Mental stress takes its toll on Tamil refugees

Priests serving war refugees in northern Sri Lanka say they are concerned about the psychological impact on these people the longer they stay in their camps.
“They should be allowed to unite with their families,” said Father Emilianuspillai Santhiapillai, head of Vavuniya deanery.
A protracted stay in refugee camps could create “further psychological problems” for these people, said Father Santhiapillai, who schedules priests’ visits to these camps as well as to rehabiliation camps for former Tamil Tiger soldiers.
Although refugees are slowly returning to their villages one year after the civil war ended, about 60,000 people are still languishing in camps awaiting resettlement.
Bishops, priests and nuns minister to them by organizing Masses and lending a listening ear.
“Their only happiness is that the shellings and bombings have ceased,” said Oblate Father Celestine Mascringe, parish priest of St Anthony’s Church in Cheddikulam village. “They will be relieved if allowed to return to their villages after being displaced several times and being detained by the military.”
The priest visits Kathirgamar camp which has 8,000 refugees, more than 1,200 of whom are Catholics.
Refugees are grateful for the support.
Being able to share their stories with priests and nuns and obtaining information on the whereabouts of loved ones is healing, says Ramanathan Selladurai, 42, a father of four who is also caring for his 20-year-old amputee sister.
Six priests presently visit the camps in the mornings.
They give milk powder, soap, clothes and cash donated by Catholics in Mannar diocese. The military has also allowed Masses to be held on Fridays and Sundays.
Government officials say all refugees would be resettled by the end of August.

Only 2 Billion for resettlement but 201 Billion For defence: Indicator of the future Tamils can expect under Rajapakse regime

by Tisaranee Gunasekara

Our government has kept us in a perpetual state of fear - kept us in a continuous stampede of patriotic fervour - with the cry of grave national emergency. Always, there has been some terrible evil at home, or some monstrous foreign power that was going to gobble us up if we did not blindly rally behind it. - General Douglas MacArthur (Nation, 17.8.1957)

It defies reason. The year the war was at its most intense and critical, Sri Lankas defence allocation was Rs. 177 billion; but in the first year of peace Sri Lankas defence allocation increased by a massive Rs.24 billion to Rs. 201 billion. Normally, defence expenditure increases in times of war and decreases (or stabilises) once peace dawns. Sri Lanka has become the antithesis of this norm; in this surreal land, defence expenditure actually increases during peacetime.

This anomaly is sourced in the Rajapakse attitude to peace and nation-building which, in turn, flows naturally and logically from the Rajapakse attitude to war. Peace will not be consensual; it will not be achieved via reconciliation; nation-building will not be voluntary; there will be no attempts to win over the Tamils by addressing their developmental needs and political concerns. Instead peace will be achieved and nation building effected via force and compulsion.

The North and the Tamil areas of the East are treated as occupied territory, its people kept under control by a continuous and overwhelming display of force. Dominance rather than hegemony is the aim. Temporary army camps become permanent while new camps are built; in and around them, Buddhist edifices multiply, under state patronage. Tiger cemeteries, the last resting places of so many young Tamils, are razed to the ground and replaced with monuments to the victors. Every act is a reminder to the Hindu/Christian Tamils that they are but guests in a Sinhala Buddhist country, that they have no inalienable rights even in the land which had been their traditional homeland for centuries.

This policy of pacification requires the accordance of primacy to the military over civilian and to defence over resettlement. This prioritisation is symbolised in the relative allocations in the 2010 budget a whopping Rs.201 billion for defence and a paltry Rs. 2 billion for resettlement; the sum allocated for resettlement less than 1% of the sum allocated for defence. This stark statistic, in itself, is a sufficient indicator of the future Tamils can expect in a Rajapakse Sri Lanka.

The Sinhalese masses will not fare well either, economically or politically. This is evident in the low financial importance accorded to such key areas as education and health. Education (including higher education) is allocated a mere Rs.46 billion i.e. around 18% of defence expenditure. Health at an allocation of Rs.52 billion fares only a fraction better i.e. about 25% of defence expenditure. Thus the living conditions of a majority of Sinhalese are unlikely to improve, despite the ending of the war and the dawning of peace. How can there be a peace dividend in a country which spends more on defence in peacetime than it did during the war?

The Rajapakses would hope to offset this decline/stagnation in real living standards in the South by enhancing the feel good factor. The Sinhalese will have the doubtful felicity of feeling superior to their non-Sinhala brethren. They will have the dubious satisfaction of going to Nagadeepa, Jaffna or Trinco as members of the victorious race, basking in remembered glory, worshipping at the few old and many new Buddhist shrines, paying homage to the victory memorials.

