The Bangkok-based human smugglers who have so far sent two shiploads of illegal migrants to Canada have been called “sophisticated” and “well organized.” But nobody ever said they were perfect.
Before the last ship, the MV Sun Sea, left Thailand in July carrying almost 500 Sri Lankan migrants, the smugglers made the passengers sign contracts that spelled out how much each owed for the journey to Canada.
The contracts were then mailed to Norway, ostensibly for safekeeping. They were, after all, valuable receipts. They were proof of millions worth of uncollected debts, not to mention highly sensitive.
The problem was, they were mailed to the wrong address.
According to newly released details of the case, the contracts — in which Sun Sea passengers pledged to pay the smugglers between $5,000 and $30,000 upon reaching Canada — were mislabelled and delivered to the wrong person.
The recipient handed them to Norwegian police, who passed them on to their Canadian counterparts. The gaffe has given Canadian officials a unique insight into the smugglers’ system of payment, which involved an up-front deposit of about $5,000 and a hefty debt that was to be paid off after arrival in Canada. It has also linked the smuggling operation to Norway.
The Norwegian connection and the blunder that brought it to light are described in a transcript of an Immigration and Refugee Board hearing held in Vancouver on April 7. A declassified copy of the transcript was recently released to the National Post.
“Now, these are a series of payment contracts signed by various individuals who ended up travelling on the MV Sun Sea,” Kenny Nicolaou, a Canada Border Services Agency representative, explained at the hearing.
“You can see the general tenor of the contract. Essentially it says, ‘I paid this much up front, depending on the situation, and I owe this much, who this family member in Canada pledges to pay on my behalf once I arrive.”
Mr. Nicolaou said the Sun Sea’s arrival in Canada was “the end result of a sophisticated, well organized, for profit human smuggling operation orchestrated by a network of agents in Sri Lanka, Thailand, Singapore and Malaysia.”
Boarding began in April 2010 and occurred in “continuing waves” until the ship sailed for Canada on July 5. An “intricate network of agents” organized the effort, he said. “It was well organized and it was designed to generate large sums of money.”
The Sun Sea arrived off the British Columbia coast last August carrying 492 Sri Lankan migrants who had contracted smugglers to ferry them from Thailand. All have made refugee claims. The Canadian government has spent more than $25-million so far dealing with the ship.
In all likelihood, Canadian authorities already knew about the Sun Sea by the time the contracts were intercepted. But the package would have given them advance notice about who was on board, how much they had paid and how much they still owed the smuggling syndicate.
The CBSA raised the Norwegian matter at the hearing of a Sun Sea migrant whom the government alleges was involved in the smuggling operation. The man’s lawyer downplayed the significance of the documents, saying “there is no credible evidence before the board to say that these are the contracts that the people on board the Sun Sea were a party to.”
The IRB has sealed all the exhibits related to the Sun Sea refugee cases.
The RCMP is investigating the suspected organizers of the Sun Sea and Ocean Lady, the ship that smuggled 76 Sri Lankan migrants to Canada in 2009. To date, the IRB has ruled that four of the Sun Sea migrants were members of the Tamil Tigers rebel group.
The intended recipient of the contracts was not identified in the transcript but Norway has a large Sri Lankan population and is the base of the Nediyavan faction of the Tamil Tigers. The head of the Nediyavan group, Perinpanayagam Sivaparam, was arrested in Olso last month.
Dutch police reportedly want to question him about an alleged Tamil Tigers fundraising network that has been extorting money from ethnic Tamils in the Netherlands. The Dutch authorities arrested seven suspects in April.
The European case is similar to the RCMP’s recent investigation of the World Tamil Movement, a Toronto-based rebel front group that raised millions to support the Tamil Tigers until the federal government banned it in 2008, shut it down and seized its assets.
National Post
sbell@nationalpost.com
Security issues may keep Tamils in detention
BY DOUGLAS QUAN, POSTMEDIA NEWS
VANCOUVER -- Ever since a shipload of Tamil migrants arrived in Canada on Aug. 13, the government has argued for their continued detention on the basis that their identities have not been verified.
But as a third round of detention hearings gets underway on Wednesday, lawyers for the migrants say they won't be surprised if the government starts making a new argument: that some of the migrants should be held because they pose a possible security threat.
If that happens, it'll bring a new level of complexity to the hearings, experts say, putting Immigration and Refugee Board adjudicators into the difficult position of having to weigh the migrants' rights to liberty with protecting the country.
"They're in a bit of a tough spot," said Gregory James, a Toronto-based immigration lawyer.
When the cargo ship MV Sun Sea arrived on B.C.'s coast last month with 492 men, women and children aboard, Public Safety Minister Vic Toews stated publicly that the ship included "suspected human smugglers and terrorists" belonging to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, a separatist group that battled the Sri Lankan government for 25 years and whose members are banned from entering Canada.
