Bruce Fein in Toronto on Sri Lankan mission

Seeks action against Sri Lankan government officials

(June 20, Toronto, Sri Lanka Guardian) Saying he's not a lobbyist for the Tamil Tigers, U.S. attorney Bruce Fein is in Toronto on a mission to bring three high-ranking Sri Lankan officials to face U.S. justice.

The Washington Times columnist, a functionary in the Ronald Reagan administration, also seeks to get the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam off his country's list of terrorist groups and for Tamils around the world to vote on creating a Tamil state in Sri Lanka.

Curiously, neither Fein nor Justice for Tamils, the group who sent him here, will offer any opinion on whether the separatist LTTE or the World Tamil Movement (branded an LTTE offshoot this week) should stay banned in Canada,

"Every state or government has its different laws," Fein said in his Radisson Hotel room off Victoria Park Avenue this week. "I'm not a Canadian lawyer and I'm not talking about what Canadian law is."

But Fein is asking Canadians for money, last night at the Radisson and twice (tonight from 6:30 to 9 p.m. and tomorrow from 4 to 9 p.m.) at the Canada Kanthaswamy Kovil Hall on Birchmount Road.

The donations, he said, are to cover legal fees and the cost of gathering evidence against two brothers of current Sri Lankan president Mahinda Rajapakse (one a U.S. citizen) and that nation's army chief, Sarath Fonseka, who Tamils for Justice claim are responsible for "daily atrocities" in Sri Lanka.

Fein said the three have homes and other assets in the U.S. and U.S. congressional hearings and court cases can make their alleged crimes known to the world.

He admitted he doesn't expect the Sri Lankan government, which recently called Fein "a carrion bird of LTTE terrorism" paid to run a misinformation campaign, to hand them over.

"That doesn't mean you don't go forward anyway," Fein said, adding his group will gladly trade criminal indictments of the three to secure a UN-monitored referendum on a Tamil state in Sri Lanka's north and east.

Meanwhile, Fein is arguing the LTTE should be dropped from the banned list because it doesn't meet important criteria: Tamil Tigers have not killed Americans or threatened U.S. security, he said.

Asked why it's so important for the U.S, to de-list the LTTE, to which he said he has no connection, Fein said, "it will encourage the Rajapakses to think they would not prevail with a military solution" in the island's lengthy civil war.

"Our goal as a moral matter is trying to bring the bloodshed to an end as quickly as possible."
And though maintaining he has no view on whether Tamils should vote for statehood in territories the LTTE claims, Fein said the U.S. Declaration of Independence says people under a despotic government "have a right or duty to revolt."

Tamils in Sri Lanka, he argued, are "way past that" standard after decades of bombardment of civilians and internal displacement under the island's Sinhalese-dominated government.

As it happens, Fein is trying to impeach U.S. President George Bush (a man he voted for twice) because he objects to Bush's use of executive powers to defeat legislation, for example, or to transfer prisoners to secret overseas jails. "The institution of the executive branch is becoming despotic," he said.

- Sri Lanka Guardian