They can feel proud that they have a leader who defies the world, who refuses to make concessions to the minorities. Whether these psychological factors can make up for the decline/stagnation in their actual living conditions (and for how long), only time can tell.

Namal Rajapakse is not a cricketer. Yet during the IIFA extravaganza, when the visiting Indian film stars engaged in a friendly contest with Lankan cricketers, young Rajapakse was included in the Lankan team, otherwise made up of professional cricketers and led by the national captain. His sole qualification was being the eldest son of the Lankan President, and according to some, the heir-apparent.

The inclusion of young Rajapakse on the Lankan side is a symbol of the present and an omen for the future. Increasingly, the only real qualification needed to get ahead in many a field, from politics to cricket, is to be a member or a faithful servitor of the Rajapakse Family. Intelligence and expertise, talent and hard work, commitment and seniority are beginning to matter less and less in Sri Lanka, as the tentacles of the voracious Rajapakse octopus reaches out to almost every aspect of Lankan life.

A regime based on a family is narrow-based, by definition. Such a regime needs an ideology which can win for it the support of the masses, a façade for its true parochial objectives and nepotistic deeds. Thus the Rajapakses have Sinhala supremacism. The Rajapakses strong psychological predilection for Sinhala supremacism is indubitable; its extremism and xenophobia fit in very well with the obscurantist outlook of this family of minor aristocrats, big fish in a small pond. Even so, had Sinhala supremacism not been a potential winner, the Rajapakses would not have embraced it, fully.

When Mahinda Rajapakse became the Presidential candidate of the ruling UPFA, conditions were ripe for Sinhala supremacism to recover from the strategic setback of 1987 and surge ahead. The obvious inability of the appeasement oriented peace process of Ranil Wickremesinghe to appease the LTTE and Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratungas failure to occupy the anti-Tiger, pro-devolution space, paved the way for the return of a different anti-Tigerism, which was also anti-devolution and anti-Tamil. The Sinhala supremacist lobby, numerically small but ideologically stringent and vocal, rallied round Rajapakse, forming the bedrock of his campaign. He, in turn, incorporated many of their positions into his manifesto, Mahinda Chinthanaya.

From an opportunistic point of view, the same point of view which motivated SWRD Bandaranaike to adopt Sinhala Only, this alliance between the Rajapakse Family and Sinhala supremacists made perfect sense. Both were on the margins, dreaming of and plotting to occupy the political centre. Alone, it was a feat beyond them. The Sinhala supremacists needed a leader who would rescue their extremist policies from political oblivion and bring them back on to centre stage; the Rajapakses needed a suitable façade for their project of familial rule, a platform capable of guaranteeing majority support. Bandaranaike, the cosmopolitan, the man who supported federalism early in his political career, would have had his moments of discomfiture with his Sinhala supremacist allies (he was eventually killed by a Buddhist monk).

But between the Rajapakses and Sinhala supremacists, there cannot but be near total ideological congruity. Rajapakse had always been on the anti-Tamil, anti-devolution side of the political divide; he was at the forefront of the opposition to any concessions to Tamils in the 1980s and was a leader of the anti-Indo-Lanka Accord/Provincial Council alliance between the SLFP and the JVP (interestingly he maintained a tactical silence on Wickremesinghes appeasement process until the UPFA returned to power in 2004). In 2004 his supporters (clearly with his approval) used race and religion to defeat the notion of a Lakshman Kadiragarmar premiership.

(With an anti-Tiger Tamil as the PM, Sri Lanka could have moved ahead, instead of moving back. The JVP, to its eternal credit, was strongly supportive of it and the SLFP would have fallen into line, if Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga did not give into the chandi malli tactics of the Rajapakses.) With this history, and with his innate parochialism, Rajapakse fits in well with his Sinhala supremacist allies who believe that Sri Lanka is a Sinhala country and all minorities are nothing but guests in it.

From the inception, Rajapakses anti-Tigerism was sourced in a Sinhala First position. As he said, having won the Presidency with Sinhala support, it was incumbent upon him to put Sinhala interests first, over and above minority concerns. This electoral consideration fitted in very well with the Rajapakse aim of concentrating as much power as possible in the hands of the Family. Devolution, like the 17th Amendment, would reduce rather than enhance presidential powers.

