(May 24, Sydney, Sri Lanka Guardian) Sri Lankan Australians, numbering some 150,000, are gravely concerned about suggestions from certain quarters to give temporary protection visas to Sri Lankan Tamils who claim to be refugees of the war that ended recently. Our political leaders better think twice before making a decision.
Internally displaced people (IDPs) in Sri Lanka
Sri Lankan government has categorically declared that all the war-affected citizens will be resettled in their villages within six months. If developed countries give a helping hand for this exercise, it could be completed earlier and more satisfactorily. After all, the Sri Lankan government has to look after not only the Tamil IDPs, but the many thousands of Singhalese and Muslim IDPs who fled the ethnic cleansing of the North and the East by the Tamil Tigers during the past 3 decades.
Helping Sri Lanka achieve the goal of resettling the IDPs would in turn help the developed countries in stemming the influx of “refugees” and “economic asylum seekers” from Sri Lanka.
Now that the war is over, the Sri Lankan government has clearly stated that there is no reason for any one to seek refugee status in a foreign country. The guns are silent; suicide bombers are dead or have surrendered, the security forces are returning to barracks, the people and the government of Sri Lanka are doing everything they can to help the IDPs, but some people in the developed world are trying to paint a picture of gloom and despair for reasons only they know or don’t know.
Role of the Tamil Diaspora in the 30 year civil war
The Tamil Tiger terrorists (also called Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam - LTTE) waged a war against successive democratically elected governments of Sri Lanka over a 30 year period. Their war was to establish a mono-ethnic dictatorial racist regime in the North and the East of the island. While its leader Velupillai Prabhakaran led the military campaign on the ground in Sri Lanka, it was the Tamil Diaspora that mainly contributed to the war through voluntary contributions and other types of fund-raising. Funds were generated largely through drug smuggling, racketeering, money laundering and other illegal means as well as extortions in the form of “protection money” from Tamil individuals and businesses. These are well documented in authoritative reports of national police forces and the Interpol.
Apart from fund raising, Tamil Diaspora has been active in lobbying internationally to thwart the Sri Lankan government from countering the terrorist activities of the Tamil Tigers. Their infiltration into political parties, media, the Church, human rights organisation are well known anecdotally and, with time, bound to be exposed.
The Tamil Diaspora in general, and the front organisations of the Tamil Tigers in particular, are some of the most secretive groups that exist in the developed world today. Its internal control systems are more sophisticated than that of the Mafia or the Triads. To date, no law enforcement agency in the West have been able to infiltrate into these organisations. The inability of the police to get any information on the acid throwers in Sydney is a case in point.
It is well established that had it not been for the Tamil Diaspora the war would not have lasted this long, or 70,000 lives lost as a result of it. It is the succour the Diaspora gave to the Tigers that enabled one of the most ruthless terrorist organisations in the world to continue this war for so long. A war that, apart from snuffing out the lives of thousands of ordinary men, women and children, took the lives of a former prime minister of India, Mr Rajiv Gandhi, a president of Sri Lanka, its ministers including the illustrious Oxford scholar Lakshman Kadiragamar (a Tamil) and Tamil peace activists like Harvard educated Tamil leader Dr Neelan Thiruchelvam.
In all of these crimes, the Tamil Diaspora, and those others that espoused their cause, have blood on their hands.
Future Tamil “Refugees” into the Developed Countries
The Tamil Diaspora has, through their media outlets, made it quite clear that they will continue their “struggle”. Last week, SBS TV broadcasted the ominous declaration of a notorious expatriate Tamil leader at a Canberra demonstration: “The battle is over, but the war will go on..” In a nutshell, it means that they will, in the future, fund and sustain another terrorist outfit like the Tamil Tigers. After all, it is not them who suffer the pains of the war; it is not their children who are abducted and made into child soldiers or suicide bombers; it is the poor Tamils of Sri Lanka who suffer because of the thirst of these expatriates for power and an ethnically pure “homeland” in Sri Lanka.
