Since 1984 I have lived in Wellawatte which is a predominently Tamil Area. 23 years have passed since the racist attacks on me and my family and I must say much have changed. My sons are working in companies run by sinhalese and hold high positions. There are more tamils in wellawatte and sorrounding areas in colombo than in the north east. And I think we lead happier lives than those who do in the north east. The checkpoints are back and some times as tamils we face scrutiny and intimidation. But that is a natural reaction from a government faced with suicide bombers and other threats. I am fedup with Eelam. I think there is no need for it now. Both Tamils & Sinhalese can build a much better Sri Lanka without LTTE obstructing its progress.

M. Tiruselvam, Wellawatte, Sri Lanka

This is the indication of western governments biased approach in Srilanka's Long running Ethnicity struggle. Even they know this article is not giving the right picture of what is really happening, simply using as a propaganda.

Ling, London,

Im so disappointed about all the comments given by the Tamils to the Times specially regarding fund raising.
The first paragraph mentions about Sri Lankan Tamils living in Britain being intimidated into handing over £50,000 to support LTTEs, but as a fact there are more than 150,000 tamils in Britain and did every Tamil or majority of the Tamils report to the Times that they have been approached for donation? i dont think this article reflects the truth in anyway becasue the people who have commented in this article are against LTTEs..may be they are against LTTEs because they dont want their nationality to be a Tamil Srilankan and they want to be called a British...

Tamils immigrants have told the Times that they had been approached by the LTTE representatives and forced to donate money..if there wasnt any problem in Sri Lanka which they could face why are there so many immigrants in UK or any other countries? they could have stayed in Sri Lanka and face the problems..all these immigrants have not come here to study or work..they were afraid of their life and they ran away from their homeland..so the LTTEs are not being viloent for nothing..they are trying to stop the violent and try to free the Tamils from these problems. They cant wait until the Tamils have been destroyed fully, we as human beings want to live a life just like any other people would like to live. These Tamils who have blamed the LTTEs for nothing are safer in this country are so selfish that as soon as they are safe they have forgotten about their people back in Srilanka who are facing greater problem than they did.

You are mentioning about what the money would buy helicopters or missiles and etc from these donations..what does the Srilankan government buy from the money given by other countries? they buy missiles to kill the Tamils.. they dont spend the money on improving the country,they spend it on killing the Tamils and prisoning the Tamils..

They are old enough to know all the problems caused to the Tamils in Srilanka from their childhood..Even though we youths are well aware of the problems that is caused and still in action by the Srilankan government to the Tamils..and we are sure that the LTTEs are acting behalf of the Tamil diaspora for our freedom. They are also human beings who wants to free their people so we Tamils should join together and help them without any request and not blame them for nothing. Only in the early eighties the Tamils started to ask for their freedom and the respond to it was tortures and killings of Tamils..this was the reason why people fled away from Srilanka..not because of the LTTEs. i am definate about the fact that only after LTTE was formed, the identity of Tamils were world wide known, until that i dont think there would have been a single news about tamils in Srilanka and the tamils would have been destroyed without knowing there were Tamils in sri lanka.

The LTTEs have not created the problem in Srilanka..the LTTE was created because of the tortures and killings that was given to the Tamils by the Srilankan government.

Balaraji, London, U.K

It is amazing to see how people are defending the actions of the worst terrorist organization in the planet who has assassinated and killed more Tamils than any one else. The LTTE's solution to everything is violence. They have committed more suicide bombings than all the other terrorist groups combined. More funds funneled to these murders will breed nothing but more death and destruction. It is time for this terrorist outfit to give up violence in word and deed and enter the civilized world.

Sheeva Ramachandran, Chevy Chase, Maryland, USA

I am one of the Tamils who fled Sri Lanka after narrowly escaping muderous mob & came to UK. The Tamils did not simply migrate to other countries including refugee camps in India.

There are many Tamil professionals in very high positions in UK. The majority of the Tamil community are educated lot. Are you saying that all these people are being scared?

Neither have I ever been threatened or forced to give money nor know of any others asked to pay donations.

It is an old propaganda trick by the SL high commision that the people are being threatened of harassing the family back home. The Gov't has made Tamils to run from place to place for many years that no one can easily trace family members. If most of the Tamils are living in Gov't controlled area as the Gov't claims, then any threat by the LTTE is negligible.

Being a regular reader of Times, I am dissapointed to see such false news. A news item describing the large attendence of Tamils at the funeral of Anton Balasingham would have been more appropriate

Jerome, London, UK

As a British Tamil born and brought up here in the UK I can honestly say that the above article is not reflecting the truth..Tamils fled the norht and east of sri lanka as they were not recognised as human beings..But having come to the UK and many other european countries Tamils are being recognised for their intelligence and the part they pay to the British government..Here in the Uk there are roughly 2000 Tamil doctors who were able to make the field..But in sri lanka this is not the case..Tamils have been discriminated in many ways but EDUCATION!..Tony Blair once mentioned and still stands by "Education, Education, Education!"..So why aren't Tamils in Sri lanka given this opportunity to contribute..Not only to their own people but communities world wide???

Saran, London, UK

Dear Sir/madam!!
It seems Times have fallen for the anti-Tamil lobby again,the man you have featured in the article Mr Theepan.Yogaraja is only been released from prison in Swtizerland where he was protesting aganist Geneva peace talks between LTTE and Srilankan governtment.The radio station he has been voluntering his servises to is TBC who are also mouth piece to Srilankan state terrorists. If anybody want to know the truth they could go to any suberb of London ask common Tamils rather than speaking to criminals and people with their own agendas.I do not know of any illigal fund collecting by LTTE or any affiliated organisation.As a regular reader I would like you to keep your high starndards of jurnalism.The Times has a reputation among Tamils as a reputable news paper long may it continue.

