Lankan refugees in India seek exit permits, funds

Ramanathapuram, India: Many Sri Lankan refugees in camps at Ramanathapuram are seeking exit permits and funds from the government to return to their motherland at the earliest. Following the end of the war in Lanka, the internally displaced persons staying in various camps in that country are being sent to their native places. Therefore, many inmates of the Mandapam transit camp are anxious to return.
The United Nations Commission for Refugees was arranging for the repatriation of refugees after getting clearance from the government. However, it will undertake the repatriation of families and not individuals. Therefore, individuals anxious to go to Lanka to study the ground realities there before taking their families are expecting government assistance.
They need funds to meet their travelling expenses and also exit permit to proceed. Mandapam camp authorities told Express that the refugees had to wait for three months to get exit permits. ‘Q’ branch and other agencies should clear their applications before giving the exit permit.
So far, 169 refugees have returned to Lanka this year. Their numbers would increase if the government came forward to bear their travelling expenses. (Express Buzz)

Among The Smugglers

By Amanda Hodge
The boat owners of Negombo have a message for the Rudd government: give us a year and a stack of cash and we can end the wave of asylum-seekers washing up on your shores.
“Without our knowledge no one can get into the sea,” Justin Warnakulasuriya boasts to The Australian as we sit in the front yard of his home. Dripping in gold and wearing a traditional lungi, the secretary of the Sea Street Kudapadu Conciliated Fisheries Society appears to carry weight in this fishing and tourist village on Sri Lanka’s west coast.
As we talk, some similarly bejewelled male visitors pay their respects, and a party of men sits inside eating fried fish and drinking Johnnie Walker Black Label.
Justin says he has already met Australian officials who have sought the society’s help in cracking down on the thriving people-smuggling trade operating along his patch. His Society has been promised dozens of life jackets, fishing nets and at least 200 chairs in return for spruiking the perils of the Indian Ocean crossing.
Micro loans and community grants
The Rudd government is also preparing to offer micro loans and community grants for job creation programmes to improve life for poor Sri Lankans at home to reduce the likelihood they will attempt to seek a better life in Australia. But the society wants more.
“They (Australian government) want to organise a street drama to show how dangerous it is,” he says, referring to the Australian Customs-funded advertising campaign being rolled out along the west coast to dissuade would-be asylum-seekers.
“There is a very good relationship between us and the (Australian) officials.“You can take my word: if the Australian government can assist us, help us to improve the economy, I give a guarantee not a single person will try to reach your country by boat from Negombo.”
The intriguing offer could well be more than an idle boast. Twenty-two fishing societies, essentially cartels of boat owners, control the industry along the length of Sri Lanka’s west coast and meet harbour authorities weekly to discuss market variations and local issues. They appear to be well-organised and well-connected.
People-smuggling trade
“It’s happening,” Justin says of the people-smuggling trade. “I totally admit that it’s happening with the consent of the harbour men.“But if anyone comes to us and says to us, ‘We are doing this (people-smuggling) because we can’t make a living,’ we can help by advising them of the risks and helping them to buy a boat or fishing gear. It all comes down to money.”
Populated mostly by Catholic Sinhalese fishermen and their families, the west coast has a rich history of Portuguese and Dutch settlement. A good proportion of the adult population speaks Tamil with greater fluency than Sinhalese, a product of their education in Tamil and Catholic schools.Although it is Sri Lanka’s Tamil population that has suffered the greatest discrimination at the hands of chauvinist Sinhalese-dominated governments in recent decades, most Sinhalese Christians who attempt the boat trip to Australia also claim political persecution.
Asylum refused
Warnakulasuriya Venses Fernando was among the first Sri Lankans, mostly Sinhalese Christians, to be sent home by the Rudd government this month after being refused asylum. The 39-year-old fisherman and father of three says he fled the country by boat in March, just weeks before provincial elections, after his campaigning for an opposition party caught the attention of local thugs who threatened to kill him.
But he tells The Australian he voluntarily returned from Christmas Island a week ago after authorities told him that as a Sinhalese man he had less than a one per cent chance of staying in Australia.
“The Australian government thinks only Tamils have problems in this country, but we are not an original Sinhalese community,” he says. “We are discriminated against by other Sinhalese because we don’t speak a proper Sinhala language. We’re very fluent in Tamil so they think we’re also Tamil and that we helped the Tamil Tigers smuggle arms and cadres through Negombo.”
Justin doesn’t buy it. “It’s a big lie. It’s a good reason to give to the authorities, but what has politics got to do with them? They’re fishermen,” he says.
High unemployment
He believes migration from the west coast is being driven by economics. The area is dogged by high unemployment and, like many port areas, is a hub for drug traffickers. During the 26-year civil war with the Tamil Tigers, it was also used by arms smugglers.
Sri Lankan people-smugglers appear to have taken advantage of the shipping routes forged by drug traffickers into Europe in the 1980s after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the Islamic revolution in Iran and the Iran-Iraq war forced them to look for alternatives. But Justin says many people have since realised Australia is a better destination than the previously popular destination of Italy. “It’s under populated so they think they have a better chance of finding jobs there.”
He acknowledges drug smuggling is a problem in the region but says unemployment is the key issue.
High school graduate sons of local fishermen don’t want to follow their fathers into the fishing trade and see people-smuggling, or the passage to Australia, as a quick way to make money.
People-smuggling
“There are people in Negombo who all of a sudden buy a boat, pay $US20,000-$US25,000 ($21,500 to $27,000) to an owner, and then approach individuals within the fishing society and offer as much as $US500 for every person they recruit,” he says.
“The passenger pays $US4000 for the trip. The agent takes his share and gives something to those who have helped along the way to introduce people. People have made their fortunes by recruiting for these journeys.”Justin admits he too has recruited for the boats, but later retracts that and says only that he knows of others who have done so.
“There are many people who are willing to go, both Tamils and Sinhalese, from all over the country,” he says. “Many Pakistanis are also going.”
Sri Lanka is not just an exporter of asylum-seekers. Thousands of Pakistanis — Christians, Shi’ites and adherents of the Ahmadiyya Islamic sect considered blasphemous by many Muslims — have sought safe haven there in recent years from alleged religious persecution at home.
Fled Pakistan
Shahid is an Ahmadiyya who fled the Pakistani city of Lahore for Sri Lanka more than four years ago. One of his sisters has since migrated to Australia and a brother to Canada, both via Sri Lanka.
But he has twice been denied refugee status by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees and leads an uncertain existence with the rest of his extended family in a small village near Negombo.
With his latest six-month tourist visa due to expire this week, he faces little choice but to return to Pakistan or find another country that will take him.
The UNHCR has recognised only 50 cases of genuine Pakistani refugees in Sri Lanka this year and has another 170 cases pending. But Shahid says there are “many, many Pakistanis” in the Negombo area alone and many of them are looking to migrate elsewhere by any means possible.
“Sri Lanka is easy because you don’t need visas,” he says. “Going straight away, (Pakistani refugees) can’t go to Australia; they have to come here first.”Touting for passengers
Shahid has been offered places on boats numerous times by Sri Lankan friends who tout for passengers around Negombo’s local snooker club but feels it is too dangerous.
Not everyone is so easily dissuaded, however, as the stand-off this week between Indonesian authorities and 260 Sri Lankan asylum-seekers caught trying to reach Australia will attest.
Many on board that boat are believed to be Tamils who escaped the northern internment camps where about 280,000 civilians are being held behind barbed wire nearly five months after the government crushed the separatist Tamil Tigers.
Thousands of Tamils have already bribed their way out of the camps with the help of relatives living abroad. Many head straight to the Colombo airport and to the nearest countries that don’t require entry visas, usually Indonesia or Malaysia.
Paid Rs. 500,000
Balan is one such man. With the help of relatives based in Canada, Australia and Sri Lanka, he paid Rs. 500,000 to a Muslim, Tamil-speaking interpreter working at the Manik Farm camp in the northern Sri Lankan town of Vavuniya.
His sister Praveena (not her real name), who helped arrange the escape, said the money went mostly to camp guards and paramilitary men, who are allowed unlimited access to the camps.
The former bank manager, his wife and two daughters took a train to Colombo and hid with his sisters for several weeks before flying to Tamil Nadu.
Speaking by phone from Tamil Nadu through an interpreter, Balan said he was offered a place for himself and his family on a boat out of the north in the last bloody weeks of Sri Lanka’s civil war, when more than 200,000 civilians were caught between the two warring sides.
Close to 200 people eventually took that boat out of Sri Lanka. A vessel with the same number arrived in Australia a month later and The Australian understands many of those on board were granted asylum.But elderly relatives forbade Balan from going, fearing for the lives of his daughters, aged nine and 11, and out of concern for their own safety back in the conflict zone.
Refugee status in India
India has since granted the family refugee status, along with thousands of others, but without jobs there is little hope, and he is looking farther afield.Balan said he regrets not taking the boat places offered “because we have suffered so much since then.” His children missed a year of school and the family is haunted by images of dead bodies in the streets.
“He had a nice house, a good job, but he has lost everything,” Praveena said. “There are a lot of people like him in India now. People are just trying to go to any country that will take them.”
Balan has heard that boats are leaving from southern India ultimately destined for Australia, and says that if he gets another opportunity he won’t squander it.
“There’s no chance to go legally so I’m willing to go illegally,” he said.Amanda Hodge is The Australian’s South Asia correspondent.

