Overseas Terrorism in Canada, Public Funding, donations

Canada spends a lot of money on multicultural programs to encourage its diverse communities to express themselves, and there are a significant number of grants programs to encourage vitality here. Registered charities may receive government funding, and donors to them can write off a portion of their taxes for helping such groups out. Schools and houses of worship can find it fairly easy to win charitable status from the Federal Government.

Community newspapers often have a difficult time making ends meet without the occasional grant, and government advertising dollars are valuable. There are also charitable duties within some communities. Sikhs, for example, are expected to make major contributions to their Temples (a devout Sikh might donate 10% of his revenues on an annual basis). Muslims are directed to be charitable too — the zakat is a regular annual payment of 2.5% of one’s total worth for the poor, and voluntary charity (the sadakat) is supposed to increase one’s chances of reaching heaven, while fitra charitable donations are expected during Ramadan.

As mentioned in Chapter Three, there are government grants for immigration services and language services — which in the Tamil community have ended up in the hands of LTTE front groups. Other communities might experience the same problem.

Overall, with billions of dollars a year in both government and private funding being spent on charitable works and community organizations, there is much that can be diverted into the wrong hands.

In the early 1990s, Revenue Canada (as it was then called) granted charitable status to an organization calling itself the Babbar Khalsa Society, located in Kamloops B.C. This was less than two years after Inderjit Singh Reyat was convicted of manslaughter in the Narita Airport explosion, the result of one of two bombs placed on Air India flights in 1985, the other killed 329 passengers, almost half of them Canadians, on flight 182.

Repeated inquiries regarding the Babbar Khalsa Society were made during Question Period in the House of Commons by the Official Opposition, and were often treated with contempt by the Liberal Party of Canada and its leading cabinet ministers. On May 4, 1995, Val Merideth (Reform Party MP for Surrey White Rock) was told by David Anderson, then Minister of Revenue, in response to her inquiries regarding this one specific questionable organization that "The member is wrong to single out a particular organization of which there may be one or two individual members about whom I know nothing and attempt to blacken the entire status of all organizations dealing with immigrants." Essentially, he tried to portray her as a racist.

On June 5, 1995, Ms. Merideth again confronted the Liberal government with photos of Talwinder Singh Parmar (the lead suspect in the Air India bombing) surrounded by automatic rifles and RPG-7 anti-tank rockets and a quote in a Punjabi newspaper where he said that if anyone wants to commit suicide, they should board an Air India flight. Mr. Anderson’s response was again offensive and inadequate: "We are quite willing to accept the views of the hon. member that a picture of a member with guns surrounding him is evidence, but I suggest it is totally contradictory to the Reform Party’s gun policy that the mere presence of a photograph with weapons causes one to be investigated and causes one to lose charitable status."

In 1996, the charitable status of the Babbar Khalsa Society was revoked. The Liberal government only issued a small announcement in the Canada Gazette, an obvious attempt to minimize the impact and significance of the decision, which was a departure from past Liberal policy.

There is some indication that Canadian authorities feared that Babbar Khalsa International had escalated the sophistication of their fund raising operations in the late 1990s. They began to look into the business activities of a close associate of Parmar, Pupiduman Singh Malik, who organized and ran both the Khalsa Credit Union and the Khalsa School in British Columbia. Malik now stands as one of the accused for the 1985 Air India Bombing. Ironically, he had earlier expressed open distain for Canadian society and its values and stated that the reason for creating the Khalsa School was a means of isolating Sikh children from it. Both of these organizations run by Malik have been the subject of police investigation.

The Khalsa School received $2,000,000 annually in provincial government grants. In 1998, The RCMP Commercial Crime Squad raided the school looking for evidence of misappropriation of these funds. More disturbing was the allegation that a convicted hijacker who entered Canada with a false passport was allowed to live at the school. The Khalsa Credit Union was served search warrants in an investigation surrounding the financial activities of the Khalsa School.

