“Human Smuggling” is a business
Posted on October 21st, 2009
Dr.P.A.Samaraweera, Australia
During the last few weeks there were news about illegal immigrants from Sri Lanka to Australia. One boat was stopped half-way in Indonesia on the request of Australia and in it were 255 Tamil ‘asylum seekers’.
ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ Broadly, these are ‘economic migrants’ who want to migrate to the west on the pretext of persecution in Sri Lanka. Once their boat was intercepted, they have said that they are ready to die and threatened to explode the boat if they are forced to disembark without allowing them to proceed to Australia. The Indonesian Navy did not relent and subsequently they went on a hunger strike. After a day, this was called off as Indonesia did not relax the hard stance against the asylum seekers.
ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ While the Indonesians were battling the boat people at one end, in Australia there was a hot debate between the Government and the Opposition. The Opposition Leader, Mr. Turnbull accused the Government of diversionary policies saying, “…Mr. Rudd, the Prime Minister, has recklessly opened our borders in a way that is placing the integrity of the whole immigration system at risk…”
ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ Human smuggling is a business and one of the pivotal organisers of asylum seekers, Abraham Lauhenapessy, was found in the boat by the Indonesian officials. In the past, for human smuggling he had been in Indonesian prisons for 2 years and once released he was back in business smuggling ethnic Tamils to Western countries. For this trip, the duped Tamils had paid US $4 million. For the well off Tamils who are waiting to migrate to the west the money they paid is peanuts.
ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ On TV, the so called asylum seekers confessed they are professionals. And they claimed that they lived in the jungles from persecution by the Sinhalese. A nine year old girl saying that she lived in the bush and speaking fluent English, stunned those watching the TV program. They looked healthy and well nourished. From their appearance and dress, they did’nt seem to have lived in the jungles, starved or being persecuted in Sri Lanka as claimed by them. These bogus asylum seekers are nothing but future ‘parasites’ of the tax payers of Australia.
ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ On the one hand, we see the Australian Governement and the Opposition having bitter political exchanges about how to control the border and prevent human smuggling. On the other, we have third parties like the well funded LTTE Front, humanitarian Groups, Social Organisations and so on supporting the so called asylum seekers. However, by whatever name they are called, they are only encouraging human smuggling, which is a business for some.
ƒÆ’-¡ƒ”š‚ Therefore, countries like Australia should remain defiant and not cave into requests of bogus asylum seekers looking for greener pastures.
October 22nd, 2009 at 1:58 am
Sadly, because the Rudd government and the Opposition in Australia are trying to score debating points in the matter, neither party is being objective or wholly truthful in what it is saying. When the boats started to arrive again after a lull in the closing years of the Howard government, the Opposition Liberal coalition accused the Rudd government’s alleged soft attitude/policy towards illegal migrants as being the reason for these new arrivals. To counter this, the Rudd government said that the changed situation in places like Sri Lanka and Afghanistan was the reason, and Prime Minister Rudd said something on the lines that with this situation, Australia should expect more boat arrivals. I have no doubt this statement will have been seen by would be boat people as an ‘invitation’. After all, the Australian PM said he was ‘expecting’ them to come!
The 200 odd so called refugees whose boat was recently intercepted have staged an enormous charade that only the gullible will fail to see through. Here we had a very articulate spokesman reading a well crafted statement and expressing it in an accent that is hardly what you’d expect from someone from the North of Sri Lanka. He went on to say his wife had not undertaken the journey because she was eight months pregnant. She is presumably still in Sri Lanka. Now – considering his allegation that conditions for Tamils are so bad in Sri Lanka that he and his companions had to flee the country – one might well ask how he could have been so callous as to leave her behind. Or, if it was safe enough for her to stay behind, why was it not safe enough for him? The inconsistencies are only too obvious.
The whole lot on the boat look well fed, well clothed and in great shape – not what you’d expect of people who allegedly spent weeks in the Malaysian jungles. And the young girl who made that emotional plea – how many Sri Lankan children would you expect to be so well spoken and so composed? This was no ordinary Tamil girl from Northern Sri Lanka. She seemed like someone who has had some English elocution lessons, possibly, in Colombo or in some country outside the island.
The stance taken by these people has changed from day to day and it is clear from the pictures shown on TV that they are in contact via mobile phones with perhaps contacts in Australia who are guiding them in how to ‘play their cards’.
But, whom are they trying to fool? The world is wise enough now to see through the deceit of the so called Tamil refugees. The conduct of their compatriots in Australia, the UK, the US, Canada and elsewhere has demonstrated to the world how unreliable their word is. The world has experienced the inconvenience of the demonstrations they staged during the last stages of the LTTE war, discovered the deceit of the man allegedly on a fast unto death in London feasting on McDonald’s burgers on the sly, and knows the name they have earned for themselves for being involved in all manner of illegal and criminal activity.
As has been said, you cannot fool all the people all the time. Much of the refugee story is hard to believe. But people smuggling, as the article says, is for real.