Who is this Bruce Fein; what is he up to in Canada?

- Sri Lanka Guardian requested our special correspondent in Europe Satchi Sithanandan to inquire about the activities of a US attorney Bruce Fein, believed to be soliciting funds in Canada for a court action in the US against the two brothers of President Rajapakse and Major General Sarath Fonseka. Although he was retained by a Tamil Diaspora organization in the US, Justice for Tamils, we have information that he has over-stepped his client-counsel obligation and has been flirting with a number of LTTE, TRRO and World Tamil Movement leaders in Canada.

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“Believed to have been retained with a fee of $100,000 per month to campaign for an Eelam State, Bruce Fein a former US Deputy Attorney General was described by a Sri Lankan government official as a “carrion bird of LTTE terrorism” that seeks the rotting leftovers. The Toronto fund fraudsters must have found him a useful ally to have especially being a white man, the kind they love to have as front persons. This is likely to have created problems in his relationship with Justice for Tamils organization in the US.”
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by Satchi Sithanandan from Frankfurt

(July 05, Frankfurt, Sri Lanka Guardian)Information is gathering momentum among the Sri Lankan Tamil circles in Toronto that Attorney Bruce Fein from the US is an AAA; American Ambulance-chasing Attorney who has found taking up the case of the Tamil question in Sri Lanka in North America is laid with a path of gold waiting to be gathered.

The Tamil question is a legitimate one and it is a matter that successive Sri Lankan governments have neglected often with horrendous consequences to this community. But this is not a matter for insensitive attorneys like Bruce Fein to handle for a fee unless there are hidden unsavoury motives behind such a move. If this be true, then this is another bleeding ulcer in the Tamil liberation struggle.

Ever since 1948 the Tamil community has been betrayed by its own leaders and those who have given support to the Sri Lankan governments to help discriminate them. A good example was how the Tamils of the Central Hills of Sri Lanka were disfranchised immediately after the country’s independence. Even in the liberation struggle internecine rivalries accounted for the decimation of most of the groups with the LTTE being the principal culprits. How the LTTE dealt with them was utterly brutal and in the process they installed a Reign of Terror among their own people.

Moderate Tamil leaders have been assassinated largely due to the deadly intolerance with which the LTTE runs its organization Pol Pot style. Effectively, the LTTE holds the Tamils to ransom through sheer terror and this is not only in Sri Lanka alone but also prevails wherever Tamils have come to live in large numbers in countries like Canada, United Kingdom, France, Switzerland, Australia and other places.

This has enabled the LTTE to set up a terror industry to collect funds using a wide variety of devious ways and means. The fund collectors enjoy good returns ranging from 10% to 30% and other perks and privileges. Since the donors are encouraged to pay in cash, all types of sly and sneaky paths could be sought to enrich themselves under the pretext of serving the cause of Tamil liberation which really means nothing to them. There is an impression in Toronto that the LTTE fund collectors lead luxurious lives and are known as mansion dwellers mostly in the Markham municipality of the Greater Toronto Area. There is certainly an element of truth here.

Scarborough which came to be known as Little Jaffna soon after 1983 is where the poorer Tamils live, the fish-stinking grocery shops are, the numerous take-away food outlets and also where youthful Tamil gangs rule the roost. This is the district where the LTTE is most active led by various groups headed by self-styled leaders now increasingly labeled as fund fraudsters. They are not only cheating their own people but also the Canadian government by using various ruses to overcome the ban on the LTTE and the World Tamil Movement (WTM).

Under the guise of holding cultural events, they are propagating terror ideas among the Tamils but and more importantly to collect funds and keep that momentum ongoing. The scare tactics used in Sri Lanka are also the means used to collect funds, even calling from door to door and other such means as LTTE business enterprises that ignore cash register systems during busy hours to avoid having to pay taxes.

It is understood Attorney Bruce Fein was sent to Toronto to raise funds for a court action against the two brothers of President Mahinda Rajapakse and Major General Sarath Fonseka by the US-based Sri Lankan Tamil organization, Justice for Tamils. A former official in the Ronald Reagan administration, Bruce Fein also wants the LTTE to be delisted as a terrorist organization in the US. In making this claim, Attorney Fein overlooked that many Tamils who have been affected by the LTTE and continue to be, are US citizens.

But once Bruce Fein came to Toronto there seems to have occurred a serious metamorphosis or call it transmutation in his relationship with Tamils for Justice in the US. He may very well have over-stepped his client-counsel obligation and got hijacked by the Toronto-based LTTE fund fraudsters who parade as leaders of the Canadian Tamil Diaspora.

It is believed Bruce Fein had given an undertaking to Tamils for Justice that his role and association in respect of the Tamil cause especially to bring an action against the Rajapakse brothers and Major General Sarath Fonseka would be under the direction of this organization. It appears Tamils for Justice is now of the view that since his visit to Toronto, he has changed his stand.

During his meetings in Canada, Bruce Fein was soliciting funds for the proposed action and now Tamils for Justice is said to have informed him that he is under obligations to them to account for all the funds he had raised through whatever means including cash, cheques, remittances and credit card payments. Whether there are other players in raising funds in Canada using Bruce Fein as a front is a matter that has become a serious concern in the community. The Canadian government must take cognizant whether this violates the ban on the LTTE and WTM.

There is a general feeling in Canada, this method of raising funds will soon be dead and one must make hay while the sun is favourable and amass as much as possible. Quite a few fund collectors have invested in mansions and they need to pay their mortgages and university fees for their children apart from their ostentatious living styles. As for Bruce Fein, it is quite clear the Tamils for Justice chose a wrong counsel and the supposed legal action against the Rajapakse brothers and Major General Fonseka will not help the Tamil cause in Sri Lanka at all.

Believed to have been retained with a fee of $100,000 per month to campaign for an Eelam State, Bruce Fein a former US Deputy Attorney General was described by a Sri Lankan government official as a “carrion bird of LTTE terrorism” that seeks the rotting leftovers. The Toronto fund fraudsters must have found him a useful ally to have especially being a white man, the kind they love to have as front persons. This is likely to have created problems in his relationship with Justice for Tamils organization in the US.

After all there is a lot of money in Canada and the Tamil Diaspora would rather part with hard-earned funds than raise questions and this weakness is being exploited by the fund fraudsters. Evidently Bruce Fein also believes that the gold is here and would rather ignore Tamils for Justice in the US.

The lesson for the Tamils to learn – and haven’t learnt yet – is that they are a fragmented community and have been kept that way by their leaders beginning from the days of the Tamil Congress. In Canada they have been cheated by various self-styled leaders who hardly knew their people in Sri Lanka. They saw gold in the stand they took as spokesmen and champions of the Tamils. They exploit their own, and the community has many problems but all these are ignored and whatever undertaken are related mostly to raising funds through various means. Now, obviously Bruce Fein has joined them too.
- Sri Lanka Guardian