And Rohan Gunaratna, who has consulted for the Canadian government and is a professor at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore, was quoted widely in media reports saying the captain of the Sun Sea was a Tamil Tiger.
But so far, officials with the Canada Border Services Agency are keeping mum about what evidence, if any, they have to support those claims.
"The CBSA is exercising due diligence in the screening of all irregular migrants for both security and criminal threats. This is an ongoing investigation and the CBSA cannot comment at this time," said spokeswoman Esme Bailey in an e-mail.
One of the migrants' lawyers, Douglas Cannon, who says Toews' comments amounted to "fear mongering," says he is anxious to learn what the government knows.
"If you have evidence, come out with it," he said.
Larry Smeets, another migrant lawyer, says, based on Toews' remarks, he has warned his clients that they could remain in detention even after their identities have been verified.
"I expect that's what's going to happen," he said.
Last October, 76 Tamil migrants showed up on the B.C. coast aboard another vessel, the Ocean Lady. Official transcripts from the detention hearings of those migrants offer some insight into what could be in store for the current group of migrants.
Initially, the 76 migrants - all men - were held on the grounds that their identities still needed to be verified. But after a couple of weeks, the government started making the case that the migrants were potential security threats.
Government lawyers said traces of explosives had been found on the Ocean Lady and on the personal belongings of a few of the migrants.
They said the ship's name had been deliberately disguised and that its true name was the MV Princess Easwary.
They cited testimony from Gunaratna, who asserted that, based on information from a terrorism database he maintains and confidential sources, the ship was owned by the Tamil Tigers.
Immigration and Refugee Board adjudicators sided with the government in those early days, and agreed to continue holding the migrants on security grounds.
However, one adjudicator, Leeann King, acknowledged during one hearing that she had an "extremely difficult" time making her decision.
"This section of the (Immigration and Refugee Protection) Act was passed in the aftermath of September 11th, 2001, and has been seen very rarely by members of this division in this region," she said.
"I don't have much guidance."
But by December, adjudicators were starting to become impatient with the government and started ordering the releases of migrants.
In one particularly tense hearing, adjudicator Otto Nupponen said flatly that "there is nothing whatsoever" that would tie the migrant in question with the Tamil Tigers and that any further steps the government took to inquire into his background would likely amount to "a fishing expedition."
He raised questions about the credibility and impartiality of the government's witness, Gunaratna, pointing out that he had close ties to the Sri Lankan government and that he had even helped the president write his memoirs.
"There is more than just a slight basic apprehension of bias," Nupponen said.
On the discovery of trace amounts of explosives, Nupponen said the government could keep swabbing the ship, but "one once again needs to question what the purpose of that really would be and if there are further hits, what then? What is that supposed to mean?"
Government lawyers appealed to the Federal Court to stay the releases and even called for top-secret hearings so that they could share in more detail some of the security concerns they had with respect to 25 of the migrants.
But just as those hearings were set to begin in January, the government called off the hearings. Instead, it consented to the release of all the migrants under a host of conditions, including that the migrants report to Canada Border Services Agency officials on a weekly basis and that they not associate with members of any criminal organizations or anyone who supports foreign or domestic terrorism.
"Over time, the longer you keep someone in detention, the harder it is to justify," said James, the immigration lawyer.
Factbox:
The government can detain foreign nationals if it has reasonable grounds to believe they:
- are unlikely to appear for an examination, hearing or removal
- are a danger to the public
- are inadmissible for security reasons or for violating human or international rights
- have not established their identity
Refugees spark racism row
An opinion poll last month indicated that a majority of Canadians wanted the Tamils to be sent back.
"Why such rage directed at such a minuscule group?" asked columnist Stephen Hume in the Vancouver Sun. "Perhaps it's because they aren't white ... How we respond to a few Tamils seeking safety and a future for their children says far more about us than it does about them. And what it says so far is rather distasteful."
This provoked a furious reaction. "Gee, could it be that we are sick of being played for Patsies?" was one of the milder responses from readers. "You might sing a different song if your community was flooded with Hindus, Vietnamese, etc who brought such worthy skills with them as drive-by shootings, drug wars, murder of their own wives and daughters," read another.
Views from Canada
By EZRA LEVANT, QMI AGENCY
Great news: There is a country in Asia willing to take Sri Lankan Tamil refugees by the thousand — with the United Nations' seal of approval.
And they're already doing it. In the first six months of 2010, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees says the generous country accepted 1,857 Tamil refugees from Sri Lanka, who had been staying temporarily in India.
UN refugee spokesman Michael Zwack says these Tamils are now "rebuilding their lives." The UN quoted one Tamil refugee, a 39-year-old woman, who said she was pleased with her new home for a pretty good reason: "Peace."
So where is this wonderful place that Sri Lankan refugees are going to by the thousand?
