Sri Lanka intercepts Tamil Tiger propaganda

May 17, 2011 (AFP) - Sri Lankan authorities on Tuesday detained a Canada-bound container with a cargo of propaganda material for the island's Tamil Tiger rebels, a police official said.





Police were asked to investigate the consignment of promotional material for the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), on its way to Canada from the south Indian port of Chennai via Sri Lankan capital Colombo.

"There were 45 cartons of LTTE books to an address in Canada," said the police official, who asked not to be named.

The Tamil Tigers were militarily defeated by Sri Lankan security forces two years ago, ending 37 years of ethnic bloodshed. The Tigers remain a proscribed organisation in Sri Lanka as well as in neighbouring India and in Canada.

But the Tigers have a strong support base in south India as well as in several Western cities and have pledged to keep up their campaign for an independent homeland for the island's ethnic Tamil minority.