The Sri Lankan government of Mahinda Rajapaksa has worked out how to get away with murder.
Sri Lanka
4 Corners Sri Lanka documentary provokes mixed response
Some local Sri Lankan communities are claiming last night’s airing of Channel 4’s highly graphic documentary “Sri Lankas Killing Fields” on 4 Corners provides an opportunity for a renewed conversation despite a highly varied response.
Slide night: baby elephants take a bath
Opened in 1975, Pinnawela Elephant Orphanage is now Sri Lanka’s best known and most popular tourist destination. Crikey reader Beryce Nelson was there, taking happy snaps for Back in a Bit’s ‘slide night.’
travel The rain in Sri Lanka falls, well, everywhere
Drenched to the bone after a day cycling around in the rain and leading his bike across flooded roads with water up to his knees, Scott Bridges offers his misty travelogue through Sri Lanka.
Why it’s not safe to go home: one reluctant Tamil’s story
In July the Australian government announced that, with the resumption of its processing of Tamil asylum applications, many would face deportation in line with its view that conditions had improved in Sri Lanka, writes freelance journalist Catherine Wilson.
18 months on, picking up the pieces of postwar Sri Lanka
Nick Johns-Wickberg interviews two foreign aid workers who, in dealing with Sri Lanka recently, understand better than most the serious issues that country is facing.
Marr: Should ministers make life or death decisions?
Canberra waits nervously for today’s result to the High Court case involving the processing of two Sri Lankan asylum seekers. It could fundamentally affect how refugees are processed in Australia, explains David Marr.
What Australia can learn from Sri Lanka about ‘security’
The cream of Australia’s security establishment are gathering for their annual shindig, the “Safeguarding Australia Summit”, writes Jake Lynch, associate professor and director of the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Sydney.
Rudd’s tougher refugee line could criminalise humanitarian aid
In true post 9-11 politics style, the Australian government is going after anyone to look tough and in control on refugees. And it’s put humanitarian aid in the firing line, writes Brami Jegan.
Tamils vote for independence — and will vote against Labor
Australian’s Tamil community want an independent homeland in Sri Lanka. And they want respect from a federal government here that is now denying visa applications to their people.
Arbiter of asylum claims casts doubt on Rudd’s application freeze
Foreign minister Stephen Smith’s claim over the weekend that conditions are improving in Sri Lanka is a sweeping generalisation that ignores the reality for each person. The Tamil Tigers are still a threat.
Rudd betrays Labor
The supposedly progressive, compassionate principles of the Labor party have been completely ditched by Kevin Rudd with his new immigration policy. What a disappoint Rudd’s government has become, writes Ben Eltham.
Mungo MacCallum: Rudd, despite handing out health biscuits, has hard calls to make
Kevin Rudd has finally admitted what everyone else realised some time ago: fixing the health system is going to cost a huge amount of money and it’s no good pretending otherwise.
Immoral? Evil? Maybe, but that’s politics for you…
The Government had no alternative but to respond to the political reality of surging boat arrivals. And it will go further if it needs to.
AFP flying close to the wind — again — on Tamil case
In pursuing a case against three Australians of Sri Lankan Tamil background for supplying funds to the LTTE, the AFP relied on information provided or vetted by the Sri Lankan government, writes Bruce Haigh.
Australia rolls out the welcome mat for war criminal retirees
If Canberra fails to take its global responsibilities seriously, another chapter will be added to the already dismal history Australia has of allowing sanctuary to killers, brutes and generals.
Richardson: Elections matter — just ask the Tamils
If more Tamils had voted in the last Sri Lankan election, there might have been no renewal of the war, no large-scale human rights abuses, and even no boatloads of refugees off the Australian coast, says Charles Richardson.
Sparrow misses the point about ASIO, screening asylum seekers
Even if people disagree with ASIO, some security screening of those entering Australia, whether as refugees, immigrants or visitors, is clearly required, writes Neil James of the Australian Defence Association.
Risky refugees trap Rudd
Four of the Tamil asylum seekers from the Oceanic Viking kerfuffle have been rejected for security reasons, putting the government in a difficult conundrum. They can’t send them back, can’t give them Australian visas and its unlikely any other country will want them. What now?
A confused government’s way forward
Trying to turn the Howard-era foreign policy sow’s ear into a Rudd government silk purse is doomed to policy failure, writes Damien Kingsbury.
What they’re fleeing in Sri Lanka
Matt Wade visits Sri Lanka and discovers why the Australian government faces such a difficult battle persuading asylum seekers to return there: war-torn villages surrounded by landmines, a lack of jobs, medical care and education.
Rudd’s “secret plan” to increase Sri Lankan migration
The Government is looking to allow more Sri Lankans to emigrate legally to Australia in an effort to reduce the incentive for them to come via people smugglers.
Best to stay on the boat and avoid Indonesia’s corruption
Indonesia has a notoriously corrupt justice system, yet we have agreed to send innocent people seeking asylum in Australia there. Angela Dewan explores the overcrowded, under funded and crooked Indonesian jails.