SL migrants in Australia asylum row: Plead for protection

MERAK, Indonesia, Oct. 23, 2009 (AFP) - The Sri Lankan asylum seekers at the centre of a fiery immigration row in Australia are pleading for rich nations to protect them from the threat of persecution, kidnapping and death at home.
Members of the group of 255 ethnic Tamils intercepted off Indonesia last week described harrowing weeks in the jungle and at sea in a bid to get to Australia.
But they said they had no interest in staying in Indonesia, where they have refused to leave their overcrowded boat for almost two weeks, unless they were allowed to speak to the UN refugee agency.
“This country cannot promise my children education, this country can't give us any future. What will we find in this country,” a spokesman for the group, who identified himself as Alex, told AFP on their peeling wooden boat in the Indonesian port town of Merak.
The migrants have gone on a brief hunger strike and threatened to torch their boat in order to draw attention to their plight.
The UN refugee agency says it has not received the necessary invitation from the Indonesian government to interview the migrants, so the standoff continues and the Sri Lankans' asylum claims have not been assessed.
“We are being tortured, our women are being raped, our children are being killed, our parents are being kidnapped,” Alex said of their migrants' lives in Sri Lanka.
“Just for the sake that we are Tamils they just believe we are all terrorists, we are all Tigers,” he said, referring to the defeated insurgent group known as the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.
The Sri Lankans have touched off a testy political debate in Australia over border protection amid a sharp increase in the number of asylum seekers arriving illegally by boat in the country's sparsely populated north.
Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono agreed in Jakarta this week to come up with a ‘framework’ for dealing with undocumented migrants who take to the seas in unseaworthy boats.
Indonesia is a springboard for such trips, which are usually arranged by people smugglers for thousands of dollars per person.
Rights groups have condemned Sri Lanka's detention of 250,000 minority ethnic Tamil civilians in military-run camps since the end of the country's bloody decades-long civil war earlier this year.
“We are rich people in my country, we all have big houses and farms, but we have no life there,” said 35-year-old teacher Kalla, as her two young sons gathered about her legs.
Alex, a former English teacher with an American twang thanks to a previous job in a call centre, said the migrants each paid 15,000 dollars to people smugglers and flew in groups from Sri Lanka to Malaysia.
Then they spent a month living in a makeshift camp in the jungle, with little food and water, before boarding their boat to Australia.
Tossed by waves and battered by rain in their bid to reach Australia's remote Christmas Island, the group was left in fearful limbo when the boat's engine sputtered out.
They drifted for five days in the Indian Ocean before it was fixed.
“The ship was shaking, the waves were big, everyone was vomiting, some fell unconscious,” said a 32-year-old woman who gave her name as Shanthi.
Five hours from Christmas Island, Alex said the boat did an about-face and set a course for Java island after a smaller boat failed to show up to whisk the captain safely back to Indonesia.
Alleged people smuggling kingpin Abraham Lauhenaspessy was found on board and arrested after the boat had been escorted into port by the Indonesian navy.