Furthermore, devolution would empower a community which had not and was not likely to support Rajapakse. Anti-devolution and the intrinsic Rajapakse disinclination to share power with anyone made a perfect fit. The alliance had worked to perfection, so far. The Rajapakses honoured their part of the bargain by defeating the LTTE, without making any concessions to the Tamils, while negating most of the concessions made to the minorities in the Indo-Lanka Accord. Now the Sinhala supremacist must back the Rajapakse moves to establish dynastic rule and provide it with patriotic cover.

Patriotism is the official creed of Rajapakse Sri Lanka, the sole measuring rod of what is acceptable and what is not; it draws the line of demarcation between a good citizen and a bad citizen. Tigers said Tamils are Tigers and damned any Tamil who did not support the Tigers as a traitor. Similarly, according to the new creed, Rajapakses are Sri Lanka, and anyone who opposes them is a real or a potential traitor to Sri Lanka. The fate of Sarath Fonseka, who, together with Mahinda and Gotabhaya Rajapakse, waged a victorious war against the LTTE, is symbolic of the potency and relevance of this new equation. With patriotism as creed, doubts and questioning are not permitted and anything other than unquestioning belief is seen as heresy. Periodically, government leaders talk about a resurgent Tiger threat, to keep Sinhala phobias alive, to justify the patriotic creed and the repressive, anti-democratic measures, which stem from it.

Take, for example, the latest outburst by Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapakse, in an interview with the BBCs Hard Talk. When told that former Army Commander Sarath Fonseka has expressed his willingness to give evidence before a war crimes tribunal, Rajapakse becomes incoherent with rage. He cant do that. He was the commander. Thats a treason. We will hang him if he do that&.. How can he betray the country? He is a liar, liar, liar, spluttered the Presidential sibling. His remarks capture the essence of Rajapakse rule - arbitrary and capricious, of the Family, by the Family and for the Family, a tyranny made palatable to the Sinhala majority via its role as the main purveyor of the new patriotic creed.

The debate on the most desirable and acceptable mode of devolution can wax and wane; the relative merits and demerits of the 13th Amendment or federalism can continue apace. In reality there will be no devolution; not even the full implementation of the 13th Amendment. Instead, with the proposed constitutional amendments, devolution will contract and become nothing more than provincial decentralisation. A patriotic government cannot act otherwise.

In actuality, as the latest budget figures indicate, Sri Lanka is on its way to become a national security state, a state in which every other area from popular wellbeing to democratic rights will be subservient to that nebulous term national security. Patriotism provides the ideological rationale for this transformation. Patriotism as creed justifies the use of extraordinary measures against anti-patriots, measures beyond not just democracy and justice, but also common human decency. Throughout history, religions have been used for such purposes. The new patriotism too will be used to justify the perpetuation of Rajapakse rule, at any cost, by any means.

The Sri Lankan government has threatened to execute Sarath Fonseka, the army commander who delivered victory over the Tamil Tigers, if he continues to

Watch the interview Click on the link below

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/hardtalk/8728180.stm

Commission Calls on Australia to Back Sri Lankan War Crimes Report

Media Release

Monday 24 May 2010

Brisbane’s Catholic Justice and Peace Commission has called on the Australian Government to support the recommendations of the International Crisis Group’s (ICG) report on possible war crimes in the last year of the Sri Lankan civil war which ended a year ago.

The ICG report says there is compelling evidence to suggest the Sri Lankan military intentionally shelled civilians, hospitals and humanitarian operations and that the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam (LTTE) intentionally shot civilians and caused them suffering.
It says that it has collected a compelling case to warrant an international inquiry into possible war crimes on both sides of the conflict.
The ICG has put together its report with the help of eyewitness reports, photographs, videos, satellite images, electronic communications and documentary evidence.
Apart from calling on the United Nations to undertake an international inquiry into possible war crimes during the last year of the conflict, the report makes recommendations for action to a number of countries including Australia.
Among these recommendations, the report calls for targeted sanctions such as the imposition of travel restrictions on Sri Lankan officials and their families.
The Justice and Peace Commission’s Executive Officer, Peter Arndt, said that the ICG report criticizes countries like Australia for turning a blind eye to the evidence of human rights violations during the conflict.
“It is important that those responsible for human rights violations be held accountable for their actions,” Mr Arndt said.
“Many governments like the Australian Government want to forget all about the dreadful things which were done both by the Sri Lankan military and the Tamil Tigers, but this is a grave injustice to the thousands of Tamil civilians who were killed and maimed in the conflict,” he said.
“There is no hope for political reconciliation and peace in Sri Lanka if those responsible for these injustices are not held accountable for them,” he said.

