Boat built for tsunami victims used to smuggle asylum-seekers

EXCLUSIVE: Amanda Hodge and Paige Taylor October 23, 2009
Article from: The Australian
SRI LANKAN asylum-seekers have sailed to Australia in a boat donated by Catholic charities to a devastated coastal community in the wake of the 2004 tsunami.
Thirty-two young, smiling men arrived at Flying Fish Cove at Christmas Island early yesterday after a voyage across the Indian Ocean from the east coast of SriLanka, bypassing Indonesia asa staging post on the perilous journey.
A sign on the bow of the boat revealed it to be one of 10 vesselsbuilt on contract for Catholic charities Caritas and Misereor to donate to fishermen in a Tamil-dominated region on Sri Lanka's east coast following the Boxing Day tsunami in 2004, which destroyed many coastal villages.
The latest group of asylum-seekers had steered their boat to within seven nautical miles of Christmas Island when an RAAF P3 plane spotted them just west of the tiny Australian territory about 2.30am local time.
By 7.20am, the first of the groupwas ashore, beaming and waving from a bus as they were taken to immigration detention.
Their bold voyage - which is likely to have taken them up to a month - brings the number of people in detention on Christmas Island to 1090, and comes almost a year after 11 Sri Lankan fishermen and a teenage boy sailed from Colombo to Shark Bay, a remote region on Western Australia's mid-north coast, following 33 days at sea.
Anton Lambert, a Catholic Sinhalese boat builder in the west coast town of Kochchikade, said the latest boat was one the multi-day fishing vessels his Sea Horse Marine company had made for local fishermen and on contract for overseas charities.
Mr Lambert said the boats, which could be built in a month and sold for up to 3 million Sri Lankan rupees ($28,350), were built for fishing trips of up to 15 days' duration and had a total fuel-tank capacity of 2000 litres.
He said the boat that reached Christmas Island would have needed significant modifications, including a larger engine, to make the Indian Ocean crossing.
"Maybe someone would have had to change the capacity of the tanks because if you are travelling that far you need to collect fuel, not fish," he told The Australian yesterday.
Mr Lambert denied any knowledge of the people-smugglers behind the latest arrivals and said he was required under Sri Lankan law to sell such boats only to licensed fishermen. "We are not making these boats for smuggling or these types of things," he said. "We don't do that; it's illegal. I am very worried about this."
Mr Lambert said the boat was most likely finished last year and was one of hundreds built in recent years for east coast communities such as Trincomalee and Batticaloa.
He could not explain how it had ended up as a people-smuggling vessel.
"We made a lot of boats for Caritas and they decided which are the people they want to give assistance to," he said.
Director of Caritas at Batticaloa, Father Sri Tharam Sylvester, confirmed to The Australian last night that the organisation had bought the boat from Sea Horse Marine and distributed it as part of a much larger charity drive to local fishing communities.
Father Sylvester said Caritas's eastern human and economic development wing, together with German Catholic charity Misereor, had donated 10 multi-day fishing boats last December to fishermen operating in the Koralaipattu North division, on the border of Batticaloa and the northeastern district of Trincomalee.
"They were distributed on the advice of the Fisheries Department to the people of that area," he said, adding that he was shocked to learn the organisation's charity had been misused.
"Why this has happened we don't know. We need to check with the Fisheries Department."
The Tamil-dominated region was held by the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam until 2007, when the military seized control of the area.
It was only late last year that the military lifted restrictions that had prohibited local fishermen from entering deep waters or fishing at night.
It is not known whether the latest boat arrivals were ethnic Sinhalese or Tamils, who claim persecution in the wake of the defeat of the Tamil Tigers.
Many Tamils from Trincomalee are known to have fled the country in recent years.
But Father Sylvester said if the boat was indeed carrying people from the Batticaloa district, it was the first example he knew of people from his region seeking asylum.
Assistant director at the local fisheries office Thomingu George said the boat involved had been reported missing by a local fishing co-operative eight days ago after it failed to return from a 15-day fishing trip.
"We only know what the society told us: that the boat is missing and has been taken by unknown persons," Mr George said. "I am really upset about this situation because we have given this to help the people for fishing."
The Australian government is keenly aware of the seafaring skills of Sri Lankan fishermen and the people-smugglers who seek to exploit their desperation by selling them a spot on a boat they will have to help navigate.
Sri Lankan fishing communities have been promised lifejackets and fishing nets in return for warning of the perils of the Indian Ocean crossing.
The Rudd government is also preparing to offer micro-loans and community grants for job creation programs to improve life for poor Sri Lankans at home, to reduce the likelihood they will try to seek a better life in Australia.