 50,000 civilians have escaped and recount horrible tales of how the LTTE cadres shoot and burn publicly those who try to escape.

Tamil diaspora groups as well as Tamil leaders in Sri Lanka have called for an end to LTTE propaganda stunts, such as the walk to the Oprah show, which do not help the cause of the civilians trapped by the LTTE. Any attempt at resolving the humanitarian crisis must be directed to its very source the LTTE not the viewers of an American TV show. Very simply, if the LTTE were to let the civilians go, there would be no humanitarian crisis. The United Nations, the US, and several other nations have joined in the call for the LTTE to free their captives. The walkathon students and those sponsoring them should be adding their voices to this call, instead of resorting to publicity stunts.

We want peace and harmony in Sri Lanka and the way to go about doing it is to defeat the LTTE (which does not represent the Tamil people in the first place) and help in the healing and rehabilitation of the Tamils who were under LTTE supremo Vellupillai Prabhakarans mad rule for nearly two decades. Such results are already evident in the eastern province, liberated from the LTTE, where former LTTE cadres who have renounced violence are now part of mainstream democracy.

We trust that you will not allow the Oprah Winfrey show to fall prey to the manipulations of the LTTE and its front groups.