“Pope Paul VI and Pope John Paul II often said there is ‘no peace without justice’,” he said.
“In a petition with over two thousand signatures which we submitted to the Senate last year, we called for a credible investigation into human rights violations in Sri Lanka and we continue to urge the Australian Government to support this,” he said.
”If we believe in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, we must believe that the lives of the individual Tamil civilians who suffered at the hands of the Sri Lankan military and the Tamil Tigers mean something,” he said.
“They are the mothers and fathers and sons and daughters of human beings just like us and they deserve justice,” he said.
“We hope Catholics will read the ICG report and tell their local MP that they want Australia to take strong action for the sake of all those who have suffered in Sri Lanka,” he said.
For further information, please contact Peter Arndt on (07) 3336 9173 or 0409 265 476.

NB This release is issued with the approval of the Commission or its Executive under the provision of its Mandate which enables it to speak in its own right. The views expressed in it do not necessarily represent the views of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Brisbane.

Tipping Point? Palestinians and the Search for a New Strategy

INTERNATIONAL CRISIS GROUP - NEW REPORT

After almost two decades of unsuccessful U.S.-sponsored negotiations, Palestinians are re-evaluating their approach to peace.

Tipping Point? Palestinians and the Search for a New Strategy, the latest International Crisis Group background report, discusses why Palestinians, who are most in need of a resolution, balk at resuming negotiations; why, although President Obama appears willing to be engaged and confront Israel, Palestinians have denied him the chance to advance talks; and why, seventeen years after Oslo, the best that can be done is get the parties to talk indirectly. The answer is not that the PLO or its leadership have given up on talks and the two-state solution. They have invested too much for too long to shift course swiftly and radically. Rather, they seek to redress the power imbalance with Israel by pressing their case internationally, reinvigorating statebuilding, and encouraging a measure of popular resistance.

“Palestinians feel the Oslo process left Israel to decide whether and when to end the occupation”, says Senior Analyst Robert Blecher. “They are looking for ways to increase their leverage in talks”.

To many observers the shock has been President Abbas’s resistance to talks, a change for a leader who built his career around a negotiated two-state settlement. Despite U.S. pressure, he has demanded that Israel agree to a comprehensive settlement freeze and clear reference terms. Weakened, he has immediate motives for a hard line. But it would be wrong to see in his attitude mere personal frustration. Abbas is the restrained, belated expression of a more visceral popular disillusionment with the peace process as Palestinians have grown to know it. There is equal disillusionment with the U.S., a reflection not so much on the new administration as on historical experience with Washington.

The U.S. hopes to reverse this dynamic and show that its mediation still can succeed. Its immediate goal is to convene proximity talks, but over the horizon, it is considering when and how to present its own ideas for resolving the conflict. The atmosphere for such an initiative is inauspicious: Palestinians are divided, Israel has turned right, and an important segment of its population distrusts the U.S., both sides are more sceptical of peace, Washington’s Arab allies have lost authority and the region is more fragmented. U.S. credibility has taken a beating with Israel, the Palestinians, and the Arab states alike.

That argues not against presenting U.S. ideas but for doing so carefully, at the right moment. Before unveiling a proposal, the U.S. should take steps to maximise odds of success: repair strained relations with Israel without surrendering core principles; adopt a more flexible policy toward internal Palestinian reconciliation; and deepen engagement with Damascus and efforts to restart Syria-Israel negotiations so the peace proposed is truly comprehensive. It also should reach out to typically ignored constituencies whose reaction will be critical: Palestinian refugees, Israeli settlers and religious groups.

“To say conditions are not ripe for a U.S. initiative does not mean waiting for them to ripen. It means taking deliberate, sustained steps to make them so” says Robert Malley, Middle East and North Africa Program Director. “Putting out a U.S. vision should be neither the beginning nor end of the process, but the midpoint: the culmination of one energetic diplomatic effort, the launching pad of another”.


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The International Crisis Group (Crisis Group) is an independent, non-profit, non-governmental organisation covering some 60 crisis-affected countries and territories across four continents, working through field-based analysis and high-level advocacy to prevent and resolve deadly conflict.

Sri Lanka's war: time for accountability

Meenakshi Ganguly, 28 April 2010

The end of Sri Lanka’s post-war electoral cycle makes it even more important for the world to stand for justice over the country’s human-rights abuses, says Meenakshi Ganguly.
About the author
Meenakshi Ganguly is the South Asia researcher for Human Rights Watch.
Sri Lanka’s authorities have failed seriously to investigate the allegations of abuses committed during the first months of 2009 - the endgame of the twenty-six-year internal armed conflict with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). An approach based on semi-private polite persuasion, often referred to as the “Asian way of diplomacy”, has been unable to convince President Mahinda Rajapaksa and the Colombo government to respond to widespread international concern. What now needs to be done?