One of Malik’s colleagues in the dock for the Air India trial; Ajaib Singh Bagri, is being aided in his defence by the Babbar Khalsa International operating behind a British Columbian non-profit group called Sikh Vision. Two members of the BKI are working at the public’s expense on Bagri’s legal team. Sikh Vision’s mission statement is a touching one concerning peace and humanity, but their web-site has some very belligerent photographs of arms, armaments and Khalsa imagery on it.

One of the ISYF’s main targets for cash generation was the Sikh temples located in Canada. Sikhs are enjoined to contribute to their temples, and the proceeds are invested in temple funds that are usually invested locally for the benefit of the temple and the wider community. In a large and prosperous community, the interest from temple funds can become impressive. Militant Sikhs had hoped to divert temple fund income to armed groups fighting in the Punjab, but first they needed to get their supporters elected onto the temples’ management committees. It was not unusual for considerable amounts of pressure, threats, and violence to be employed by these radicals, especially in the years immediately following Operation Blue Star and the assault on the Golden Temple in Amritsar.

The battle for control of Sikh temples began when radicals from India began arriving here in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Pro-separatist activists from various factions quickly targeted the existing management committees run by second and third generation Sikh-Canadians. The fact that many of these Canadian-born Sikhs fully accepted Canadian values was offensive to the newly arrived radicals. In 1978, foreshadowing the violence that was yet to come, Beant Dhalawi was found dead after a C-clamp was placed on his skull and slowly tightened. He had been involved in a dispute at the temple located in Clearbrook, B.C.

The second phase began as pro-separatists fought each other over control of the temples. The most pronounced battles were usually between the ISYF and the World Sikh Organization. Canada’s largest and most prestigious Sikh temple was the Ross Street Gurdwara in Vancouver. In 1985, the WSO won elections to control the management committee. The ISYF challenged them in another set of elections in 1990. Two shootings occurred during these latter elections, and are held by many Sikhs to have been tied to the contentious infighting. By 1992, the ISYF was in control of the Ross Street temple.

The latest phase of violence at the temples transpired as the radicals were pushed out of the management committees, and replaced by moderate elements within the Sikh community. In 1997, moderates who had recently won elections at the Ross Street Temple were attacked by knife and sword-wielding radicals who opposed the introduction of tables and chairs at communal meals held in the temple. Fundamentalists always expressed contempt for this practice, which evolved in Canada. This most recent spate of violence seemed due more to the sense of frustration the radicals felt at losing control of the purse strings, and their ability to send cash to fuel violence in India than it did about interpreting Sikh doctrine. Episodes of violence and intimidation can still attend struggles over temple funds, although many more liberal Canadian Sikhs have learned to push back too.

Another source of influence and revenue for the ISYF was the ownership of various English and Punjabi language newspapers in Canada. Community newspapers, besides being businesses in themselves, are valuable tools for political and economic control within a particular ethno-cultural community, and ownership of them is a critical issue. The ISYF apparently operates two newspapers in the Vancouver area and another in Toronto. The 1988 attempted assassination of the publisher of the Indo-Canadian Times, Tara Singh Hayer, is allegedly tied to his criticism of the ISYF’s advocacy of violence in the Punjab. The cowardly attack left the journalist paralyzed from the waist down. In 1998, Hayer was murdered. He had never wavered in his criticism of the violence in the name of Khalistan, and refused to yield to further intimidation after being crippled -- including the planting of a bomb on his paper’s premises.

The Sikhs are not the only community in Canada to see public and charitable funding go astray for the purposes of terrorism. In recent years, the Security Council of the United Nations and the US Treasury Department listed hundreds of organizations and individuals whose funds are to be frozen and assets seized in order to suppress terrorism. The list includes a startling number of charities and financial institutions — including the informal Barakats and Hawalas that arrange casual money transfers throughout much of the Muslim world. A number of Barakats operated in Canada, but the larger ones have all been ordered shut down (smaller, even less formal ones, are reportedly still in operation).

