Breaking news ...
Australian federal police and secret services organisations have raided suspected Tamil homes possibly associated with LTTE. The news item mentioned that one of the the raided houses could be connected to the Kadiragamar murder and that Tamil material has been taken away.
Staying up late and this is what I just saw in the late night news bulletin. Here is the first item I could find online. Stay tuned for more elsewhere.
I'll update this tomorrow once the MSM (MainStreamMedia) start comng out with the story.
Update I: link link link google news
Update II:
Some background items on recent LTTE related activities in the Oz news.
Staying up late and this is what I just saw in the late night news bulletin. Here is the first item I could find online. Stay tuned for more elsewhere.
I'll update this tomorrow once the MSM (MainStreamMedia) start comng out with the story.
Update I: link link link google news
Update II:
Some background items on recent LTTE related activities in the Oz news.
- Threats made against a person living in Australia. - link link
- Oz and Thai police bust a people smuggling scam - link link
- Australian citizen suspected of involvement in kadiramar affair - link link
posted by ivap @ 12:02 am
11 Comments:
At 12:58 am AEDT,
Chandare said…
Interesting indeed..
P.S.
Why are you spelling Kadiragamar as Kadiragama?It was a subtle insult started by late GG Ponnabalam Jr. to insist that he is a traitor to tamil cause and essentially a Sinhalase .(Kadir would have liked to be identified as a Sri Lankan I think)
At 1:03 am AEDT,
ivap said…
My mistake chandare. I agreem it's an elusive identity. Thanks.
At 6:27 am AEDT,
Chandare said…
Oops .I made a mistake too.It was Kumar Ponnambalam not GG(He was Kumar's father).
At 11:28 am AEDT,
sittingnut said…
hasn't there been any such raids before in your knowledge? or is it the first ever?
At 12:37 pm AEDT,
ivap said…
sittingnut - To my knowledge this is the first time. They were not banned prior to S11.
However, there have been some current affairs documentaries in the past that investigated alledged arms purchasing and fund raising in OZ. They revealed that ASIO ( our super secret org ) were keeping tabs on their movements .
At 10:15 pm AEDT,
Anonymous said…
Burwood is a middle class suburb located about 20 km east of Melbourne's CBD. Mostly comprised of older style houses (>30 years) which are on decent sized blocks of land. Newer housing has sprung up in the last 5 years due to a boom at a university nearby, and there are foreign students aplenty living around there. It is however, definitely not an 'ethnic' suburb like Preston (where the Police raided Islamic houses last month).
The Asian Tribune published the names of four of the arrested and street address of the residence, whilst The Age and other papers here in Australia had the suburb &/or street mentioned. I'm pretty certain there was an image on News.com.au of the front of the house , with the license plate numbers of what I'm presuming to 'the van with the book'.
From the OZ based reports below, it appears that one of the things confiscated was a book on the LTTE authored by Balasingham. Which means perhaps being charged under the new sedition/ anti-terrorism laws that were introduced here in Australia? But no speculation of this directly in the media. I'll pull up some reading on the matter if anyone is interested, it caused a bit of a brouhaha and polarised the media initially, as well as society, but when the Prime Minister announced that there was an apparent terrorist threat on Australian soil, it was swiftly passed through parliament. A week after, Federal Police raided in homes in Melbourne & Sydney. One charge laid on the Islamic men was that they were preparing to incite violence - military style training, collecting of chemicals... That operation resulted in a shoot out between police and an armed man.
I'm not certain that the suspect in the Kadirgamar murder (C.Gnanakone) has a connection with this, but updates on that case have been very scarce. I feel that yesterdays raids are part of the general crackdown on pro-terrorist organisations. Those collecting funds, promoting violent or non-mainstream idealogy or membership in a terrorist group. The bus & train bombs in London have changed the view of the government on what home terrorism is, and created a zero tolerance policy.
Unsurprisingly, there are conflicting reports in the media with some outlets saying that no arrests were made. The Asian Tribune comes out in John Woo style (both guns ablaze)naming people arrested, the charges laid upon them, amount of money collected. The article in the Herald Sun (a NewsCorp paper known for it UK style of splash & dash news, minus the page three boobs) says the neighbour was suspicious of the high front fence, video camera surveillance and people turning up at late hours. The image on tv last night (and then published in The Age's article) didnt show an overtly large front fence. Nor apartment style dwelling for neighbours to be observing or hearing activities. Unless these homeboys were turning up Ali-G style with the subwoofers a doofing...
