In 2005, Liz Hume worked as a senior conflict adviser at the U.S. Agency for International Development with a secretariat set up to broker peace during a post-tsunami cease-fire between the Sri Lankan government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, or LTTE.
LTTE had been fighting the Sri Lankan government for decades and was on the U.S. list of foreign terrorist organizations, or FTOs, meaning no organizations or groups receiving U.S. funding could interact with it. If they did, they would run afoul of U.S. criminal statutes that prohibit “knowingly providing material support or resources to a foreign terrorist organization.”
But the legal definition of “material support” was so broad it hampered the peace process by making it nearly impossible for peace builders to engage with members of LTTE.