By EuAsiaNews,
Brussels : A tactical meeting on “LTTE Front Organisations”, was hosted by Eurojust in the Hague, Netherlands on 30-31 March.
Eurojust is an European Union body established in 2002 to enhance the effectiveness of the competent authorities within EU Member States when they are dealing with the investigation and prosecution of serious cross-border and organised crime.
The 2-day meeting was attended by representatives of the Intelligence and Criminal Justice communities of EU member states, non-EU countries including Sri Lanka, and the Europol (EU police office), according to a press release issued by the Sri Lanka embassy in Brussels.
The EU’s counter- terrorism coordinator, Gilles de Kerchove, also attended the opening session.
The participants were given a joint presentation on the current state of affairs by Eurojust/Europol on the LTTE and its activities.
Presentations were also made by several participating delegations, followed by workshops on best practices and lessons learned from criminal investigations and prosecutions, and on the best approach to address this type of terrorism, noted the press release.
Sri Lanka’s Ambassador to Brussels, Ravinatha Aryasinha, delivered the keynote address on the theme “Confronting False Dichotomies: the ‘public good’ and the challenge of meeting the ‘terrorist front organization phenomenon’ in Europe.”
He said not only are front organizations a problem as they serve terrorists and contribute to the mayhem they create, they also effectively exploit the generosity and decency of civic minded people.
Aryasinha added that while “LTTE front organizations were the focus of the Eurojust deliberations, the ‘terrorist front organization phenomenon’ is not a Sri Lankan problem alone, but was a generic problem that affected all countries in the fight against terrorism”.
He said that the EU lacked commensurate specific collective measures that sufficiently addressed the phenomenon of terrorist front organizations, with the efficacy that this ‘moving target’ demands.
The Sri Lankan ambassador cautioned that despite their imminent defeat on the battlefield in Sri Lanka, it must be expected that the LTTE will continue to metamorphose abroad and noted that failure to take urgent action to arrest this trend in Europe immediately, would not be in the self interest of the EU member states.
The Sri Lanka delegation to the seminar, included representatives from the Ministry of Defence and the Attorney General’s Department of Sri Lanka.