One thing that happens here in Aus, when Police are giving nothing away, next-door-Joe will rise to the challenge and provide soundbites for the press. This postulating for cameras for that microsecond of perceived fame seems to be on the rise in the last half decade, like other worrying Yank trends.
Could've, should've, would've. Some scenarios in jest...
- It could have been a licensed brothel (yes, we do have them here, they pay taxes too! http://www.dailyplanet.com.au claims to be the largest in the Southern Hemisphere, but with powerhouse economies such as Argentina, Bolivia and Seth Africa ono our half, it is not too hard to be the biggest).
- Should have been drug dealers. Actually, 3 phase power means they were manufacturing the stuff.
- Would have been a Kees van der Westen coffee machine. Some people do have commercial devices in their residence such as commercial dishwashers, 3 group espresso machines, etc... (those type of folks are not common, but do exist). These require 3 phase power and not difficult to organise if it is an older house.
http://www.keesvanderwesten.com/
From The Age...
"Police inspected a van parked in the driveway of the Burwood East
address and seized a book with what appeared to be a picture of an
artillery gun and Tamil writing on its cover. The book is advertised
as War and Peace ...with the sub-title Armed Struggle and Peace Efforts of Liberation Tigers, was written by Anton Balasingham..."
Asian Tribune...
"The Australian Federal Police today raided several homes of suspected LTTE agents in Melbourne. They key suspects were taken into custody for funding the LTTE with Rs. 236 million between April 2003 and November 2005."
News.com.au (an Aussie news portal)
"No arrests were made but police hope the early-morning raids on several houses will be a breakthrough in a case that has been under investigation by the Australian Federal Police and Victoria Police for months."
[cue music] Everyone needs good neighbours....
"A neighbour, who asked not to be named, said a group of young men lived in the house. "I don't want to speculate about the reason for the raids, except that ever since they have lived there it has been a very active place," he said. "There are a number of cars there at all hours of the day and night, which has been a bit intrusive on our life." He said the tenants did not appear to be students and was not sure if they were employed"
The Courier Mail vs Asian Trib & others. Someone's out of alignment.
CMail - "...But the AFP are so far refusing to reveal where the properties targeted were located, or why the properties were searched..."
Asian Tribune - "at 3, Ray Road, East Burwood, Melbourne"
The Age - "Police inspected a van parked in the driveway of the Burwood East" (pic was included in story)
Finally, the comment in the Australian is GOLD! Only diplomats can state the obvious. At least stops any speculation of it being a 'joint venture' sting.
"...Sri Lankan High Commission in Canberra told The Australian it was
unaware of the raids"
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,17346475%255E601,00.html
culturedbum
At 10:19 pm AEDT,
Anonymous said…
Wondering if the state media (ABC or SBS) have covered it in the tv or radio news yet?
http://tinyurl.com/ajhov
http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/tamil-book-seized-in-police-raids/2005/11/23/1132703253007.html
http://www.asiantribune.com/show_news.php?id=16231
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,17344248-2,00.html
http://www.thecouriermail.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5936,17340770%255E421,00.html
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,17346475%255E601,00.html
At 10:58 am AEDT,
ivap said…
cultured bum - there was some coverage on ABC. Didn't watch SBS yesterday.
At 2:10 pm AEDT,
N said…
What's your take on the race conflict in Sydney ivap?
At 8:35 pm AEDT,
ivap said…
Ananthan - AFAIS, it's racial in the sense that it's the rest against Lebos (Lebanese). There has been some tension involving Lebanese gangs in sydney over the last 2 years looks like it finally caused a blowback of sorts, though a nasty one at that. Will write up something soon.
At 10:07 pm AEDT,
ivap said…
a couple of Bangladeshis got bashed up & turbaned Sikh running a corner store almost got totaly done over .
Really ? I haven't heard that till now. So I take it this was by the shire croud? I did see the "asian" (read chinesish) looking lady had her shop attacked by the leb gangs.
I have to agree crime pays more.
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