Why is no one in the international community doing anything decisive to meet the challenges to human rights and humanitarian law from the bloody end to Sri Lanka’s civil war? asks Jake Lynch, director, Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, University of Sydney.
Tamils
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.
High Court challenge could bring legal equity to offshore asylum-seekers
A High Court challenge to the detention of two Tamil refugees is about trying to bring legal equity to refugees who are processed offshore, says the instructing solicitor behind the case.
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.
Can India learn to speak in a single tongue?
India has 1.7 billion people and 1600 languages and dialects, but many believe it’s time for a single lingua franca. But which language? Hindi? English? And is it even achievable?
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.
Pongal: the fluorescent cow festival
Fluoro coloured cows! Scott Bridges attends the Pongal festival in India, where cows are painted bright yellow (or blue, green or even multi-coloured) and the temples are overflowing with devotees.
ASIO, not the government, calling the shots on refugees
ASIO says that five refugees from Oceanic Viking constitute a threat to national security. How can this be a healthy democratic country when a secret agency plays such a major role in a political debate, without even making its sources available?
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?
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.
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.
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.
Oakes: Tough talking Rudd misses the real baddies
Rather than “beating the anti-asylum seeker drum’, Kevin Rudd should criticise the Sri Lankan government for their treatment of Tamils. That might improve conditions and decrease refugees, argues Laurie Oakes.
Rather than feed xenophobia, Rudd should push diplomacy
There is much more Australia could do to aid the plight of refugee Sri Lankan Tamils, writes Bruce Haigh. And how Kevin Rudd chooses to handle this diplomatic crisis will be a defining political moment.
Allard: Refugees tug at the heart strings but not hard enough
The Sri Lankan refugees returned to Indonesia have called a snap hunger strike and are making eloquent and heartfelt pleas to the media, but it will not be enough for an outpouring of national sympathy, writes Tom Allard.
Desperation weakens Tamils’ roar
So, the Tamil Tigers aren’t as mischievous as they once were, Mr Ruddock? As Jake Lynch explains, Tamil refugees are still being persecuted and living in horrific camp conditions.
For Sri Lanka, the war goes on
The gunfire may have ended in Sri Lanka, but for the 300,000 Tamils still being held in internment camp, the struggle goes on. If those in government don’t change their course, they will simply steer the country towards more bloodshed in the future.
We must be vigilant on human rights in Sri Lanka
In recent weeks, the international community awoke from its slumber concerning the indignities and obscenities that have arisen during 25 years of conflict in Sri Lanka, writes Stephen Keim.
The continuing horror in Sri Lanka
It is very hard for the international community to effectively intervene in this calamitous situation, but that’s no reason for barely trying at all, writes Andrew Bartlett.
Tamils in Torres Strait
The Torres News has a piece on their website (and the front page of their dead tree version) about the recent arrival of fifty Tamil asylum seekers in the region. The style and detail of the story makes an interesting contrast to a lot of the mainstream media coverage of asylum seeker arrivals.
