Opinion

Australian Taxpayers Pay the Bill
By Dr. Dayanthi Bandara
I have been watching the events unfolding around illegal boatpeople from Sri Lanka with genuine consternation. A string of grossly misleading reports appeared in Australian media by those who naively believed the claims of the asylum seeking Tamils. Several politicians armed with the false accusations in those reports and pushed by the tirelessly campaigning pro-LTTE separatist Tamil constituents in their electorates went on to heavily criticise the democratically elected Sri Lankan government in the Australian federal parliament, making wild statements conducive to Tamil separatist claims. Australia has already granted asylum to some of the illegal migrants involved and the parliamentary debate on the subject continues. However, Australian public remain completely hoodwinked (inadvertently, I hope) by these journalists and politicians who feed on fabrications instead of facts. I would like to point out a few key facts that seemed to be ignored by most.
It is reported that around 90% of Sri Lankan Tamils have arrived here as Skilled Migrants. If such vast majority of some 53,000 Tamils in Australia have utilised the qualifications provided by the Sri Lankan governments (Sri Lanka has free primary to tertiary education and free birth to death healthcare for all citizens), how can Australians accept the claim by a small number of so-called “refugees” that there is systemic oppression of Tamils in Sri Lanka? Interestingly, many of the key propagandists of the LTTE (Tamil Tigers, an internationally banned terrorist group) operating in Australia have held prestigious high positions in Sri Lanka before, such as Attorney General, where they claim to have been oppressed.
Sri Lankan Tamils, about 2.5 million in total, are a migrant community from the Tamil Nadu state of India making a part of the estimated 20 million Tamils spread around the world (additional to the 60 million in their homeland Tamil Nadu). Though have never exceed 12% of Sri Lanka's population, they have been offered over 30% of places in the most coveted science streams in state-funded universities throughout the decades after independence in 1948. Prior to 1970s, elite minority Tamils who received preferential treatment with English education provided by the British (under their Divide and Rule policy) were grossly over-represented in higher education and government service. In contrast, the native Sinhalese who still make about 80% of the population in Sri Lanka, are reduced to 41% (from nearly 100% a couple of centuries ago) in Colombo, the biggest city and the commercial capital of the country. Whilst its Mayor is a minority Muslim and the Deputy Mayor is a minority Tamil, a large number of prominent Tamils are leading figures in the society. Particularly the business sector in Sri Lanka is dominated by Tamil and Muslim minorities and the latest rich list of Sri Lanka shows only 39% Sinhalese. Considering these facts, can anyone with an iota of sanity believe the LTTE claim of discrimination of minority Tamils by the Sinhalese majority?
Of course, generally the Sri Lankan system is dominated by the Sinhalese, which is only natural given that 80% of the population is Sinhalese. No one claims that Tamils in Sri Lanka have no problems. However, the myriad of problems arising from social inequality faced by millions of poor Sri Lankans regardless of race or religion. The difference with the Tamils is that their huge international propaganda campaign that spends millions of dollars is capable of making favourable headlines in the powerful Western societies.
The 294,000 Tamil civilians internally displaced by the last stage of the war(rescued from the Tamil Tigers who were utilising them as a human shield, to be more precise) in May this year, have been sheltered in temporary camps run by the Sri Lankan government ministries with the help of UNHCR and some 52 international NGOs. Only 130,000 remain in the camps after resettlement of those as of 10 November, though a figure of 300,000 is repeatedly quoted by Australian politicians. Despite the unsatisfactory initial conditions in overcrowded camps that incited some negative comments from visiting UN officials, they are reported to have improved dramatically over a short period of time. Those who criticise the Sri Lankan government from the luxury of affluent societies have failed to recognise the mammoth challenge faced by a poor country exhausted by a 33-year long war. Sri Lankan government spends over US$1 million each day to look after these Tamil refugees.
It is sad that most Australian journalists and politicians, while promoting the false claims of the LTTE lobby, have completely ignored the very positive reports by independent Tamil groups, such as the one headed by Dr. Noel Nadesan of Melbourne, and most notably, the Tamil Nadu government representatives who have visited the IDP camps. Moreover, a delegation of British MPs recently visited these camps reported that these camps are comparable to such camps elsewhere in the world. In fact, it appears that the conditions enjoyed by the occupants of these camps are better than that of some Aboriginal communities of Australia. Within six months, over 156,000 refugees have been resettled in their villages following removal of widespread landmines planted by the LTTE, and some 12,700 trained terrorist cadres of the LTTE have been identified for rehabilitation before being released into their communities –yet, there seems to be no recognition of these facts in Australia. It is important to note that none of those refugees have come on the illegal boats operated by people smugglers, reportedly by the LTTE. The real refugees simply do not have the financial capacity to pay thousands of dollars to get on a boat.
Over 100,000 Sinhalese and Muslim civilians driven out of the northern part of Sri Lanka by the LTTE also still remain refugees after many years without any assistance. Most of them live in makeshift huts erected by the roadside for over 10 years and hardly any foreigner talks about the plight of these victims of the war. Moreover, far more Sinhalese than Tamils have been killed by the Sri Lankan armed forces in controlling two Marxist armed insurgencies since 1971. Yet, we have not seen an exodus of Sinhalese or Muslims on illegal boats. The reason is, rather than any “push factors” within Sri Lanka, a strategic and highly organised racket by the LTTE is driving the Tamil people smuggling. For the LTTE, this puts the sea vessels previously used for arms smuggling into good use, and at the same time it enhances their political clout in Western democracies with more pro-LTTE Tamils planted in them. Free and widespread publicity gained by the boatpeople indeed is highly favourable to the LTTE who are now seeking to form a separate state for the Tamils using international political pressure on Sri Lanka. They are only encouraged by the soft and gullible Western societies offering the “pull factors”.
Let us for a moment assume all those factors I have presented above to show that there is no problem uniquely faced by Tamils in Sri Lanka are FALSE and the claims of persecution by the Tamil boatpeople are TRUE. If Tamils of Sri Lanka are running for their lives, is it not rather intriguing that they did not go to Tamil Nadu, their original homeland with 60 million Tamils just 22 miles away? The Tamil Nadu government has always welcomed any genuine Tamil refugees and recently even announced free tertiary education for refugees at Madras University. Is it not only natural for the Tamils, if they are so desperate, to seek re-settlement in the Tamil speaking society of Tamil Nadu (Tamil is the only official language there) which is culturally identical to their own in Sri Lanka, rather than travelling for thousands of miles in rough seas to reach a somewhat alien society in Australia? Interestingly, they did not want to consider any of the many Asian countries on the way to Australia either. Are these Tamils bona fide refugees or deceptive economic migrants? I ask the Australian public to decide.