| by Pearl Thevanayagam
(June 16, 2013 London, Sri Lanka Guardian) War was over four years ago. Tamils no longer have the need to seek asylum. But there is an unwritten rule among signatories to the 1951 UN Convention on Refugees they should not be deported back to Sri Lanka given its continuing abysmal record of torture and detention of deportees.
Yet, boatloads of Sinhalese mainly from Marawila and Batticaloa coasts are heading to the West seeking fresher pastures. And they are promptly taken to detention camps, reviewed by fast-track processing by the UK Border Agency in the UK and other immigration centres elsewhere.
Once called a paradise, Sri Lanka is now hell on earth on all fronts for even the majority Sinhalese. The guardians of the law have themselves become murderers and hooligans as is now exposed in that DIG (Deputy Inspector General) of Police Vass Gunawardene. More worms in the police force are coming out of the woodworks but they are under state protection and state complicity which makes the whole saga a conundrum.
The cabinet is riddled with tyrants, thugs and illiterate politicians and one would be hard-pressed to find a cabinet minister who can stand up to the allegations now gathering momentum at the UNHRC which would stop at nothing to bring the State accountable for war crimes.
Even former Vice Chancellor of Colombo University who was once held in high esteem – Foreign Minister Prof. G.L.Peiris - has descended to his lowest level fast losing his credibility and trumpeting the government’s propaganda of winning the war and painting over its war crimes with progress and economic development. He does not cut much ice with the international community his Rhodes Fellowship and camaraderie with Hilary Clinton notwithstanding.
If all is hunky-dory in Sri Lanka post-war, why are Sinhalese fleeing the country paying traffickers through loans obtained at high interest rates? Pity these hapless students who once reaching their port of destination have to toil 24/7 to pay back their lenders or face harassment and intimidation of their families back home. These loan sharks comprise VIP politicians, police higher-ups and businessmen close to the government.
Where once wherever you turn you heard a Tamil voice now it is Sinhala which you hear in the tube, city centres and restaurants. And they are mainly youth who arrived on bogus student visas.
It is not unusual for students to seek advice from immigration solicitors who could turn their student visas around to obtaining political asylum. But at least 100 Sri Lankans are languishing in detention camps throughout the UK awaiting deportation according to John O, a long time champion who fights on behalf of asylum seekers and refugees in the UK. Are our diplomatic missions aware of their plight?
Rajapaksa regime has not placated IMF or World Bank in the economic front if one was to go by Central Bank’s annual report and independent economists. War economy turned tail and placed the average Sri Lankan in a worst situation than when the regime took hold of the mantles in 2004.
Fleeing Sinhalese stand testimony to the fact that Sri Lanka is a failed state.
(The writer has been a journalist for 24 years and worked in national newspapers as sub-editor, news reporter and news editor. She was Colombo Correspondent for Times of India and has contributed to Wall Street Journal;where she was on work experience from The Graduate School of Journalism, UC Berkeley, California. Currently residing in UK she is also co-founder of EJN (Exiled Journalists Network) UK in 2005 the membership of which is 200 from 40 countries. She can be reached at pearltheva@hotmail.com)
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