Sri Lanka.
That's right. Thousands of Tamil refugees are returning to Sri Lanka — because it's safe. Within Sri Lanka itself, internal refugee camps for displaced Tamils are winding down, as Tamils go back home.
For example, the Menik Farm refugee camp in Sri Lanka once had 228,000 Tamils in it. It's down to less than 35,000 now, with 3,000 people going home every week.
It's an amazing success story, and it's because the 30-year civil war with the Tamil Tigers terrorist group is over. The terrorists lost. The war ended last spring. Everyone can go home.
Including the 492 gatecrashers who showed up on Vancouver Island last month.
This isn't Sri Lankan government propaganda. It's Tamil refugees telling the story, not with words but with deeds. They're leaving some of the friendliest places on earth to go home.
For example, the 1,857 refugees mentioned above had been staying in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. It's a huge state, with more than 66 million people, overwhelmingly Tamil, as its name implies. Even from that Tamil paradise, Tamil refugees are going home to Sri Lanka.
We already knew 71% of Tamil refugees in Canada go home to Sri Lanka for holidays, too, according to a survey done by Canadian immigration officials, and reported by QMI Agency.
Question: If thousands of Tamil refugees from around the world are going home to Sri Lanka, and 71% of Canadian Tamil refugees go back there for holidays, why are we still going through the motions with the 492 Tamils on Vancouver Island, as if they are legitimate? And why are more Tamil ships steaming our way?
That's easy. Criminal smugglers made an estimated $20 million profit from the voyage. Why wouldn't they keep doing it?
Canadian immigration lawyers love it. It's lucrative work — they're paid by legal aid. Which is another way of saying "paid by your taxes."
Politicians love it. With more than 200,000 Tamils living in Toronto, there are plenty of votes to be had by pandering.
And liberal, white journalists love it, because it's a chance to prove how sensitive they are, to polish their politically correct credentials.
That just leaves the rest of us — chumps paying the bills, and watching helplessly while 492 queue-jumpers butt in to the front of the line. Not just queue-jumpers, but queue-jumpers fleeing a "peaceful"place.
So are we going to change our laws to keep out these shysters, like Australia has done? Or is being the world's sucker the new Canadian identity?
Read Ezra Levant's blog @ ezralevant.com
Jason Kenney, the federal Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism
There are several of these [human smuggling] syndicates actually competing with each other for this business. They were involved in the arms trade in the Sri Lankan civil war, but since the cessation of hostilities have sought a new business line, a new commodity to smuggle, and that is human beings ... They are charging people on average about $50,000 to be smuggled to Canada in the most dangerous and worst way possible – in dangerous vessels that either have been decommissioned or should be. This poses a serious challenge to the integrity and fairness and public support for Canada’s immigration system and our refugee protection system in particular. Since the arrival of the last vessel, there’s been a very significant drop-off in the general public support for immigration, and public support for refugee protection in particular. That’s something we need to be responsive to. Our security partners in Australia, for example, tell me they believe the syndicates targeting Canada have the logistical capability to deliver several large steel-hold vessels a year, each with hundreds of passengers ... Imagine this happening every month or every other month. That would fundamentally undermine public confidence and support for Canada’s generous approach to immigration and refugee protection – which is one of the reasons we need to take action to deter the smuggling networks and disincentivize their potential customers from buying the package to come to Canada ...
The public is pretty clear in their condemnation of this ... They want an immigration system that’s characterized by the principle of the rule of law and fairness, and they see this as a violation of those principles. And that feeling is strongest among new Canadians, in all of our research.
Some 60 per cent of Canadians have said we should prevent the boats from entering our territorial waters in the first place – which implies the use of force and the risk to human life, and that’s a risk we are not prepared to assume.
Over 50 per cent of Canadians in polling have said that those from these vessels who are deemed to be bona fide refugees should be deported back to their country of origin ...
We have decided instead to produce a balanced package which recognizes and upholds our international and domestic legal obligations – the essential obligation under the UN conventions for refugees and torture is an obligation of non-refoulement – that is to say, if someone has a well-founded fear of persecution, a risk to their life, a risk of torture, you can’t send them back to the country that they fear. And the package we propose would not do so ...
I believe that these migrants have mixed motives for coming to Canada: some are primarily economic migrants, some may well be bona-fide refugees ... and some of them have a mix of economic and political reasons ... I should say contextually, that since the cessation of hostilities in Sri Lanka, some 100,000 Sri Lankan refugees living in Tamil Nadu, India, have since voluntarily returned to Sri Lanka. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has facilitated the voluntary return of many Sri Lankans living with temporary status in southeast Asian nations. The Canadian Border Services Agency has done a survey which indicated that a majority of successful Tamil asylum seekers in Canada have subsequently returned, at least for visits, to the country where they allegedly feared persecution ...
Source: Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada
dquan@canwest.com
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