Sri Lanka News Updates with Discussions

other way...Canada will absorb the rest.

The only way for Sri Lanka to get out of this mess is to sign a peace agreement with Eezham and settle the border!

They came hoping to escape persecution, searching for a place to start anew. We remember the United Empire Loyalists fondly today but Brits loyal to the Crown fleeing the former American colonies were a pain to the governor of the day.

Today, they might not even get in.

If the same criteria were applied to the Loyalists today as, say, to a boatload of Tamils fleeing Sri Lanka and reportedly bound for Canada's west coast, Kingston may never have developed as it did.

Historian Larry Turner wrote in theLoyalist Gazettethat when the United Empire Loyalist refugees arrived in Quebec, Gov. Haldimand didn't know how to allow them into the region without causing big issues.

He had to figure out where to put them so they wouldn't bicker with the French, encroach upon the Natives or spy for the Americans.

Those are the same kind of fears we have today when people arrive as refugees, says a Queen's University law professor.

'We seem to have an aversion to people arriving by boat and we do our best to castigate them as security threats,' Sharryn Aiken said, adding that, as with the Loyalists, there is no reason to assume the Tamils reportedly on their way here have terrorist tendencies or are a threat.

'The vast majority of Tamils are not Tamil Tigers.'

The Tigers are a political and military group that has been fighting the majority Sinhalese for an independent homeland on the island of Sri Lanka since the 1970s. Canada considers the Tigers a terrorist organization.

In the wake of the American revolution, to neutralize whatever threat the Loyalist posed, Haldimand decided they should settle far from civilization -- on the Cataraqui River in the place where Kingston currently stands.

It's not that easy anymore and Aiken fears our first response too often is to find a way to exclude refugees. In the case of the Tamils, she wonders if the migrants aboard the MV Sun Sea were wealthier and able to travel by plane, they wouldn't be automatically suspected of terrorism.

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She said this isn't the first time Canadians have been eager to accuse seafaring migrants of terrorist tendencies.

'Within the last year there was a boat load (of refugees) who came to Canada off the west coast,' she said. 'There was a suggestion they were all Tigers and (now we find that) none of them have been made out to be Tigers or security threats.'

Aiken said the refugees may simply be trying to get to find refuge the only way they can.

'In many cases people fleeing conflicts have no choice but to get on a boat and head for a safe haven,' she said, explaining that the migrants should be given the benefit of the doubt for now because once they arrive the security screening they will undergo will be stringent. Interviewers are looking to establish is whether the individual poses a threat to Canada and whether the country of origin poses a threat to the individual.

Aiken said the first thing is to determine if the claimant is in danger at home and therefore a true refugee.

'Everybody who arrives in Canada will be subject to an examination at the border to find out why they're coming,' she said. 'If they say they're coming to claim asylum they'll be given an interview and security checks to determine if they're eligible to make a refugee claim.'

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The refugees who came to Canada as United Empire Loyalists were similarly seeking asylum. They had been persecuted for their beliefs and felt unsafe in their homes, meaning they would be considered true refugees to this day.

Michael Grass, who led the contingent to Kingston, wrote in the Kingston Gazette in 1811 that they left to find a safe haven.

'I pointed out to them the (site) of their future metropolis, and gained for persecuted principles a sanctuary for myself and followers,' he wrote, adding that before they arrived the land was complete wilderness.

If today's border laws had been in place when the Loyalists came from the U.S., Kingston may never have come into existence. Since the United States is considered to uphold reasonable human rights standards, Aiken said they are deemed a 'third safe country,' which means Canada does not accept American refugees except in very rare situations.

If an individual is ineligible to become a refugee, they could be admitted for another reason if, for instance, they had visas.

'I'm assuming none (of the Sea Sun passengers) have visas but we don't know because no one has met with them,' Aiken said.

'It's really important not to repeat rumours and gossip about who they (might be).'

Aiken said that many Tamils are classified as refugees because of the state of the country since a civil war ended there.

'Since the defeat of the Tamil Tigers in May of 2009 there has been an exodus of asylum seekers from Sri Lanka because there have been serious human right abuses,' she said, adding that the United Nations is also aware of the abuses going on and because of them, Tamils are often awarded refugee status.

'(In) the case of the 400 Tamils in Australia, 329 were accorded refugee status and many were alleged to have connections to Tigers,' she said.

'Asylum is there to provide protection.'

Ambra Dickie, speaking for Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada, was tight lipped on the government's stance.

She wrote in an an e-mail that 'Canada is aware of press reports suggesting that a vessel has departed South East Asian waters, and may be destined for Canada' but she could not say whether the government believes the passengers to be terrorists.

Canada is undergoing some particularly significant changes to its refugee system right now. After the The Balanced Refugee Reform Act received royal assent on June 29, the Canadian government put aside $540.7 million to help resettle new refugees over the next 12 to18 months.

Canada and other Western countries picked all the smart ones

we know the borders....nothing new...we love thugs...

A special investigations unit has been sent by the Army to assist the Diyathalawa military police who are carrying out investigations regarding a complaint by a woman army deserter alleging that she was raped by three police officers in Buttala.

Speaking to Daily Mirror online, Brigadier Major General UAB Medawela said that a special unit has been appointed but could not comment on progress made as investigations are still under way.

The former woman soldier who lodged the complaint was attached to the Gajaba Regiment and is a resident of Udugama in Galle. She had earlier claimed that she had visited the Buttala Police regarding a dispute with a lover when the incident took place.

It is alleged that instead of helping her, three police officers on duty including an Inspector had raped her and produced her two days later before Wellawaya Magistrate for deserting the army.

She was later handed over to the Military Police who recorded her complaint against the Buttala police. The police is also investigating her claims.

THE majority of Tamil asylum seekers are genuine refugees and claims they are radicals and terrorist sympathisers are a fiction being pushed by the Sri Lankan government, experts say.

The response comes after claims were aired that as many as half of the more than 1000 Tamil asylum seekers who have arrived in Australia since 2008 are either former Tamil Tigers or their supporters.

Terrorism expert at the Australian National University, Clive Williams, said most Tamils would, as a necessity, have contact with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), given the group ruled a large swath of northern Sri Lanka, but that did not make them potential terrorists.
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''It's one thing to be actually engaged in actually killing people and quite another to be simply living in the same area or maybe donating a bit of money because you're pressured to do so,'' Professor Williams said.

''If somebody had blood on their hands, then clearly I have reservations about them coming to Australia, but the chances are that about 99 per cent of the coming here don't have any association like that.''

The claims that between 25 and 50 per cent of Tamil asylum seekers were either terrorists or terrorist sympathisers were made by a postgraduate university student and defence analyst, Sergei DeSilva-Ranasinghe, in yesterday's Australian.

''You've got people here who've essentially been radicalised, who've fought and (may have) committed acts of terrorism, and they've come here without any sense of being rehabilitated,'' he said.

A representative of the Australian Tamil Congress, Dr Sam Pari, said Mr DeSilva-Ranasinghe's comments were part of a ''smear campaign''.

''The Sri Lankan government, now facing a potential war crimes investigation, has systemically sought to label Tamils as Tigers or potential terrorists in order to justify their collective punishment,'' she said.

Sources within the intelligence and law enforcement community also said Sri Lankans did not rank highly - in fact barely ranked at all - on the list of groups that posed a threat.

Who is more intelligent? Damed or Chennaigoo?

Can't decide..