Tamil Tigers return to legal spotlight
A year and a half after the end of the Sri Lankan Civil War, Switzerland has arrested ten members of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) for extortion of funds.
Last week the Federal Criminal Police searched 23 sites in cantons Basel City, Bern, Fribourg, Geneva, Graubünden, Lucerne, Solothurn, St Gallen, Vaud and Zurich.
The sting was carried out in connection with an investigation dating back to May 2009, when several people of Tamil origin were accused of extortion, forgery, money laundering and membership in a criminal organisation.
Using threats and blackmail, the accused are suspected of forcing their Swiss-based compatriots to support the LTTE financially. According to the federal authorities, the LTTE managed to collect several million Swiss francs, which it mainly used to buy weapons in Sri Lanka.
The Swiss had already looked into the issue in the mid-1990s, but investigators drew a blank when witnesses – fearing reprisals – claimed to have handed over donations voluntarily.
Pressure
That the Tamil diaspora in Switzerland was being squeezed for money by the Tamil Tigers was known not only to criminal investigators but also to integration experts.
Damaris Lüthi is an ethnologist who between 2001 and 2003 led a government-backed study, “Social change among Tamil refugees in Switzerland”.
“In my investigations I excluded the issue of extortion, but off the record people said that towards the end of the civil war [which ended in May 2009] the pressure for money on the Tamil community increased enormously,” she told swissinfo.ch.
She added that money was still floating around that hadn’t been spent when the war finished.
No comment
Although the structure of the Tamil Tigers in Switzerland remained intact following the military defeat, their influence on their compatriots seems to be crumbling.
It is generally agreed that practically all Tamil families living in Switzerland handed money to the LTTE, usually SFr50-100 ($52-104) a month. During the end phase of the war there were cases of Tamils having to take out high loans and ending up in debt.
The Swiss government is not commenting on allegations that information passed to them by Sri Lanka was obtained by torture or that Sri Lankan agents spied on Tamils in Switzerland, breaking laws on intelligence services.
“The work of the prosecuting authorities is subject to the confidentiality of investigations,” said spokeswoman Walburga Bur.
Integration
Tamils are valued by Swiss employers for their work ethic and reserved nature. But among the first generation of immigrants in particular, few have any contact to other social groups outside work.
However, Damaris Lüthi doesn’t see a link between the Swiss Tamils’ social structure and the extortion.
“The first generation are economically well integrated, albeit on the bottom rung. But socially and religiously they are not well integrated – they have hung onto all their traditions and customs,” she said.
Lüthi pointed out that the second generation, by contrast, only partially followed their parents’ guidelines – if at all – which could result in major family tensions.
Although for her the issue of integration is generally overrated, she thinks the Swiss are often not prepared to integrate foreigners on a social level.
“The first generation of refugees stayed very Sri Lanka-orientated, freely gave money for the dream of an independent Tamil Eelam and always aimed to return home,” she said.
Today, she added, they have to realise that returning is a lot harder given their war-torn homeland and the needs of the second generation in exile.
Sri Lankans are one of the biggest migrant groups in Switzerland.
There were 27,721 people of Sri Lankan origin in the country at the end of 2008. Between 90% and 95% of them are Tamils.
Since 1973 more than 11,000 Sri Lankans have acquired Swiss citizenship. One-third of the Sri Lankans with permanent residence or Swiss citizenship were born in Switzerland.
The Tamils in Switzerland live mainly in the German-speaking areas, in particular cantons Bern, Zurich and Basel.
(Adapted from German by Thomas Stephens)
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