Canada releases one Lankan asylum seeker, 75 in jail

One of the men arrested aboard a small cargo ship off Vancouver Island last week has been ordered released from detention, but 75 others will remain in jail.
Tamil officials in Canada say the men were fleeing persecution in Sri Lanka after a long civil war.
The Immigration and Refugee Board wrapped up 48-hour detention hearings for all 76 late Friday.
No details are being given about the one person who was granted an order for release with terms and conditions, but there is at least one minor among the would-be migrants.
With the 48-hour detention review hearings now complete, seven-day detention reviews will begin Monday.
The men are being held at a jail in Maple Ridge, B.C., east of Vancouver.
Federal Immigration Minister Jason Kenney has said the RCMP are investigating the migrants to determine if any have connections to terrorist or criminal organizations.
The seizure of the ship that the men were aboard, the Ocean Lady, followed the interception of another ship en route from Sri Lanka to Australia a week earlier.
According to news reports, passengers aboard that ship identified the Ocean Lady as a smuggling vessel carrying would-be migrants toward Canada. (The Canadian Press)

Tamil asylum-seekers face death if sent home

Drew Warne-Smith October 24, 2009
Article from: The Australian
AN Australian citizen who escaped the largest internment camp in Sri Lanka earlier this year has warned that the Tamil asylum-seekers currently held in West Java could be killed should they be forced to return to their embattled homeland.
Muthu Kumaran, an ethnic Tamil and civil engineer from Sydney's west, was swept up in the renewed hostilities in Sri Lanka, having travelled there in February 2007 ahead of what he anticipated would be the establishment of an independent Tamil state.
Staying in the northern city of Kilinochchi, Kumaran had been working alongside a number of international NGOs when the Sri Lankan government withdrew from a ceasefire arrangement with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in January last year, and launched the final offensive to destroy the separatist militia.
Cut off from the capital, Colombo, in the southwest, he was forced to flee Kilinochchi in December when the city came under direct attack.
And by last May Kumaran had been detained in the military-run internment camp known as Manik Farm along with about 300,000 other Tamils.
The father of two escaped by paying a camp worker to smuggle him out, and he returned to Australia in August, just two months ago.
With the Australian government now scrambling to deal with the flood of Sri Lankan refugees arriving on our shores, Kumaran has chosen to recount his experience in a bid to expose the conditions in the camps and the plight of his people -- so many of whom are refugees in their own homeland. His travails in Sri Lanka are detailed in Focus today.
Kumaran insists the fears of retribution should Tamil asylum-seekers be forced back to Sri Lanka are very real.
Indonesian authorities intercepted a boatload of 260 people en route to Australia over a week ago and they are being held at a port in West Java. "People need to know, the international community needs to know, what it is happening in Sri Lanka," Kumaran told The Weekend Australian.
"The US, Britain, Australia, they talk about democracy and human rights. Well, they cannot keep their eyes closed to these things. "Of course we should take these people in. If they are Tamils they cannot go back now."
Fearing retribution from the Sinhalese community -- including towards his extended family back in Sri Lanka and elsewhere overseas -- he has asked to remain anonymous. Muthu Kumaran is an assumed name. During 5 1/2 months among the hordes of displaced Tamils inside Sri Lanka -- called internally displaced persons, or IDPs -- Kumaran says he saw numerous people killed by gunfire and shelling from the Sri Lankan military, including while the IDPs were travelling to designated safe zones as ordered by the ethnic Sinhalese government.
"Twice my pick-up got hit, but luckily not me. I saw maybe a dozen people killed, maybe another 20 injured, right in front of me," he says. "Every day, in the morning, I didn't expect to see the night time. That's the way it was for everyone."
Kumaran also knew of the death of four people from illness while inside the Manik Farm internment camp, while another committed suicide.
After eight days he was smuggled out late at night in the back of a van, and it would take a further six weeks before he could reach Colombo to fly home to Sydney.
But despite his ordeal, and the defeat of the Tamil Tigers, Kumaran remains confident that an independent Tamil state is within reach.
"(The Sri Lankan government) have only strengthened Tamil nationalism. They have not killed it."

