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Trustees of a New Zealand affiliate to an international Tamil charity accused by the United States of a terrorist link insist their fundraising efforts have been purely humanitarian.
The US Treasury says it will freeze US assets of the Tamils Rehabilitation Organisation, which has affiliates in 18 countries, including New Zealand, and which it describes as "the support network" of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). It accused the rehabilitation organisation of raising funds in the US for the Tamil Tigers, which has been listed as a terrorist organisation by Washington, Canada and the European Union, and of helping it to buy munitions, communications devices and other equipment.
"TRO passed off its operations as charitable, when in fact it was raising money for a designated terrorist group responsible for heinous acts of terrorism," said senior US Treasury official Adam Szubin.
But the co-ordinator of the Tamils Rehabilitation Organisation (New Zealand) Trust, Dr Siva Sivakumar, said his group had given no help to the Tamil Tigers.
The Auckland doctor said the only money it had sent to Sri Lanka was a well-accounted fund-raising donation of $267,000 for rebuilding villages destroyed in the December 2004 tsunami.
He said the Tamils Rehabilitation Organisation had received an award from Sri Lanka's President at the time, Chandrika Kumaratunga, in recognition of its disaster relief work.
A fellow trustee of the New Zealand group, Wellington Tamil Society president Mani Maniparathy, said the organisation in Sri Lanka operated in an area controlled by the Tigers "and it can't operate without some working agreement with the LTTE".
But he denied any money paid into the organisation's bank account was appropriated by the Tigers.
Mr Maniparathy said he had no details of the US Treasury's allegations, but expected they would be challenged in court by the rehabilitation organisation.
Despite last week's passage of the Terrorism Suppression Amendment Bill, which obliges New Zealand to adopt any list of organisations that the United Nations may deem to be terrorists, he hoped the Government would treat the US declaration with caution.
He said a sounder response would be for this country to support calls for the United Nations to send independent observers to northeastern Sri Lanka to assess the plight of about 300,000 displaced people following a resumption of military operations by security forces.
A Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade spokesman had no direct comment on the US declaration, saying only that the Government would have to "study the relevance of any offshore designation to the New Zealand situation".
The Government's aid agency reported early last year that the New Zealand-based Tamil community had provided "greatly needed funding", enabling the Tamils Rehabilitation Organisation to provide relief for tsunami-hit Sri Lankans.