The Sri Lankan military’s final defeat of the Tamil Tigers in early 2009 was messy and bloody. The insurgents who had long fought for a separate Tamil state in the north and east of Sri Lanka had already been condemned both by the international community and human-rights organisations for widespread abuses. Now, in this last period of the war, Human Rights Watch research found that both the military and the LTTE had violated international humanitarian law, including abuses amounting to war crimes (see “Sri Lanka’s hollow victory”, 20 August 2009).

The history of efforts to ensure accountability for such violations is not promising. For example, a Sri Lankan presidential commission of inquiry was established in 2006 to investigate sixteen important human-rights cases that implicated both sides); this was supplemented by an oversight body - an “International Independent Group of Eminent Persons”, headed by India’s former chief justice PN Bhagwati and including the leading Japanese professor Yozo Yokota. But the eminent-persons group quit in disappointment in March 2008, after the presidential commission was subjected to government interference; the commission failed to finish its job, and President Rajapaksa has never made public even its limited findings.

The pattern has continued in 2009-10. Soon after the war ended, Mahinda Rajapaksa signed a joint communiqué with United Nations secretary-general Ban Ki-moon. This expressed Sri Lanka’s “strongest commitment to the promotion and protection of human rights, in keeping with international human rights standards and Sri Lanka’s international obligations”, and promised that “the government will take measures” to address allegations related to violations of international humanitarian and human-rights law.” Between the lines, it was clear that the Sri Lankan government wants the international community to trust it to address accountability issues without external intervention.

The bonds of law

The Sri Lankan president declared victory in the long war on 19 May 2009. Almost a year on, Colombo has done nothing to fulfil its promises, and there has still been no accountability for the actions undertaken in the war’s prolonged and destructive climax (see Luther Uthayakumaran, “Sri Lanka: after war, justice”, 21 May 2009). As a result, Ban Ki-moon announced on 5 March 2010 that the secretary-general had decided to establish a panel of experts to advise President Rajapaksa on accountability in Sri Lanka.

The Rajapaksa administration reacted with characteristic venom. Since the end of the long war, it had repeatedly insisted that - against overwhelming evidence to the contrary - there had been no violations by the armed forces. In the same spirit, it described the proposed panel as “intrusive” and “unwarranted”. Sri Lanka’s foreign minister Rohitha Bogollagama even warned that it “has the potential to dent or sour the excellent partnership” with the United Nations.

Sri Lanka also convinced a few of its allies to intervene on its behalf. The non-aligned movement’s ambassador and permanent representative to the UN in New York, Maged A Abdelaziz, sent a letter to Ban Ki-moon in March 2010 warning that he “strongly condemns selective targeting of individual countries, which it deems contrary to the founding principles of the movement and the United Nations charter.”

Such criticism is wholly unjustified. Ban’s initiative can in no way be considered interference in Sri Lanka’s domestic affairs. The panel’s mandate will be limited to advising Ban on next steps to facilitate accountability in Sri Lanka. As the secretary-general has said, it is well within his power to “ask such a body to furnish me with their advice.”

Furthermore, Sri Lanka is bound by international humanitarian law, according to which states are obligated to investigate allegations of war crimes committed by their citizens or on their territory and ensure that perpetrators are prosecuted. The Geneva conventions make clear that justice for war crimes is not solely a matter of a country’s “internal affairs”.

Asian way, western way, human way

In this situation, India and Japan - two Asian countries that can in principle influence Colombo - should support a United Nations initiative to examine options for accountability in Sri Lanka.

India has considerable influence with the Sri Lankan government. It has provided humanitarian relief and assistance for those displaced by the war, including the hundreds of thousands of people interned in military camps for months before their recent release. An Indian field-hospital provided emergency care to over 50,000 people harmed during the fighting or otherwise in need of medical assistance. India is also providing de-mining assistance, and has provided equipment to repair and rebuild homes.

Japan’s voice too carries influence. Its foreign minister Katsuya Okada said on 29 January 2010 that he “strongly expects [that] Sri Lanka will steadily and swiftly carry forward political processes for national reconciliation” and pledged to “support efforts by the government of Sri Lanka.” Japan has since provided Y36,664 million (around $390m) to Sri Lanka under its official development assistance (ODA) loan scheme to finance infrastructure projects, including building roads and water-supply facilities.