Any influx of Tamil “refugees”, under whatever immigration category, will not only enhance the strength of the Tamil Diaspora in Australia, but also those that will actively campaign to re-establish another terrorist outfit in Sri Lanka. As can be seen from the recent vicious attacks carried out by these “Tamil activists” on fellow Sri Lankans on the streets of Sydney and Melbourne, their campaign is sure to be extremely violent.
The truly affected Tamil people are mainly fishermen and farmers, the unsophisticated, non-English speaking rural folk who are eager to go back to their villages - not to Australia. However, the ones likely to meet the immigration requirements as a “Tamil refugee” would be the masquerading former members of the Tamil Tigers with forged documents and well rehearsed tall stories. For several decades, the Tamil Tigers have had a well established door-to-door people smuggling chain. It is complete with professional forgers and Tamil employees at the Australian High Commission at the Sri Lanka end and refugee activists and lawyers at the Australia end. Tamil Tigers actually had a monopoly in sending Tamil “refugees” to developed countries. Any “refugee” had to be one of their cadres, or one of their relatives who promised that they would repay the terrorists with fund raising and lobbying.
In promoting the idea of temporary protection visas, you are only encouraging and strengthening the external arm of the Tamil Tiger terrorists. It will only help establish another terror campaign in Sri Lanka and boost up the numbers and activities of the violent Tamil Tiger activists on Australian soil. More importantly, allowing self-declared and undeclared Tamil Tigers to set foot on Australian soil is tantamount to importing foreign terrorists.
As Mr. Asoka Subhawickrama says I can clearly agree on the issue regarding giving visa's to migrate to countries like Australia & others for many Tamils (Not all) are forged with assistance of LTTE. So they get visa's over persons genuinely trying to migrate...they will miss by few points. Those countries give refugee status for not genuinely refugees and those countries now face grate difficulties in handling processions. I believe those countries will learn lessons from Sri Lanka and migrated/refugee people of Sri Lankan origin.
why still on offensive?
EelamPolitics.com
This is absolutely right. Sri Lanka has nothing against tamils. It is against the LTTE, an extreme, ruthless and most vicious terrorist organisation that it had issues with and had to get rid of for the sake of the country's future. Now that this has been achieved every Sri Lankan can live in peace. The delay in resettling IDPs is because these people have to be screened, those who need to be rehabilitated following decades of brainwashing by LTTE have to be identified, areas have to be de-mined before resettling people etc. As we have seen in the London, Toronto and other cities including Sydney, Australia will be asking for more trouble if these opportunistic group of people are allowed to come in temporarily; you will never be able to get rid of them!
Thank you for your effort to describe the truth.Why sri lankan born intellectuals are so silent on explaining truth to the word about this Tamil Diaspora?
Thanks Asoka for the truth about "Refugees". We have enogh troubles bringing those LTTE sponsored Tamil "refugees" to Australia. Non stop demonstrations and recent violence are the examples we have. We do not need another Canada in Australia. If you need Tamil "Refugees" for Votes, bring 2 million Africans who realy need help and live in camps/ under trees and starving to death in any given time of the year. But these tamils in IDP camps will be well looked after and resettled when the time is right. And Sri Lanka wants those tamils to rebuild their country. If you realy want the tamil "refugees" for votes bring the whole lot here (arond 300,000) so that Sri Lankans do not have to bother anymore about IDPs and not need to listen to Western Media craps about the condtion of IDP camps. So either way Australia must take the right decision to help Sri Lanka and peace loving Australians, latter suggetion would be the preferred one!
Asoka we are with you. If Australia wants trouble they can import refugees. They already control some electorates in Sydney!
Australia and some other countries owe something to supporters of terrorists. They failed all their attempts to save the LTTE leaders. Now they can import more LTTE supporters in the guise of refugees and fund millions more to seek a re-emergence of terrorism in Sri Lanka.Let me remind you one thing.Some group of Tamils deperately need a separate country for Tamils. They failed in Sri Lanka.Australia and Canada has more land and more support for the cause. Think about it.
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