The dozens of suppressed charities include (among many others) the Aid Organization of the Ulrma, the Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation in Bosnia-Herzegovina, and the Benevolence International Foundation, the Benevolence International Fund, the Global Relief Foundation, and many others. According to the UN Security Council and the US Treasury Department, these had been funneling money to Islamic terrorist groups in many areas.

The Benevolence International Fund was active in raising funds in Canada (from its offices in Ottawa, Waterloo, and Mississauga, Ontario) to send to its representatives in war zones in Bosnia, Chechnya, the Kashmir, and to Israel, and the West Bank -- all areas where Muslim fundamentalists are active. The group claimed in October 2001 that it did not issue tax receipts. Alas, it was advertising that it could issue such on its website in 2002. In its Annual Return to Corporations Canada, it listed six governors, but only one was a Canadian resident (Mohamad Khatib), the rest were in Saudi Arabia, Bosnia, and the United States. One director, Enaam Arnaout (aka A. Mahmoud and A. Samia) was arrested in April 2002 and charged with perjury and supporting terrorists.

In its literature, the Fund advertised itself as a good place for Muslims who wished to meet their Zakat obligations. However, in the Muslim community, where fundraising is informal, very few Canadian Muslims have heard of the organization.

Ideally, Zakat obligations and other Muslim charities are supposed to go to widows, orphans, and the poor. The Holy Land Foundation in the United States was ordered closed by the US Treasury Department because the widows and orphans it was helping out included the families of Fundamentalist suicide bombers. Other Muslim charities are also suspected of using their funds to aid the families of Fundamentalist combatants, or of attracting refugees to places where they can be exposed to Fundamentalist indoctrination. An Ottawa gas station attendant and pizza delivery man, Mohamed Harkat, who is accused by CSIS of being a member of the GIA and al Qaeda, spent five years working in Pakistan as a relief worker before coming to Canada. He is thought to have been using his activities as a cover for Islamic Fundamentalist work in association with key members of al Qaeda.

The Benevolence International Fund is one of the defendants in a $1 trillion lawsuit launched by the families of the dead from the 9-11 attack. Other defendants include the Islamic Relief Organization, the Muslim World League (MWL), International Islamic Relief Organization (IIRO), and the SAAR Foundation — all of which have a Canadian presence. The Muslim World League was funded by the Saudi Government since 1962 as a Wahhabist-related site for supporting both the Muslim community and missionary work elsewhere (including inside the Western World). The IIRO was a charitable organization with appropriate tax status in many countries, and is an arm of the MWL. Members of the MWL have aided and abetted the travels of al Qaeda members as recently as 2000, and helped to establish the organization in the first place. The MWL and IIRO had offices in Ottawa, but these have been closed in the aftermath of the 9-11 attacks.

The MWL and the Saudi government are also associated with another Muslim charity, SAAR International, whose Canadian office (located in Quebec) was closed in 2001. American authorities began to investigate SAAR International following reports that the group’s US branch had passed money to Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

Like the Tiger Front Groups described in Chapter Three, the MWL placed itself at the centre of a number of Canadian organizations that declared their support and affiliation with it. These included:

• The Afghan Information and Rehab Bureau, Don Mills Ontario;

•Al Rashid Islamic Institute, Cornwall, Ontario;

•The Al Rashid Mosque, Edmonton, Alberta;

•The Albanian Muslim Society, Toronto, Ontario;

•Bader Islamic Association, Toronto, Ontario;

•Bosnian Community Mosque, Etobicoke, Ontario;

•Cambridge Islamic Centre, Cambridge, Ontario;

•Cambridge Muslim Society, Cambridge, Ontario;

•Croatian Islamic Association (and Bosnia Hercegovina Relief Fund), Etobicoke, Ontario;

•Halton Islamic Association, Burlington, Ontario;

