NZ Tamil charity under the spotlight

(August 06, Wellington, Sri Lanka Guardian) Concerns have been raised about the use of New Zealand taxpayers' money after the Media based in Wellington discovered a charity was blacklisted by the US for alleged links to the LTTE.

The Tigers (LTTE)have been fighting for a separate state in Sri Lanka for more than three decades and have been listed as a terrorist organisation by the US for 10 years.

In 2007 the US froze the funds of a charity called the Tamils Rehabilitation Organisation (TRO), claiming it was a front group raising money for equipment and weapons.

"We'd be very concerned if there was any suggestion that New Zealand taxpayers' money was going to an organisation that was purely a front for a group that was widely acknowledged as a terrorist entity," says National MP Murray McCully.

The US also alleges the charity's headquarters is siphoning off money meant for tsunami relief into Tamil Tiger coffers.

The Media understands that the New Zealand government has given the local TRO over $120,000. However, the TRO in Sri Lanka are confident that the money that was collected in New Zealand went to the charitable purpose.

"They have been informative on how the aid money was spent and all are accounted for with a report given to New Zealand Aid, who is happy with the report," says Mani Maniparathy from the Tamil Rehabilitation Organisation in New Zealand.

The organisation says the US is rushing to judgement.

"It's a shame the US government is not acting according to its own justice practice; we are being found guilty before they proved we have done anything wrong," says Maniparathy.

Foreign Minister Winston Peters says the New Zealand TRO will not get any government money while it's on the US blacklist. And Peters insists that taxpayer tsunami money did not find its way to Tamil Tiger coffers.

"Not these funds because they were so small, and also the New Zealand Aid did its job in terms of finding out that it was going to be expended and expended in the appropriate way," he says.
- Sri Lanka Guardian