The man who gambles with human cargo

LINDSAY MURDOCH
October 24, 2009
CAPTAIN Bram isn't worried. He knows people-smuggling is not an offence in Indonesia. ''Don't worry, I'll be free in a few months and will be able to help you again,'' Bram told Sri Lankan asylum seekers after taking their life's savings and duping them on an ill-fated voyage in a creaking, 30-metre wooden cargo boat to Australia's Christmas Island.
Smooth-talking Bram is the face of the usually hidden men who are making a fortune gambling with the lives of thousands of desperate people seeking a better life in a new country.
His real name is Abraham Lauhenaspessy. The 47-year-old is a conman from Ambon with links to a brutal criminal network at Jakarta's main port.
A couple of kilometres away from where Bram is idling away his time in a cell at a navy base on Merak harbour in West Java, 254 Tamils and one Burmese man are jammed on to the boat moored at a wharf, refusing to come ashore until they see a representative of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
The Indonesian Government, worried about their country becoming a major transit point for asylum seekers, is refusing their demand and has prevented UNHCR officials going to the boat.
Some Indonesian officials are also talking about the need to force the group, who include pregnant women and children, from the boat and to deport them to Sri Lanka to send a strong signal to other asylum seekers.
The thousands of asylum seekers reportedly waiting for the opportunity to get on a boat to Australia in Asia have no choice but to the deal with Bram and men like him in several other highly organised people-smuggling syndicates that have agents in Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Indonesia, Britain and Switzerland, police say.
They show no compassion for their human cargo who pay them on average $US15,000 ($A16,200) for their passage to Australian territory, where they tell them they will be quickly accepted as refugees.
On Bram's latest of many boats he has organised or attempted to organise to reach Australia since 1999, he gave the 255 people on board little food and water and had stored only 18 life jackets. The boat was barely seaworthy. Its engine broke down and the boat drifted in heavy seas for five days before mechanics among the asylum seekers managed to repair it. The asylum seekers were given one packet of instant noodles a day and one bottle of water between four people for the 10 days they were at sea.
Alex, the spokesman for the Tamils on board, said they had to eat the noodles dry because there was not enough water to cook them in.
''We cleaned our teeth and washed in salt water … conditions were very bad despite that we paid them all that money,'' Alex said by telephone from the boat.
With only one toilet aboard, people have to queue for hours to use it, including pregnant women and children.
Alex said he had information that an ethnic-Tamil people-smuggler in Australia was playing a key role in the surge of asylum-seeker boats leaving Malaysia for Australia. He said the man had the nickname ''Sekar''.
''He runs a highly organised network,'' Alex said.
Bram turned Alex's boat around into the path of an Indonesia navy ship on October 11 after he missed a rendezvous with a smaller boat he intended to transfer to.
It was to save his own skin. Lauhenaspessy faced up to 20 years' jail if he was apprehended in Australian territory.
But in 2007 in Jakarta he was sentenced to two years' jail on a hotchpotch of minor charges relating to providing protection for people who had entered Indonesia illegally.
The charges related to the smuggling of more than 70 Sri Lankans into Australia earlier that year. He was free in less than 20 months and spent his time in jail planning other smuggling operations, police believe.
Lindsay Murdoch is Darwin correspondent.

Resettlement deep in tiger terrain too

Source: Government of Sri Lanka
Date: 23 Oct 2009
The former strongholds of the LTTE -- Mullaitivu and Kilinochchi Districts -- are among the areas in which the internally displaced Tamils of Northern Sri Lanka will be resettled under the government's current IDP resettlement programme.
The resettlement of a total 41,685 persons from 12,095 families will take place in the current phase of resettlement which began yesterday, Oct. 22.
Kilinochchi was the administrative center LTTE in what it claimed to be the separate state of Eelam. Mullaitivu was the military stronghold of the LTTE for many years, from which it directed most operations against the Security Forces. This was also the Head Quarters of its leader Velupillai Prabhakaran.
The government had earlier resettled more than 15,900 of the IDPs which included the elderly and pregnant women who have been re-united with their families, according to their wish, and also the elderly who have no family sent to institutional care. All children who have no family care are resettled under foster care through courts of Sri Lanka. The completion of the current resettlement would leave 210,138 IDPs in relief centers whose resettlement is also planned for early implementation.
The current phase of resettlement will see displaced persons going to the Districts of Vavuniya, Mannar, Mullaitivu and Kilinochchi. Of these Oddusudan, Manthai East and Thunukkai in Mullaitivu District, and Karachchi and Poonakary in the Kilinochchi District were heavily damaged during the days controlled by the LTTE, and as they forcibly moved the people as human shields with the advance of Sri Lanka troops, in the latter stages of the battle to liberate the North from terrorism.
The families that are being resettled are given assistance through the following packages of aid depending on needs.
Non-food items
Set of kitchen utensils
Agricultural tool kits
Six months dry rations
Initial payment of Rs.5,000
Shelter grant of Rs.25,000
Roofing sheets
Land preparation cost of Rs.4,000 per acre
Provision of seed paddy, fertilizer
Provision of transport facilities
Contributions have come from United States High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), World Food Programme (WFP) and the Government of India. All other assistance is from the Government of Sri Lanka.
The next stage of resettlement will commence no sooner the required areas are completely cleared of landmines and after representatives of the IDPs to be resettled, visit such locations and agree to re-locate to such places. It is emphasized that all re-locations are carried out on the voluntary agreement of the persons to be re-located.
President Mahinda Rajapaksa in a message to the families being resettled states; "That period of immense tragedy is now over, as are the temporary hardships you faced as internally displaced persons. You are moving on to a new life, in the company of family and friends. You will find new and welcome challenges of the future. My Government has done much to make your new life most acceptable to you, providing the needs for a quality of life to enhance your dignity as a person.
The most cherished asset you have today are your children, who you have sheltered as best as you could. This is the time to ensure that your children are guided by you to benefit from the new facilities that are being provided for them and ensure that they are never again allowed to be misled by false prophets or saviours. Together you can build a new life and look to benefit from the many opportunities that will be available in the tranquility of peace and friendship".