•Hira’ Arab Cultural Society, Calgary, Alberta;

•Imdadul Islam Centre, North York, Ontario;

•International Institute of Islamic Thought, no contact information;

•Islamic Association of Saskatchewan (Chapters in Saskatoon and Regina);

•Islamic Centre of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta;

•Islamic Cultural Centre of Quebec, Ste Foy, Quebec;

•Islamic Education Society of BC, Surrey, BC;

•Islamic Information Centre, Halifax, Nova Scotia;

•Islamic Society of Niagara, Niagara Falls, Ontario;

•Muslim Association of New Brunswick, Saint John, NB;

•Muslim Community of Edmonton, Edmonton, Alberta;

•Scarborough Muslim Association, Scarborough, Ontario;

•Turkish Canadian Islamic Heritage Association (and Canadian Turkish Islamic Trust Inc.), Toronto, Ontario;

•United Canadian Muslim Association of Ontario, Toronto;

•Windsor Islamic Association, Windsor, Ontario.

There are dozens of other groups in Canada associated with the MWL — often sharing the same addresses and phone numbers. Affiliation with the Muslim World League is certainly not a ‘smoking gun’ proving that the group endorses terrorism or supports al Qaeda. However, the linkage does imply sympathy with Wahhabi Islam — an intolerant variation of the Muslim faith — and perhaps a greater willingness to sympathize with al Qaeda than other Muslims do. In the aftermath of September 11^th and the trillion dollar law suit directed against the Muslim World League, some of these groups have dropped their links with the group.

As was the case with the network of Tamil related organizations, many of these MWL-affiliated organizations have received government funding for immigration-related services and cultural activities; some have charitable status, and some have raised funds for activities in overseas areas where Fundamentalist insurgents are active.

Also worrisome is Human Concern International — a charity headquartered in Ottawa with programs in many Muslim nations. After the devastating African Embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania (these attacks killed over 200 people and wounded over 5,000), a raid on the attackers’ hideout in Kenya turned up the business cards of an executive with Human Concern International. This in itself could be innocuous enough, but Ahmad Said Kadr (sometimes spelled as ‘Khadr") had also been Human Concern International’s regional director in Pakistan when he was arrested for helping to facilitate an attack on the Egyptian embassy in Islamabad Pakistan in November 1995. The attack killed 17 people. Released by the Pakistani government after a personal appeal from Prime Minister Chretien, Kadr (known as Al Kanadi -- "The Canadian" -- in Al Qaeda circles) is believed to be among Osama Bin Laden’s closer associates.

Human Concern International is a registered charity in Canada and lists 21 representatives throughout the country. The group severed its links with Kadr after his arrest. Although scrutiny was paid to the organization because of these connections, the group has not been listed as a supporter of terrorism on the UN Security Council List of Individuals and Entities, or by the US Treasury Department or the Canadian government. In short, it still has a good reputation.

After being released through Jean Chretien’s intervention, Kadr returned to Canada before returning to Afghanistan and the al Qaeda circles there through another Canadian based Muslim charity, Health Education Project International. One of Kadr’s sons was captured by Afghan Northern Alliance forces in Kabul in November 2001, and another one, who was only 16 years of age, was captured there in July 2002, after mortally wounding a US Army medic with a grenade. Both the UN Security Council and the US Treasury Department have ordered that Kadr’s assets be frozen.

Incidentally, the Health Education Project International is a project of the Salaheddin Mosque in Toronto. Among its members, this mosque has had two member of Ansar al-Islam (an al Qaeda member organization), the three al Qaeda members of the Kadr family, and a man who has been detained since August 2001 on the suspicion that he is a member of Islamic Jihad. For understandable reasons, the congregation, imam, and the building itself are of considerable interest to CSIS — and the members of the mosque clearly resent it.

