Angry in the Great White North

The audit is in response to a disturbing link to the university:

A southern Ontario university is auditing its Tamil students' association and reviewing overseas co-op placements, after the arrest of four recent graduates in anti-terrorism raids.

"We think we need to look at a complete assessment of the records that are available to us," said University of Waterloo spokesman Martin Van Nierop. "This is not about the club per se, it's to determine whether their procedures were okay."

U.S. and Canadian agents arrested a dozen suspects last week on charges of lending support to an outlawed Sri Lanka-based guerrilla army, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. One of the lead suspects, a 26-year-old recent engineering graduate, allegedly boasted that he was known simply as "Waterloo Suresh" to the top Tamil Tiger leaders in Sri Lanka.

Other suspects tied to the university include Ramanan Mylvaganam, 30, Thirukumaran Sivasubramaniam, 27, and Thirukumaran Sinnathamby, 27. Some of them also served on the University of Waterloo Tamil Students' Association.

He and three of his school chums stand accused of actively helping the Tigers in their separatist war against the Sinhalese-dominated government. The suspects allegedly tried to procure global-positioning circuitry, night-vision goggles, assault rifles and missile launchers for LTTE, which is banned as a terrorist entity in North America.

What? Couldn't make their own night vision goggles? Typical UofW grads. All flash. (I'm an engineering graduate of the University of Toronto, but I assure you that has no bearing whatsoever on my opinion.)

Speaking of the University of Toronto:

But one Tamil student leader said the university's investigation is certain to have a chilling effect on his community, one that will likely extend far beyond Waterloo, Ont.

"I think it's incredibly alarming, and it sets a terrible precedent," said Ashwin Balamohan, a vice-president in the University of Toronto's student government.

Balamohan is also a former executive of the UofT's Tamil association.

What precedent is that? That an officially sanctioned student association is required to submit to an audit by the university?

Apparently the student associations don't do much:

Mr. Balamohan said most Tamil student groups are not political, and concentrate on organizing "culture shows."

And they don't have much:

While some student associations send money to charitable causes in Sri Lanka, Mr. Balamohan said most probably have about $900 in their bank accounts, not the $900,000 that some of the suspects are accused of having in order to buy arms.

Which makes them entirely uninteresting to authorities:

"There is zero evidence to suggest the LTTE has a presence among student groups at all."

Well, almost zero. The arrest of the four University of Waterloo Tamil student association members.

So to review. Tamil student associations are poor. Tamil student associations put on cultural shows. Tamil student associations want nothing to do with Tamil terrorists.

Presumably Tamil terrorists would have no interest in Tamil student associations.

Nothing to find, right?

Besides, Mr. Balamohan added, "a university administration doesn't have the expertise or authority to investigate matters of national and international security."

Gee, up until this point, I was almost convinced that an audit wasn't needed.

So the University of Waterloo shouldn't be conducting an audit because it has no competence to look for what is absolutely not there?

Would Balamohan rather a useless audit that will never find anything be conducted by CSIS?

Maybe that'll be next.