British Colonialists and Sri Lankan Refugees

| by Gajalakshmi Paramasivam

( September 16, 2012, Melbourne, Sri Lanka Guardian) I write in response to the Sri Lanka Guardian article ‘Halt Deportation Flight to Sri Lanka’ by Mr. David Mepham, London director of Human Rights Watch.

Last night, I was informed directly from Sri Lanka, that the son of a family in the community with which we are working closely, has been stopped by the authorities from leaving Sri Lanka by boat. The parents of the boy are very distressed. This is not the first one from that area nor would it be the last one. Emigration has been a long standing habit of Sri Lankan Tamils. Now, we have more government level partnership in this activity. During my visit in July this year, the mother of a young mother from that same community was stressed due to her daughter being detained in the Middle-east.

Mr. David Mepham says in his article “In its haste to be tough on failed asylum seekers, the British government is turning a blind eye to compelling evidence that Tamils deported to Sri Lanka risk torture on arrival…... Given the serious risk of torture that Tamils returned from the UK may face, the British government should immediately impose a moratorium on returns pending a thorough review of relevant UK policy and the introduction of new risk assessment guidelines.”

I believe that we are all born with the ability to be independent – as individuals and/or as institutions and associations. It is the basic duty of every human to seek and find this freedom and having found it, to protect it to enrich wider society as well as future generation. Once it is realized, freedom cannot be ‘lost’.

The question in relation to Sri Lankan Refugees in the UK is – whether these asylum-seekers/refugees have the greater opportunity to realize freedom by remaining in the UK or whether the are more likely to realize freedom by returning to their natural habitats?

It is true that the risk of torture – mental and/or physical is a reality for any returnee under these circumstances. To those who take pride in their ventures, such pain happens more mentally than physically. There are many migrants of Sri Lankan origin here in Australia – who are suffering from depression and most of those are directly and/or indirectly war related. Refugee migrants often fail to share their failures with others and the ‘system’ often facilitates this ‘cover-up’.

Now that, the war in Sri Lanka is over, for ‘external’ purposes , most Western countries are tending to reject refugee applicants. That would be the way with those who made ‘business’ through the war. What this deportation says is that the British Tamil community is no longer seen as an attractive investment by the UK Government. It says also that British Tamils who link these refugees to the UK Public Administration, have let both their communities down. They are now less able than previously, to lead their communities to ‘freedom’ through the lessons learnt in the Sri Lankan war.

For its turn, the British Government is confirming that it still suffers from ‘colonial’ mentality and hence does not connect to the feelings of the British Tamil community when members of the Tamil community are deported. They made business through governance back then in Ceylon and that has now become a natural habit in foreign relations.

Mr. David Mepham narrates ‘In one case, a 32-year-old Tamil man from Jaffna was among 24 Tamils deported to Sri Lanka by the UK Border Agency on June 16, 2011, after his asylum claim was rejected. On return, he was questioned at the airport outside Colombo and subsequently picked up at the Omanthai checkpoint in northern Sri Lanka. The security forces then took him to police headquarters in Colombo, where he was interrogated about his activities in London and severely tortured. He told Human Rights Watch he was whipped with electric wires and suspended upside down and beaten with sand-filled plastic pipes and forced to sign a confession in Sinhala, a language he did not understand.’

During Iraq war, we learnt about such harshness by the American soldiers also. To the extent we criticized the Government of USA, we have the moral authority to criticize other Governments – including Sri Lankan Government. Beyond that our criticism must be towards disciplining ourselves as part of that community. To the extent Human Rights Watch feels part of the Sri Lankan community, it as the right to criticize the Government of Sri Lanka – as part of itself. As outsiders we need objective evidence to find fault with others.

Recently I helped a fellow member of the community, with the following analysis in relation to a workplace conflict:

1. Attitudes: It is argued that where there was knowledge that mutual Trust was lacking between me and my supervisor, it was the duty of my supervisor to assign me tasks the completion of which would be objectively measurable. It is argued that to the extent my Supervisor invested in me I had the moral obligation to return the value of that investment. It is argued also that to the extent my Supervisor honestly recognized and declared that there was an ethnic divide between us – my Supervisor had the responsibility to consciously override her urge to assess me subjectively – on the basis of perceived ‘attitudes’. It is argued that assessments based on ‘attitudes’ work well so long as one is included as ‘Common’/core part of the team. At this level one does not need evidence or proof but credits and debits are shared in common – for better or for worse.

2. Common Due Processes and Transparency: It is argued that given that I was NOT included in this Common Core circle of the Team, by my supervisor, I had the obligation to the organization at the next ‘outer’ level of classification to follow Due Processes. It is argued that this would have helped us strengthen the mind-connection but come with some separation and therefore independence to deliver milestones achieved.

3. Goals & Objective Measures: It is argued that once I was clearly blamed for not delivering the specified goal, I had the responsibility to expect that my performance be assessed on the basis of objective measures with no subjective influence at all. It is argued that the authority of subjective assessment by line manager comes with the responsibility for the supervisor to protect the supervised. Once the matter goes to higher/ outer level management without any ‘internal’ remedial action – it confirms that the supervisor was either not capable of ‘internal management’ on confidential basis or that the urge for the supervisor to get credit and/or reject blame came by blaming someone else – in this instance myself.

Tamils as a community have to develop their internal support system and not rely heavily on outsiders. To the extent they do – they have failed as migrants.