A vessel carrying over 200 illegal immigrants including hardcore Tamil Tiger leaders has set sail from the Gulf of Thailand to Canada, an Asian-based terror expert has warned.
Prof. Rohan Gunaratna, an international terrorism expert and Head of Singapore’s International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research said the MV Sun Sea earlier known as Harin Panich 19, is captained by an Sri Lankan Sea Tiger leader and manned by a 24-member crew.
“Canada is likely to permit their entry, but deny citizenship to those identified as LTTE (Liberation of Tamil Tiger Eelam),” Gunaratna told the Sunday Observer in Colombo.
Canadian authorities are on the lookout for the mystery ship after the Sri Lankan government tipped off authorities in several nations, including Australia, Thailand and the Philippines.
The expert warned those in command of the ship could try to deceive the countries that are monitoring its movements, by changing its course from time to time to prevent interception.
The Thailand Navy sea patrols spotted MV Sun Sea, a vessel previously used for gun running, near the Exclusive Economic Zone of the country in April.
When the sailors tried to intercept the unidentified vessel, ‘Captain Vinod’ threatened that several illegal immigrants will throw themselves overboard if anyone tried to board his ship.
Gunaratna said the ship had been idling in the Gulf of Thailand for days before it set sail for Canada, last week.
The Tamil Tigers’ four-decade campaign for a separate home land for Sri Lanka’s minority Tamils was crushed in an escalated military operation, which trapped several hundred thousand civilians between the two fighting forces.
The Tigers earned notoriety for pioneering the suicide bomb and the use of child soldiers.
According to the UN, thousands of civilians were killed as government forces closed in on the rebels in the northern part of the country, before defeating them in May 2009 after 26 years of war.
If the MV Sun Sea makes it way to Canada, it will be the second boat of refugees to seek asylum in Canada in recent months.
Last October 16, The Ocean Lady also knows as the Easwary arrived on the B.C. coast. All 76 people aboard claimed refugee status.
Initially, the Canada Border Services Agency said least 25 of the 76 men who arrived aboard the Ocean Lady migrant ship last October were members of the Tamil Tigers, a terrorist group outlawed in Canada,
 “Movement of a large number of high-value combatants and intelligence officers aboard Ocean Lady may be part of an effort by surviving members of the group to reconstitute from a base of operations overseas in order to renew resistance to ... Sri Lanka,” said the report, obtained through the Access to Information Act by the Vancouver Sun.
Later the agency backtracked saying it has no proof that 25 Sri Lankan boat migrants it labelled as terrorists and kept behind bars for months were in fact members of the outlawed Tamil Tigers.
Gunaratna identified the Sun Sea, whose movements are being tracked as being captained by Kamalraj Kandasamy, who conducted North Korean arms procurement voyages for the LTTE .
“The presence of “MV Sun Sea” in the Gulf of Thailand came to light as a result of a multinational investigation by Australian, Canadian and other relevant governments,” he said.
“Australia and Canada are the favoured destinations of the LTTE, because the laws in Australia and Canada are exceptionally weak. As such, both these countries have emerged as safe havens for multiple terrorist groups and their support bases. The most important ingredient a government needs to fight terrorism and crime is political will. The leaders in Australia and Canada lack that political will to act,”
Gunaratna said. He added a LTTE cell in Canada is led by Shanmugasundaram Kanthaskaran alias Karan alias Aruna in UK and Ravi Shankar Kanagarajah alias Sangili. They are both members of the LTTE and served on the procurement and shipping branch of the LTTE.
“The LTTE’s shipping and procurement staffers are highly skilled. They are masters in clandestine and ‘compartmentalized’ operations. Today, they want to survive and people smuggling is one of their most lucrative businesses,” he said.
Sri Lankan Tamils have, for years, been among Canada’s top 10 refugee groups. They succeed in their claims more often than not, but either way they can be difficult to deport given the possibility they might face torture or death if sent home.
In Canada, asylum seekers who have credible fears of mistreatment can stymie deportation efforts for years.
Meanwhile, the United Nations said the protest actions including a hunger strike by a former Sri Lankan minister against a UN investigation into alleged war crimes is unwarranted.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, after ordering the resident UN coordinator back to New York for consultations, called on the Sri Lankan government to “take urgent action to normalise conditions” around the UN office so that the organisation could continue its work.
Ban appointed a three-member panel last month to advise him on Sri Lanka’s accountability for its actions in the last few months of the civil war against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.
According to the UN, thousands of civilians were killed as government forces closed in on the rebels in the northern part of the country, before defeating them in May 2009 after 26 years of war.