Tiger Tales

Re: Tiger tales, editorial, Jan 21.

Even when I have disagreed with Attorney-General Irwin Cotler, I have always admired his principled reasoning. I am therefore saddened to read his defence of the Tamil Tigers, a terrorist organization that has murdered more than 60,000 people.

In explaining why Canada has not joined other Western nations in outlawing the Tigers, Mr. Cotler said, "Toronto I think has the largest number of Tamils ... outside of Sri Lanka, so we've got to be very careful just in terms of our own relationships."

What does it matter if there are three Tamils in Canada or five million? Is it not wrong to slaughter entire villages and blow up school busses, period? Or does judging such outrages require "a more contextualized approach," to use Mr. Cotler's own words, based on how many Tamil votes there are in Canada?

The saddest part was watching Mr. Cotler hint that racism may motivate critics of Liberal policy: "You've got to be very careful in terms of criminalization because you don't want to engage in any kind of stereotypical indictment of a community ..."

What could be more racist than allowing the Tamil Tigers to continue their carnage because you assume that those who share their ethnicity must also share their savagery?

Same message, different words came from Mr. Cotler and from Tamil Tiger leader S.P. Thamilselvan, who told CanWest News from his base in Northern Sri Lanka, "Because [Canada is home to 300,000 Tamils], definitely Canada will have second thoughts in making decisions that will affect the sentiments of those people." He added that Toronto Tamils are the largest financial contributors to his organization.

I can only hope that Mr. Cotler will offer a full and honest explanation for what appears to be a fall from ethical grace that I would never have thought possible for this man.

Alastair Gordon, Canadian Coalition for Democracies.