However, these large-scale building projects can contribute to long-term national reconciliation only if accompanied by a process of ensuring accountability for abuses that have inflicted deaths on thousands of civilians. For a long time, India and Japan have tried to engage with Sri Lanka, rightly pushing for reconciliation between its ethnic communities, government reform and the return home of those displaced by the armed conflict (see "Sri Lanka's displaced: the political vice", 8 April 2009). That process will be severely hampered if there is no accountability and the minority Tamils believe they are being treated as second-class citizens and a defeated population.

Both New Delhi and Tokyo often contend that their efforts at polite persuasion are more effective than the public condemnation they describe as the “western way”. There is a time and place for private diplomacy, but for years now the Sri Lankan government has ignored such behind-the-scenes advice. In any case, private diplomacy should never become an excuse for inaction in the face of grave human-rights violations. Ban Ki-moon’s panel of experts, although modest, could yet prove to be an important step toward accountability for wartime abuses in Sri Lanka. India and Japan should publicly and wholeheartedly support his initiative.

Pan Jordan OP

Email: panjordan@yahoo.com

Phone: 0415 461 620

"Blessed are the peacemakers, they shall be called Children of God"

Footprints In The Sands - Poem Fr Derrick Mendis SJ

Politics in Lanka is a dirty game
Sans sense of honesty, honour or shame.
On election-campaigns that squander millions,
When in power, make illicit billions.

Full of corruption, nepotism, crime,
They leave no footprints in the sands of time,
Self-seeking, self-serving, power-drunk quacks,
Cover up their crab-like, crooked tracks.

Parliament's pack of jokers, jerks,
Abuse their power for self and perks,
Goons and buffoons, men of straw,
Brazenly bend and break the law.

They promise us the sun and the moon.
Pledges broken or forgotten soon,
Barefaced, through their teeth they lie,
On hollow words can we rely?

They flagrantly flout every rule in the book,
To come into power by hook or by crook,
From one party to another they jump,
Kiss President's feet and lick his rump.

In sumptuous luxury they wine and dine,
Make ample hay while sun doth shine.
Of life's best things they have their fill,
The taxpayers have to foot the bill.

They trot the globe and have a ball,
In five-star hotel, shopping mall,
Lavishly splurge like duke or count,
On bankrupt Lanka's state account.

Their life is sweet, a bed of roses,
Gobbling Lanka's scarce resources,
Our so-called rulers, leading lights,
Are a bunch of social parasites.

Their hands are soiled, palms well greased,
Our people, rich and poor are fleeced,
Most of them to the core are rotten,
They flaunt and flash their wealth ill-gotten.

How could these robbers ever dare
Their numerous assets to declare?
An auditor's test they will not pass,
Many would end up behind bars.

Crime and corruption they cannot battle,
In their own cupboards many skeletons rattle.
A sincere statesman I fail to see
Among Sri Lanka 's powers-that-be.

Idolized heroes of yesterday,
Made traitors, villains of today..
Free-media muzzled, my country's bane.
Journalists, editors attacked and slain.

Many politicians are vermin, pests,
Who earn fast-bucks and feather their nests,
They leave no footprints in the sands of time,
But craftily cover up their tracks of crime.

Fr Derrick Mendis SJ

Colombo 4.

Send a message to our Prime Minister

Dear Friend,

It's hard to believe -- but a few days ago the Rudd Government announced a policy that many thought could only be dreamed up by John Howard himself. Australia has become the first country in the world to stop processing asylum-seeker applications from Afghanis & Sri Lankans fleeing persecution in their war-torn countries.

On the day of the Government's announcement, a young Sri Lankan teenager gave in to despair and attempted suicide, after languishing in detention for 11 months on Christmas Island. Today there's news of more desperation, with a hunger strike by 50 Sri Lankan and Afghan asylum seekers.

Can you take a stand against this frightening return to the dark days of refugees in custody? Tell Immigration Minister, Chris Evans, that Australians reject a return to this shameful past:

www.getup.org.au/campaign/peopleabovepolitics

The Government claims that circumstances are changing in Afghanistan and Sri Lanka, making them safer places to live.

The truth? We've been consulting with sources on the ground in these troubled and turbulent nations. Hazarras, an ethnic minority in Afghanistan, continue to be arbitrarily imprisoned and face violence and death, while in Sri Lanka even independent journalists are under threat and seeking escape.