Boats carrying asylum seekers did not originate here’Wants possible link between three groups detained in Indonesia and Australia probed

by Shamindra Ferdinando
The government yesterday said that the Tamil Diaspora was making a fresh attempt to undermine Sri Lanka by organising large scale human smuggling operations targeting developed countries, particularly Australia and Canada.
Ministerial sources told The Island that this was being done in support of their strategy to emphasise that Tamil speaking people were not safe in Sri Lanka though the LTTE had been militarily crushed. LTTE front organisations had already claimed that people were fleeing the country, especially Army-run detention camps in northern Sri Lanka fearing for their lives.
An authoritative military official told The Island that none of the three vessels carrying Sri Lankan Tamils, which had been intercepted by the Canadians and Indonesians on high seas during the past fortnight, originated in Sri Lanka. He asserted that people now in Indonesian custody had boarded vessels either in Malaysia or Indonesia. Investigators had to establish where the rusty-ocean-going vessel ‘Ocean Lady’, which was intercepted by the Canadians off Vancouver Island, picked up the human cargo.
Responding to our queries, he emphasised that the majority of 331 persons held by the Indonesians and 78 in Canadian custody could have left Sri Lanka months if not years ago.
A spokesperson for the Foreign Ministry told The Island on Thursday (October 22) that the Sri Lankan missions in Indonesia and Canada had not been given direct access to the detainees. The official emphasised that Sri Lankan authorities had to be given access to them eventually at least to establish their nationality and possible involvement with the LTTE. Sources said that people detained in Indonesia had said that they would not have anything to do with the Sri Lankan mission. An intelligence official said that perhaps the most important aspect of the investigation was to find out whether the groups intercepted by the Indonesians and Canadians knew each other or were involved with each other in any other way.
Sri Lankan officials said that the Tamil Diaspora was trying to involve the UN as part of their strategy to increase pressure on Sri Lanka. They said that officials of the U.N. high commissioner for refugees had been allowed to visit 76 Tamils.
Sources said that nothing could be as impractical as an attempt to determine whether detainees had any ties with the LTTE.
The situation had been further complicated by Australia’s efforts to prevent Sri Lankans reaching Down Under. Sources said that an Australian intelligence operation directed against asylum seekers could not have been successful without Australia and Indonesia cooperating on this particular issue.
Australia recently ruled out the possibility of accepting any of the asylum seekers while reaching an understanding with Indonesia to have 78 asylum seekers land at an Indonesian port. Sri Lankan sources pointed out that Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd meeting with Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono in Jakarta a few days ago revealed Australia’s determination to keep detainees away.
Diplomatic sources said that the Australian government was under Opposition fire over its handling of the issue of asylum seekers. Sources said that the government had been accused of encouraging asylum seekers by adopting a liberal approach.
Referring to a recent statement attributed to Malaysian Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak that if the Sri Lankan government assured Tamils that they could integrate in the country’s development, the possibility of their becoming boat people would be reduced, sources said that nothing could be misleading than this statement.

Another boatload intercepted
The Australian Navy on Thursday (October 23) intercepted a boatload of Sri Lankan Tamils in Australian waters. Sri Lankan officials said that Australia would have to take tougher action to discourage bogus asylum seekers. They said that the boat carrying 32 persons had managed to get within 13km of Christmas Island though Australia thwarted two recent attempts with Indonesia’s help.

Sri Lankan detainees refusing food until UNHCR visits them

PONTIAN: At least six Sri Lankans, including a woman, are believed to have gone on a hunger strike for more than a week at the Pekan Nenas immigration detention centre.
The detainees were among 108 Sri Lankans placed in the centre after they were detained for being without proper documents at a hotel here last month.
Persatuan Persahabatan Sempa- ruthi, a Johor-based non-government organisation, had been in touch with the detainees on hunger strike.
The organisation’s coodinator, E. Silvarajah, 60, said those on hunger strike were determined to refuse food until officials from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) visited them to determine their status.
He added that those on hunger strike claimed they had documents from the UNHCR after they left Sri Lanka due to the fighting over there.
UNHCR external relations officer Yante Ismail said the case was under investigation.
“We are also working closely with the Malaysian authorities for the release of the Sri Lankan asylum-seekers and refugees there.
“We are currently finalising certain administrative details before the release can be secured,” she said.
Meanwhile, Suhakam commissioner Datuk N. Siva Subrama- niam said the latest incident involving Sri Lankans on hunger strike was gaining a lot of attention overseas especially on human rights issues.
“The Government should avoid unnecessary attention and release those with UNHCR cards as a gesture of good will,” he said, hoping that the Home Minister would look into the problem.

Boatload of 32 Lankans intercepted off Australia

A boatload of Sri Lankan asylum seekers came within 13km of Christmas Island in an old boat overnight before being spotted by an RAAF plane and delivered to the island's detention facilities at first light.
The 32 men, the 35th vessel to be intercepted his year, are believed to have skippered themselves all the way from Sri Lanka aboard a wooden boat. They were intercepted by HMAS Armidale at about 6.30am AEST (2.30am local time) and led to Flyish Fish Cove.
Customs brought the men ashore in life jackets between 11.20am and 12.20pm AEST.
The men waved and smiled as they were taken by bus to immigration detention for health and ecurity checks.
Their arrival bring the number of people in immigration detention on the island to 1090. (The Australian)

