Abstract
The sentencing on 31 March 2010 of three Tamil Australians for providing resources to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) underscores the inherent problems with laws designating organisations as ‘terrorist’. The defendants — Vinayagamoorthy, Yathavan and Rajeevan — pleaded guilty to charges under the Charter of the United Nations Act 1945 (Cth). The Victorian Supreme Court found that their actions were not for a terrorist purpose, although some of the resources provided to the LTTE were found to have a direct military purpose. It is significant that the Court took into account, as relevant to sentencing, the political status of the LTTE and the legitimacy of diasporic support for homeland reconstruction. This Comment argues that these considerations partially subverted the purpose of terrorist organisation law to criminalise self-determination. The conduct of the case, however, reveals the devastating criminalisation inflicted on the Tamil diaspora by acting against collective ethnic political identity. This prosecution also reflects how Australian terrorist organisation laws functioned to legitimate Sri Lanka's bloody war — not only against the LTTE, but also its war crimes against the Tamil people.
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