Refugee opponents are busy sending hundreds of messages to our leaders urging a return to the 'Howard' style hard-line approach. Their messages are piling up on the desks of decision-makers. That's why we need to ensure that Chris Evans, the Minister for Immigration, is met with a pile of messages of support for a humane refugee policy so high that he literally can't see those sent by the forces of fear and intolerance.

Can you take a minute to send the Minister a message?

www.getup.org.au/campaign/peopleabovepolitics

While the Liberal Party drums up their election year rhetoric with hyperbole, the Government sticks with an old favorite - hypocrisy. We know the script. But what happens next?

Newcomers to Australia's shores face a very bleak future: indefinite detention or the prospect of being sent back to face violence and possible death. We must make no mistake - these policies will see a return to the dark days of 2004: suicides, hunger strikes and our nation's reputation in tatters.

Join other GetUp members in sending the Minister a powerful, timely message before things get further out of hand:

www.getup.org.au/campaign/peopleabovepolitics

The events of the last few days show that this Government needs a wake up call. In the past we've proven that our leaders will only ever soar as high as we demand -- and they'll fall as low as we allow. That's why, as voters, we must stand together and demand that we never go back to the dark days of the past.

With hope,
The Getup Team

P.S. This policy shift breaches a pre-election promise to process 90 percent of arrivals within 90 days and to not engage in 'indefinite detention'. But it's just the latest in their broken promises on refugees and asylum seekers. Take action here.

More arrivals inevitable: People smugglers might take advantage, but we have a responsibility to refugees.

The National Times, March 25, 2010


TWO facts help put in context Australia's biggest immigration challenge - the arrival of asylum seekers by boat. Fact one: right now, the number of boats bringing people to Australian waters to claim asylum is among the highest on record. In only three years since the mid-1970s - from 1999 to 2001 - have more people arrived on boats than in the past year. More than 60 boats arrived in 2009 carrying more than 2850 people, and another 25 carrying more than 1200 people have arrived this year.
Fact two: the only sustained period in which not one boat landed was from 1980 to 1988. Since then, the lowest level of boat arrivals occurred in the six years after the 2001 Tampa episode.
An obvious conclusion stems from the resurgent number of arrivals. Changes to the processing of asylum seekers by the federal government have encouraged people smugglers to step up their marketing and the inescapable result is that more people are attempting the journey to Australia.
The government denies that its policy changes are responsible for the increase, pointing instead to an increase in the so-called ‘push factors’ - conflicts driving people to flee, thus lifting the number of asylum seekers worldwide.
It is true that recent fighting in Sri Lanka and Afghanistan, especially, has swelled global refugee numbers. Yet the smugglers still must convince people to take the long passage to Australia. That means giving desperate people hope that they will be granted asylum, a responsibility Australia accepts under the international refugee convention.
The Howard government used its ‘Pacific solution’ to shirk this commitment by processing arrivals in third countries. Labor's decision to junk the policy was easily portrayed by smugglers as a chance to begin their trade again. There was nothing wrong with the decision to dismantle the Pacific solution; the old policy had damaged Australia's reputation and distorted national priorities. But it's foolish to pretend the policy could be abandoned without consequences.
Before the 2007 election, Labor was unwilling to acknowledge that a rise in people smuggling was the likely consequence of getting rid of the Pacific solution. This was despite a widespread community desire for the system to be scrapped. Labor had the chance to show political leadership and confront an unpalatable reality - that the goal of stopping all the boats is simply unrealistic.
Australians have a choice: accept that the country will remain a target for people smugglers, or abandon our international commitments.
This is where that second fact would have been useful back then. Labor might have explained that Australia cannot return to the 1980s and a long period of zero boat arrivals. Times have changed, radically.
We may not share land borders with any country, but we are not cut off from the world. The experience in the 1980s was very different, before what is often termed the ‘new wars’ of the modern era. Today, conflicts are usually within countries rather than between them; they occur when ethnic or religious divisions are deliberately stoked and civilians are targeted. That pushes ever more people from their homes - and encourages them to believe the false promises of smugglers.
Criminal smuggling syndicates are also more sophisticated and adept than in the past, and boats are only one manifestation of their activity. Smugglers are engaged in document fraud and move many of their clients on airlines. It's striking that in recent times no boats have travelled directly from Sri Lanka to Australia, despite the violence directed towards Sri Lanka's Tamil minority. Instead, smugglers have moved people to countries in south-east Asia and assembled them at points in Indonesia before attempting to reach Australia.
And while boat arrivals inflame passions, most asylum seekers arriving in Australia actually travel by plane. Well-established systems are in place at airports to deal with their claims, so the challenge is more easily managed.
But the boat arrivals to Australia remain - relative to the rest of the world - at very low levels. Spain and Italy must cope with tens of thousands of people arriving each year, as must the United States.
None of this is to suggest Australia should surrender control of its maritime border. Intercepting and disrupting the criminal smuggling networks is crucial - not least because of the great risk to people who attempt passage on overcrowded vessels in treacherous waters. But it's a question of setting realistic expectations. As long as political leaders pretend that it is possible to stop all the boats, we will suffer episodic outbreaks of fearmongering over spikes in irregular migration.
This also affects the way Australia engages with its neighbours. We waste enormous diplomatic capital in the region each time the asylum-seeker issue flares. When Tony Abbott spoke before Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's speech in Parliament this month, he said, ‘we have worked to end people smuggling before … and we can stop it again, provided it is done co-operatively’. It sounded to Indonesian ears like he was blaming Jakarta for the surge in arrivals. Of course, his intention was to score a point off Kevin Rudd, but it shows just how badly this debate distorts Australia's interests.
Daniel Flitton is diplomatic editor.