Sri Lankans among illegal immigrants detained in Turkey

Turkish security forces have arrested 135 illegal immigrants, including Sri Lankans in separate operations in the western Turkish Aydin province and the southwestern province of Antalya as they were attempting to cross Turkish borders with Europe.
The detained immigrants came from Afghanistan, Iran, Myanmar, Pakistan, Palestine, Somalia and Sri Lanka. They will be deported from the country once the legal proceedings are completed, according to a report released by the state-run Anatolian news agency.
A recent report issued by the Istanbul Chamber of Commerce (ITO) shows that there are more than 1 million illegal immigrants in Turkey. It adds that over 300,000 illegal immigrants enter Turkey per annum.
The report also states that the illegal immigrants in Turkey come from 163 different countries. While half of the illegal immigrants work as servants or babysitters, many choose to work as sex workers, construction workers, waiters or cooks. (Press TV)

Insecurity, jobs drive Sri Lanka's boat people

AFP – Sri Lankan fishing boats in the water in a harbour at Beruwela in southern Sri Lanka. Fishing boats have …
by Amal Jayasinghe Amal Jayasinghe – Thu Oct 22, 1:33 am ET
COLOMBO (AFP) – Fear of persecution and a lack of jobs at home are driving thousands of Sri Lankans to risk perilous boat rides to developed countries, according to officials and politicians.
Two separate boats carrying a total of over 300 illegal immigrants believed to be members of Sri Lanka's minority Tamil community were detained last week, apparently headed for Australia and Canada.
A sizeable number of Tamils, who are often treated with suspicion by the military and civilian authorities here, try to seek asylum in Western capitals.
Those who fail and are sent home often resort to paying up to 40,000 dollars to people smugglers to get them back overseas.
"Most Tamils want to leave the country because they do not feel safe here," said pro-government Tamil politician Dharmalingam Sithadthan. "But there are also a lot of others who leave for economic reasons.
"With the kind of money they pay agents, they can easily start a small business here," he said. "But they would rather sell all their jewellery and property to raise money to go abroad."
An opposition Tamil politician and human rights activist, Mano Ganeshan, said Tamils still lived in fear following the final defeat in May of Tamil Tiger separatists who had been fighting a decades-old armed insurgency.
He said the military detention of some 250,000 Tamils who survived the final phase of fighting had heightened fears among the minority community in this Sinhalese-majority country.
"Some of those who are escaping in boats may be those who managed to get out of the detention camps," Ganeshan said. "Tamils feel vulnerable even after the end of the war. That is why they want to get out of the country."
Favoured destinations include Australia and Canada which have large Tamil communities.
Five years ago, Sri Lanka became something of a regional hub for people smuggling after the government extended a visas-on-arrival policy to South Asian nationals.
Thousands of men from Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Pakistan came here looking for fishing trawlers that offered illegal access to Europe and Australia for 1,500 to 3,000 dollars a head.
At that time, as well as Tamils, Sinhalese economic migrants seeking better jobs were also willing to gamble everything on the chance of a new life overseas.
But the smuggling operations dropped off sharply when the Sri Lankan navy stepped up its coastal surveillance after government forces resumed fighting the Tamil rebels from 2006.
Nowadays, most illegal migrants from Sri Lanka start their journey by flying to Singapore and then crossing into Malaysia or Thailand where the precarious boat voyage begins.
Sri Lanka's navy maintained that neither of the vessels stopped last week had originated from here.
"We have a fairly good system of surveillance and we can confirm that neither of these two vessels set off from Sri Lanka," spokesman Captain D.K.P. Dassanayake told AFP.

Australia denies 'terrorists' on asylum boats
– Sri Lankan asylum-seekers look out from their boat in Serang, Indonesia, on October 16. Australia's …
Thu Oct 22, 3:10 am ET
SYDNEY (AFP) – Australia's Prime Minister Kevin Rudd Thursday angrily denied extremists were among hundreds of asylum-seekers arriving in the country, as another two boats were stopped off the northern coast.
Rudd demanded that opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull withdraw support for renegade backbencher Wilson Tuckey, who said there were "narrow odds" some of the rickety vessels harboured terrorists.
"I think these are deeply divisive, disgusting remarks and they do not belong in any mainstream Australian political party," Rudd said.
"I think Mr Turnbull should show some leadership, and withdraw his support for Mr Tuckey's pre-selection as a Liberal candidate for the next election."
Turnbull accused the prime minister of trying to draw attention away from the steep rise in asylum-seekers, which has reignited Australia's bitter immigration debate.
"The prime minister, in an outburst of contrived indignation, seeks to distract attention from the comprehensive failure of his border protection policies," the opposition leader said.
Border guards stopped another two boats carrying 56 people, taking the number to some 35 vessels this year mostly carrying people fleeing hotspots like Sri Lanka and Afghanistan.
"If you wanted to get into Australia and you have bad intentions, what do you do?" Tuckey said on Thursday.
"You insert yourself in a crowd of 100 for which there is great sympathy for the other 99."
Australia also denied offering Indonesia cash incentives for stopping migrants, and played down reports a people-smuggling vessel was deliberately sabotaged to force a rescue by the Australian navy.
Foreign Minister Stephen Smith said Australia was making a "considerable contribution" to fight human trafficking in neighbouring Indonesia, a major migrant staging post.
But he said a new framework agreement thrashed out by Rudd and Indonesia's President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono did not involve "bounty" payments.
"I don't think we should categorise that as, in any way, a per diem or a bounty or any such pejorative terms," Smith told public radio.
Peter Woolcott, Australia's special ambassador on the issue, said costs would be discussed as part of the new agreement, but denied Indonesia was seeking handouts.
"There's no price per head," Woolcott told a Senate committee.
"We haven't actually sat down with the Indonesians yet to negotiate what this framework will look like, what forms our support will take, but I'm not aware of any consideration being given to a price per head."
Indonesia this week agreed to take 78 asylum-seekers on humanitarian grounds after the group ran into trouble off Sumatra island and were rescued by Australia's navy.
Unnamed sources told The Australian newspaper that people on the boat deliberately bored holes into the vessel, forcing the navy to take them on board.
"I'm not leaping to conclusions, I'm not making any judgment and I don't think other people should," Smith told public radio.
The latest developments come just days after some 255 asylum-seekers threatened to blow up their boat and went on a brief hunger-strike after being stopped in Indonesia en route to Australia

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.