P.Kandasamy, Bognor Regis, West Sussex

There is no denying that the Government of Sri lanka failed the Tamil Community as equel citizens of the country during 1983 forcing large numbers that were able to leave to do just that. There is also no denying that racism is a real problem. However racism is a global phenomenon that is not limited to Sri Lanka. There are those of us of the Tamil Community that did not leave the Island and that work towards a better understanding amongst communities. We dont need those of our community who have left behind the problem to pass judgment nor to aggrevate the problem by assisting a terrorist organization who's reasons for being have nothing to do with liberating the Tamil community and are centered on gaining power and doing away with the strong cast system that has kept certain segments of the Tamil community oppressed from within the community itself. All the LTTE does is to make it impossible to convince the Sinhalese community that we are also Sri Lankans and potrays us all as extremists.

kumar rajaratnam, Colombo, Sri Lanka

TULF is a Tamil Political group that represents the Majority of the 400,000 Tamils living in Colombo. None of them support the LTTE, as the LTTE have transformed into a Fascist dictatorship in the North and the East. The LTTE has tried to kill Tamil leaders like Douglas Devananda (EPRLF) and Veerasingham Anandasangree (TULF) on several occasions. If the LTTE is truly representaltive of the Tamil people as it claims then why do they target any Tamil who disagrees with them? There is no democracy under Prabakaran, there is only his brutal rule. The LTTE no longer represent the Tamil people, see for yourself how Tamils flee the East and the North and settle in the South of the Island and prosper. See how they willingly help the Sri Lankan Army indentfy and remove LTTE elements from their villages.

Col Karuna Amman the LTTE leader of the East coast has broken away from Prabakaran, why? Why are all these Tamils breaking away from the LTTE?

See how of the 60 major building developments in Sri Lanka by Tamils living in foreign countries that not a single one is in the North or the East. No one disputes what the LTTE was or what it did for the Tamil people, but that was over 20 years ago, Prabakaran has corrupted, there can be no peace under him. The LTTE claim words like "Genocide" and "Anihilation" of the Tamil people but the facts show otherwise. Stop listening to websites like Tamilnet.com and seek the truth.

FYI - Tamils make up approx 18% of the Sri Lankan Armed forces. So why would Tamils join the very organization that is accused of commiting Genocide against their own people? Things are not what they seem.

Open your eyes brother.

Raj , Toronto, Ontario

It is true that the members ot the Tamil community in Britain are being harrassed and covertly intimidated by LTTE gangs. Not in 10s or in 100s of pounds but in thousands of pounds, as stated in the report by Tom Whipple, are being collected, especially from the Tamil business community. "This is the final war for a separate state and we need a lot of fund for that" the reason given by the LTTE gangs for their fund collection. Any Tamil who is denying that this is not happening in Britain, must be living in cuckoo's land.
20,000 Tamils, on a week day, went to Hyde Park to remember those killed in 1983 riots, not for anything else.
It must be pointed out at this juncture that not a single Tamil civilian in Sri Lanka has gone, willingly, to live in an area under the control of the LTTE.
Both the LTTE and the Sri Lankan government are committing crimes against humanity. Both leaders should be tried in the International Court of Justice.

K Suriyan, London, UK

the tamil tigers are not terrorists!!! they are freedom fighters. can you please give me a reason for why you call them terrorists and if your answer to that is because they kill innocent people, then therfore you must call the sinhalses goverment terrorists because they to have killed innocent sri lankan civilians. they bombed an orphange killing 60 children, which to my account the bbc or any of the newspaers mentioned in any of their articles. they mentioned about a bomb going of in Colombo and about how close it went off near a member of the pakistan's goverment. i do not understand how u can talk about the bomb in colombo and not about the bomb in the north east about the orphanage. also how come there is nothing about sri lanka on the news. in that country there are many problems and yet all you talk about is some war going on in iraq which is not as big as the problems in sri lanka. at the end of the day the tamil tigers are not terrorists they are freedom fighters because they are fighting for eveyr single tamil in this world.

mithunan sothilingam, london, england

As a member of the Tamil community, and having many family and friends in the community, I can safely say that much of this either untrue, or instances of a smearing campaign on the Tamil people.

This whole report does not add up to me. Especially how it is that 20,000 UK Tamils came to the rally you mention in Hyde Park, on a week day, with a picture of leader of an organization that is banned? Does that mean that 20,000 members were coerced to go?

The fact that this person is linked to the TULF, an organization in the coalition current government, proves what the true motives are.

It is also disappointing that the Times does not recognize why there are 150,000 Tamils that have left the country of their birth, in search of refuge away from the repressive Sri Lankan nation. Why the paper fails to sufficiently cover human rights abuses of the Sri Lankan government and the every day raping and disapperances that UK Tamils have run away from.

Van Bala, London,

As a member of the Tamil community, and having many family and friends in the community, I can safely say that much of this either untrue, or instances of a smearing campaign on the Tamil people.

This whole report does not add up to me. Especially how it is that 20,000 UK Tamils came to the rally you mention in Hyde Park, on a week day, with a picture of leader of an organization that is banned? Does that mean that 20,000 members were coerced to go?

The fact that this person is linked to the TULF, an organization in the coalition current government, proves what the true motives are.

It is also disappointing that the Times does not recognize why there are 150,000 Tamils that have left the country of their birth, in search of refuge away from the repressive Sri Lankan nation. Why the paper fails to sufficiently cover human rights abuses of the Sri Lankan government and the every day raping and disapperances that UK Tamils have run away from.

Van Bala, London,