Pastoral plan Published: 21 March 2010 By: Paul Dobbyn

Pastoral plan: Bishop Joseph Grech

CHRISTMAS Island's asylum seekers, many having fled traumatic situations in their home countries, will soon have more structured pastoral care from the Church.

Australian Catholic Bishops Conference delegate for refugee and migrant issues Bishop Joseph Grech said the Church was planning a more constant pastoral presence with a roster of priests for the immigration detention centre there.

The decision, made in response to increasing numbers of boat people being taken to the island, follows discussions between Perth archdiocese, which includes Christmas Island, and Catholic refugee assistance bodies including the Jesuit Refugee Service Australia.

Australian Catholic Migrant and Refugee Office director Scalabrinian Father Maurizio Pettena will soon be visiting the island to update information on pastoral needs there.

Late last year, the Institute of Sisters of Mercy of Australia formed a partnership with JRS Australia to provide pastoral services for asylum seekers at Christmas Island.

In a story on the Mercy Sisters' national website Mercy Sister Maureen Lohrey, who recently returned from a two-month placement on the island, spoke of hearing "terrible stories" from detainees who have come from many countries including Afghanistan, Burma, Iran, Iraq and Sri Lanka.

Missionaries of the Sacred Heart priest Fr Jim Carty is on the island having taken over from Perth priest Fr Armando Carandang who had spent five weeks there.

Bishop Grech said Fr Carty, who has more than 20 years' experience working with refugees, would be leaving Christmas Island the week after Easter.

An as yet unnamed Jesuit priest with extensive experience in pastoral care with refugees in detention situations will take over from Fr Carty.

"Obviously a more structured presence is needed to support the pastoral needs of the asylum seekers being detained on the island," Bishop Grech said.

"This is why a roster of priests is being arranged."

Recent reports have indicated that the immigration detention on Christmas Island has reached almost bursting point with the arrival earlier this month of the 24th asylum-seeker boat this year.

There are only 151 spare beds for a facility designed for 800 but now accommodating 2042 people. This year 1121 asylum seekers have arrived.

Numbers of Catholic asylum seekers are difficult to ascertain. However, two Masses are held each Sunday - one at the community centre is regularly attended by about 80 people and another at the detention centre draws about 35 worshippers.

Christmas Island's Catholic community is also providing pastoral support.

The priests' work is very well received by all on the island, including the authorities, Bishop Grech said.

"The presence of the Catholic Church is a true pastoral presence, not only to Catholics, but to all people regardless of their belief.

"People just come up and want to talk about their lives.

"Priests have an excellent opportunity to bring peace, harmony and social cohesion to a difficult situation.

"Some asylum seekers are getting impatient and talk of acts of defiance.

"(Father) Jim (Carty) has advised on several occasions this is not going to help and that patience is best."

Bishop Grech said the Australian Government had been very supportive of this "difficult pastoral mission" even as far as making available a seat on flights to the island several times.

Sr Lohrey, in the story on the Mercy Sisters' website, said she was frustrated by "the fear-mongering, sensationalism and negativity of some Australians about the number of asylum seekers arriving in the country by boat".

"We have no idea of their suffering," she said.

"All they want to do is get their families out and have a life. Their way to get to freedom and a life is unbelievable. You'd have to have nerve and courage beyond anything to attempt what these people have attempted."