IOM, police establish Database to counter Human Trafficking

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) together with the Sri Lanka Police Department has created a database to combat human trafficking.
The database, hosted at the Criminal Records Division, will not only house relevant statistical data but will also be used to update information on trafficking cases progressively, thus helping to track cases and identify similar trends and persons involved in these offences.
“Human trafficking is an issue of growing concern worldwide and more so as of late in Sri Lanka”, says Anuradhi Navaratnam, Programme Manager of IOM Sri Lanka’s Counter Trafficking Unit. “There is a considerable gap in data related to identified and prosecuted cases of human trafficking and it is this gap we are trying to bridge through the development of the database,” adds Anuradhi.
The database is a comprehensive and central data collection system which could capture human trafficking offences and also assist law enforcement officers to track and prosecute these cases.
Plans are also underway to link the database with other relevant government bodies dealing with cases of human trafficking. “By doing so we hope to bring together all partners and stakeholders to collaborate in combating human trafficking,” says Anuradhi.
The Sri Lanka Rs. 5.7 million project, funded by the British High Commission, is an integral component of IOM Sri Lanka’s Migration Management assistance portfolio through which IOM supports national initiatives that aim at strengthening the capacity of government and other stakeholders to manage migration more effectively.

Canada gets tough with Lankan asylum seekers

Canada's Immigration Minister has signaled that he intends to play hardball with 76 men believed to be from Sri Lanka who arrived on a rusty boat off Canada's West Coast, as the government battles the perception of Canada as a soft touch for asylum seekers.
While Tamil Canadians have urged Canadian officials to show compassion, Immigration Minister Jason Kenney told The Globe and Mail that that the migrants' illegal arrival highlights the growing problem of human smuggling.
The Conservative government has said it believes many refugee claims are bogus and has promised tougher legislation.
“We don't want to develop a reputation of having a two-tier immigration system – one tier for legal, law-abiding immigrants who patiently wait to come to the country, and a second tier who seek to come through the back door, typically through the asylum system,” Mr. Kenney said in an interview.
“We need to do a much better job of shutting the back door of immigration for those who seek to abuse that asylum system.”
The plight of the men, who are expected to make refugee claims, will likely move to an Immigration and Refugee Board hearing room.
Under Canadian immigration law, an asylum seeker who is held in custody must be given a detention hearing within 48 hours of being taken into custody. The migrants were led off the boat in handcuffs late Saturday night.
Their arrival has galvanized Canada's huge Tamil community, which dispatched two of its members to the West Coast. Toronto lawyer Gary Anandasangaree showed up at the Canada Border Services Agency's Vancouver offices Monday asking to meet with the migrants, but was refused.
He and David Poopalapillai took a red-eye flight to Vancouver early Monday. They believe the migrants are young Tamils desperate to leave Sri Lanka.
“For many people, Sri Lanka is no longer safe,” Mr. Anandasangaree said. He said he will try again Tuesday to meet with the migrants, who were taken from Vancouver Island to a suburban Vancouver detention centre.
(The Globe and Mail)

Promise of resettlement not kept’

The Sri Lankan government's recent statements that it aims to return only 100,000 of the original 273,000 displaced civilians confined to camps by the end of 2009 breaks a promise to camp residents and the international community, the New York based Human Rights Watch said yesterday.
A statement by the HRW said that in May, the government announced that 80 percent of the displaced people would be able to return home by the end of the year. Since the end of the fighting in May, the government has released or returned fewer than 27,000 people, leaving about 245,000 civilians in the camps.
"Enough is enough," said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. "It is well past time to release civilians detained in the camps. Sri Lanka's international friends should tell the government that they will not accept any more broken promises." The Sri Lankan government has used its promises of rapid return (usually called "resettlement" by the government) to stave off international criticism over its treatment of ethnic Tamil civilians displaced by war. The displaced Tamils have been held in detention camps, which the government euphemistically calls "welfare centers," where they are deprived of their liberty and freedom of movement, in violation of international law. Human Rights Watch has repeatedly called for all civilians in the camps to be allowed to leave, even if security conditions do not permit them to return home immediately. Most could live with relatives or host families. Those who have nowhere to go could choose to stay in the camps, but this should be voluntary. For those who stay, conditions would be improved because the camps would be less crowded. The United Nations, the United States, the European Union, and India have all called on the government to release civilians detained in camps as soon as possible.
According to the UN, the government had returned only 13,502 displaced persons to their place of origin and released another 13,336 to host families and elders' homes as of October 9. The media reported that on October 14, the Sri Lankan government promised a delegation of local parliamentarians from India that it will release 58,000 internally displaced persons from camps in the next two weeks. "The Sri Lankan government is playing games with the lives and hopes of those displaced by the country's armed conflict," said Adams. "Its failure to address the genuine grievances of the Tamil community is disastrous for the country."
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Lankan asylum seekers placed under detention in Canada