Money has been raised from open sources in Canada for Hamas and Hizbollah as well. In 1993 the FBI secretly recorded the proceedings of a gathering of 25 Muslim Fundamentalists in Philadelphia. Part of the agenda for the meeting discussed fundraising to finance the Palestinian "Holy War" against Israel and to undermine the Oslo Accords between Israel and the PLO. The main fundraising mechanism was a Muslim charitable organization, the Holy Land Foundation —- which raised $167,000 in Canada in 1992, and $214,000 in the first half of 1993.

The Tamil Tigers do not neglect the charitable side either. Other tentacles of their international octopus are the purported "development" and "reconstruction" groups that gather funds for supposedly humanitarian purposes in northern Sri Lanka. The two largest organizations are the Tamil Eelam Economic Development Organization (TEEDOR) and the Tamils Rehabilitation Organization (TRO). Both are disguised elements of the LTTE, and it is no secret that large portions of the donations made to either of these fronts are used to buy weapons for the anti-government effort.

The long war in Sri Lanka has generated hundreds of thousands of internal refugees, most of who are too poor to be able to afford the fees necessary to get themselves sent abroad. For the Tigers, these internal refugees (almost all Tamil) serve several functions — their miseries can be used to illustrate the purported callousness of the Sri Lankan government (which cannot really afford to resettle them), plus the presence of tens of thousands of refugees who fled Sinhalese persecution by heading into Tamil controlled areas adds a much cited proof that Sri Lanka’s government does have much to atone for.

Creating charities to raise money to care for these refugees has been useful for the Tigers. Motherland and Child Care of Sri Lanka Foundation was a registered Canadian charity operating from Mississauga Ontario — although it appears to have closed a couple of years ago. The TRO (which does not have registered charitable status in Canada) gushes with lists of its activities inside Sri Lanka, where it has cooperated with more legitimate NGOs like Medicins Sans Frontieres and CARE international. These organizations, however, hesitate to describe themselves as being part of a consortium with the TRO (although its Canadian Website implies that they are), but see cooperation with them as part of the price of doing business inside Tiger dominated areas.

The TRO serves a valuable function by legitimizing fundraising for Tamil Front organizations, but also provides the bulk of its services in areas where it does not have to account for expenditures. If aid money is diverted to the Tigers inside Sri Lanka, it is impossible to confirm, and one is only left with the impression that some diplomats and aid workers have developed: That the TRO is only a minor player inside Sri Lanka when it comes to the visible effect of charitable work.

Charitable works inside Canada can also add to the luster of the Tigers and their front organizations. The number of Hindus in Canada is growing rapidly, and the largest Hindu temple in the country is being built by the Toronto Tamil community. Construction is being undertaken under the name of the "Hindu Temple Society of Canada" (begging the question are the Tamils going to presume to speak for all of Canada’s Hindus?), but this society shares the same phone number and address as the Ganesh Hindu Temple. The opening of this huge — yet unfinished -- temple in early September 2001 saw 20,000 Tamil Hindus being met by young men selling LTTE memorabilia and passing collection jars for the TRO.

Evidently, the normal staff of the Ganesh Temple are not enthusiastic supporters for the LTTE, as the rack of self-help pamphlets, business fliers, and ads for immigrant services inside the front door of the Temple does not normally carry anything related to the Tigers or their Canadian front groups. On Hindu holidays in the summer of 2002, it was evident that the arriving crowd of worshippers was being worked for donations to the TRO between the parking lot and the front steps of the temple.

Hamas and Hizbollah have also raised money in Canada for ostensibly charitable works like orphanages and hospitals although, again, it is impossible to determine if every dollar raised in Canada results in a dollar’s worth of administration and aid in the West Bank or Lebanon. It would be highly surprising if this was indeed the case. It should also be remembered that terrorist organizations may try to establish alternative institutions in areas under their control in order to offer ‘proof" to the population they purport to represent that the insurgents can take better care of them than the authorities can. In short, even if Hamas or Hizbollah runs an extremely efficient and capable orphanage, the institution is still a political statement in itself, and serves to support the prestige of terrorists. A school, however well equipped, would also serve as a tool for indoctrinating youngsters in the ideology of the group.

