Bringing warring terrorist groups to the negotiating table and using them to help deliver aid is a desirable means of reducing conflict. But a US Supreme Court ruling has just made it a whole lot harder.
Sri Lanka
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.
Sri Lanka inadvertently throws Tamils a lifeline
Disparaging comments about Tamil asylum seekers by the Sri Lankan High Commissioner to Australia makes it almost certain they will meet the criteria of the Refugee Convention, even if they didn’t before, writes Andrew Bartlett.
Time to stand up for human rights in Sri Lanka — at last
It’s Sri Lanka Week, but rather than thinking about investments, perhaps we should focus on the 300,000 Tamils being imprisoned in an internment camp in the country, in direct violation of their human rights rights, writes Jake Lynch.
What is the fuss over former LTTE members in Australia?
Memo to Wilson Tuckey: There are already former members of the Tamil Tigers living in Australia — mostly professional people, raising successful children, writes Bruce Haigh.
Inside Indonesia’s brutal prisons
The Oz looks at the brutal conditions inside the Indonesian detention centres where the Sri Lankan asylum-seekers rejected by the Australian government are headed, which makes the Christmas Island facility look like a holiday resort.
Can Tamil Tigers be rehabilitated?
A $23m foreign-backed program in Sri Lanka is attempting to “rehabilitate” former members of the Tamil Tigers, many of whom were forcibly recruited and some as young as 12. But with anti-Tamil sentiment still raging, will Sri Lankans really accept former militants into their society?
Tuckey and the Tamil terrorists
Wilson Tuckey wasn’t over-stepping the mark to suggest that, if a large number of Tamils seek to enter Australia after the end of the Sri Lankan civil war, their ranks may contain former Tamil Tigers, says Bernard Keane. But of course, he had to take it that one step further…
Asylum seekers: territorial security versus electoral suicide
Kevin Rudd repeatedly denounces traffickers as “the vilest form of people on the planet” but says nothing whatsoever about those governing Sri Lanka — almost as if it’s morally worse to smuggle victims away from atrocities than it is to perpetrate them in the first place.