VANCOUVER -- Canada's Immigration Review Board member Leeann King has ordered the continued detention of 76 Sri Lankan men found on a boat off the coast of Vancouver Island.
The order followed a report by a representative for Canada's immingration minister who said they haven't had time to complete their examination of the migrants and details around their arrival here are sketchy.
"I'm satisfied if they were released at this current time with no alternatives to detention they would have no motivation to appear for further examination in the minister's timeframe," King said Tuesday.
King also ruled Tuesday the detention hearings for two of 76 Sri Lankan migrants who arrived in B.C. by boat will be open to the public.
However, she has ordered a publication ban on any information that may identify the men or their families. The two men are asserting a refugee claim in Canada.
The media was only allowed to hear this detention review. It will have to apply to have the hearings for the other 74 migrants open to the public.
Lawyers representing the two Sri Lankan men detained by Canada Border Services had opposed a media request to open the detention hearings to the public, saying their clients fear their families will be tortured or killed if they are identified.
Immigration lawyer Larry Smeets said while he supports the media request in principle, he must oppose it. One of his clients has already had family members killed and is worried more retribution will occur, he said.
He argued his clients are worried their life, liberty and security are at risk if the hearings are open.
"In our view private proceedings are necessary," he said.
"One of these men is really concerned his life, liberty and security will be endangered."
But King said the privacy issue could be addressed by issuing a publication ban.
The two men are among 76 asylum-seekers, believed to be from Sri Lanka, taken into custody by the Canada Border Services Agency, after their ship, Ocean Lady, was apprehended off Vancouver Island on Friday.
Four media outlets applied to open to the public the 48-hour detention hearings for the 76 migrants, arguing a prohibition ban violates press freedom.
The application was heard in a teleconference.
The hearing will continue Wednesday.
Also Tuesday, Immigration Minister Jason Kenney signalled there should be no rush to unconditionally embrace as refugees the 76 migrants.
Kenney said he views the case as one of human smuggling, something Canada and other countries must try to combat.
"We obviously don't want to encourage people to get into rickety boats, pay thousands of dollars, cross the oceans and come to Canada illegally," Kenney said Tuesday in an interview.
The Canadian Tamil Congress made a public plea Tuesday for fair and legal process for the 76 asylum-seekers.
The 76 men are believed to be Tamils from Sri Lanka, and are being held by the Canada Border Services Agency while they await reviews and hearings.
"These people have not had full access to legal counsel," said Gary Anandasangaree, a Toronto-based lawyer working for the CTC.
"They should have access to fair process."
Anandasangaree said he has not been able to see or speak to any of the 76 men, but he provided a bleak description of the conditions in Sri Lanka from which he believes the men are trying to escape. He described jail-like camps where 300,000 Tamils are held in close quarters, some without access to clean water or proper meals. He said rape is a regular occurrence in the camps and flooding happens frequently during monsoon season.
"The conditions for Tamils have gone from bad to worse," he said.
"If these people go back [to Sri Lanka], they would most certainly face torture, if not death or disappearance."
Roy Ratnavel fled Sri Lanka 21 years ago, landing in Canada as a 19-year-old refugee with no money, barely any English in his vocabulary, and no family around him. He fled, he said, because he was persecuted for simply being a young Tamil male.
"I was put in jail for three months, only because I was 16 and a Tamil," he said.
Two days after arriving in Canada, his father was shot dead in front of his mother.
"I could have been next," he said.
Today, Ratnavel describes himself as a successful businessman.
Meanwhile, Sri Lankan refugees have one of the highest acceptance rates in Canada with 93 per cent of claims in the past nine months accepted.
Only 26 of the 804 claims finalized by Sri Lankan refugees between January and September were rejected, according to statistics from the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada.
From 2001 and 2008, between 72 per cent and 93 per cent of all Sri Lankan claims were accepted. (Vancouversun)

Assure Tamils integration in country's development- Malaysia

Malaysian Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak told reporters today that if the Sri Lankan government can assure that the Tamils in the island can integrate in the country's development, the possibility of them becoming boat people will be reduced, Bernama news agency reported.
The Prime Minister said it was learnt that the human trafficking activities had become rampant because of the handsome profit, as the traffickers would charge between US$15,000 and US$20,000 for each Sri Lankan who wanted to enter Australia.
"This is also linked to Sri Lanka's internal stability. If the Sri Lankan government can assure that the Tamils there can integrate in the country's development, the possibility of them becoming boat people will be reduced," he said.

Lankan asylum seekers to land at Indonesian port

Australia has reached an agreement with Indonesia to have 78 Sri Lankan Tamil asylum seekers land at an Indonesian port. Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono reached agreement during talks in Jakarta tonight, Foreign Minister Stephen Smith told the ABC's Lateline program.
"President Yudhoyono has advised that for humanitarian reasons and for safety at sea reasons, the Oceanic Viking will come to the port of Merak, where .... the 78 people on board will be put into temporary accommodation,'' he said.
"They will be put into temporary accommodation and they will be looked after until such timer as the international agencies have had an opportunity to interview and process them."
The group, which includes at least five women and five young children, was transferred to the Oceanic Viking after sending out a distress call in the Indonesian search and rescue zone.
Earlier today, and before the deal was struck, Acting Prime Minister Julia Gillard said the Government would follow the letter of the law in dealing with the 78.
"We will act in a way entirely consistent with our legal obligations,'' Ms Gillard said.
"We will follow the letter of the law.''
But Ms Gillard said it is the Government's preference for the group to be dealt with by Indonesia, having said their vessel was in Indonesia's area of responsibility when intercepted.
Mr Smith said the the agreement was "a very good humanitarian result''. "It is a very good example of co-operation between Australia and Indonesia and it's a very good example of Australia quite correctly discharging its humanitarian and safety at sea obligations, and that's been a very important part of this process,'' he said. (AFP)