For any terrorist group, the excuse that they are raising money for schools, temples and other charitable sites cannot be allowed to stand under any circumstances. Such institutions may serve the basic function for which they are intended, but also have an equally vital role in securing insurgent leadership of the communities they claim to represent, add an underserved and unwelcome legitimacy, and heighten the status of the dysfunctional and violent people who create and lead terrorist groups. This is an argument that should never again be advanced by any government minister, nor ever accepted at face value by any journalist.

Passing the Bucket Again

"The support extended by you in attending this rally alone is not enough. You must prove your support by giving money. Your support should be converted into money. That money should be converted into arms for the movement."

-- An LTTE activist addressing a rally of Tamil Canadians in 1997.

Lectures, shows, and speaking engagements are a time-honored method for raising money. They also have the effect of providing a dual purpose of activating an audience to win their allegiance for a particular cause and affirming the loyalty of sympathizers for the cause. In the 19^th Century, this was practically the only method available to the Irish Fenians to raise money and generate support. It is still a popular method.

In the angry aftermath of the Indian attack on the Golden Temple at Amritsar, The BKI heavily relied on individuals such as Talwinder Singh Parmar and other members to speak at various temples across Canada. At the end of the fiery sermons, they would call upon the crowd to make donations. They were most successful in gaining access for speeches to temples controlled by the ISYF — a rare instance of inter-organizational cooperation.

Passing around the collections bucket is a frequent occurrence in several Canadian cities. Sometimes, it is a real art form. The front organizations for the Tamil Tigers can stage fund-raising and cultural events in Toronto and Montreal that have featured members of the community parading in camouflage uniforms. Sometimes, youths or veteran Tigers will be on stage with dummy AK-47s as well, under the colors of the LTTE guerrilla formations. Then, after a cultural display, the awarding of prizes for various achievements, the showing of footage from the war, and a barn-burner of a speech, buckets (literally) are passed through the audience while they are enjoined to be generous.

The Tigers are perhaps the most assiduous terrorist group in the world when it comes to raising money, as there are few techniques they will overlook. At the back of the hall where the Tigers are preaching, the audience may be inveigled to buy more Tiger videos, t-shirts, their roaring tiger-head flag, and other items; with the proceeds going to the cause. The Tigers’ supporters are also known to go door to door on a routine basis within the Tamil community with a cadre of well-trained fundraisers. In 1998, it was estimated that there were about 60 veteran WTM activists (in Montreal, Ottawa and Toronto) who would undertake this, and their lists of potential donors were said to be carefully annotated so that the reluctant might be later persuaded to be more generous through other means.

Multiculturalism has been held up as a Canadian ideal ever since the concept was first introduced in 1972. Somehow or other, it perhaps did not occur to the earnest backers of a multicultural Canada that the fullest expression of community life in a more diverse Canadian society would include the diversion of temple funds, the abuse of Canadian charity laws, and the selling of atrocity videos on our school stages to pay for other peoples’ wars.

It is not generally understood — yet — by most of citizens that actions by the supporters of groups like Babbar Khalsa, al Qaeda, or the LTTE represents a devastating betrayal of our one-time hopes for a peaceful community of all peoples within the Canadian state. Even if money raised for terrorist groups never results in violence here (although this has already happened), the cultural institutions and self-identity of several of our component societies have been hijacked by the supporters of terrorist groups. These very same supporters have no interest in the peaceful acclimatization of the people they claim to represent within the Canadian polity … so why should we continue give their likes any possible encouragement by continuing to tolerate the intolerant?

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John Thompson is President of the Mackenzie Institute which studies political instability and terrorism. He can be reached at: mackenzieinstitute@bellnet.ca

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