Sri Lankan community reacts to asylum seekers' plight

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Tue, 12 Jul 2011 6:03p.m.

Dr N Rasalingam

Dr N Rasalingam

By David Farrier

While John Key and other politicians have made their viewpoints clear about Sri Lankan asylum seekers detained in Indonesian waters not being welcome in New Zealand, Sri Lankans were also making up their minds on the issue.

Dr N Rasalingam is known by his patients as Dr Ras. As well as being a GP, he is also president of the Refugee Council of New Zealand, and a Tamil.

Dr Rasalingam has lived in New Zealand for 34 years, and both of his children were born here. He says that certain areas of Sri Lanka are still as dangerous as ever.

“The human rights violations are terrible, actually. It's hopeless”.

The Sri Lankan civil war may have ended in 2009, but Amnesty International says people still have reason to leave.

The organisation says that around 200,000 people have been displaced as a result of the fighting, with a further 20,000 detained and 40,000 killed.

The civil war began in 1983, an insurgency by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam against the Sri Lankan Government.

In May of 2009 the Sri Lankan military finally defeated the Tamil Tigers.

Amnesty International says that there is good reason to believe those detained on the boat in Indonesia are fleeing on asylum-seeking grounds.

“New Zealand has a rich history of accepting people in need. Let’s be honest; a great many of us came from somewhere else originally”.

However Mahinda Attanayaka, president of the United Sri Lanka Association, says New Zealand should be cautious of accepting asylum seekers.

Dr Rasalingam says it is important to assess each case on its individual merits, but what is more important is drawing attention to human rights issues.

“If New Zealand can play a part in assessing the importance of human rights violations being stopped it's a better way of looking at things”.

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Comments

17 Jul 2011 09:47a.m.

jason wrote:

check this page , others they want to return to sri lanka http://www.colombopage.com/archive_11A/Jul16_1310838423CH.php the war is over past 30 years not only the tamil community suffered. other communities, including sinhaleese and Muslims suffer a lot coz of what LTTE has done. World most Ruthless Terrorist we dont need them In New Zealand.unless they wanted a Terrorist group to form, as most of the People living (lttle refugees) arround the world they send money for weppons etc.

13 Jul 2011 07:50p.m.

Nat wrote:

I ABSOLUTELY agree with the PM on this matter. I commend him for making such a bold and clear statement with regards to this issue. 79% of the people polled by Campbell Live yesterday think the same! While my heart goes out to these people, I do not think New Zealand is in the position to take on these people.

13 Jul 2011 11:25a.m.

Manjula wrote:

Refugees who escape a so called "dangerous" territory must be seen and evaluated for their genuineness on one and only one principle. That is; If a person escapes a dangerous place he/she naturally goes to the nearest safe place practically possible rather than the furthest safe place vertually impossible. As an example, when the earth quake hit NZ, did the surviced people escape to iceland or Germany? No. They simply went to the nearest safer suburb.

So whenever a refugee boat arrives in Australia or NZ, ask the simple question, Is Australia or NZ was their practically nearest and safe location. If not, they are not genuine refugees, they are simply coming for better economic life rather than safety (and also comes with bagful of lies to justify). In the case of tamils coming from Sri Lanka, Tamil Nadu or India is the safest in the whole world by far for tamils and it is only 20km away from Sri lanka. Why do they come to NZ or Australia passing so many other safe countries such as India, Malaysia, Indunesia, Singapoore, Thailand, Phillipines etc etc???

Because they know that most of the western white people can be easily fooled with lies and once they fool them those tamils laugh at those gullible white people on their back. Beware!

13 Jul 2011 06:28a.m.

Jack 10 wrote:

Congratulations Mr. John Key, for not being fooled by false LTTE propoganda shoved down our throats by their sympathizes and ignorant people such as Dr Pauline Horrill
& Daiysun. The Tamils who are seeking asylum are LTTE'rs trying to create a political base to dictate terms to your government. They will engage in lots of illegal activities to collect funds to re-group and re-establish the worlds most ruthless terror organization. Kudos to you sir you are a smart man.

12 Jul 2011 11:28p.m.

Era wrote:

sri lanka is peaceful country now .these peoples are tring to enter australia or newzeeland,, they know they won't be able to go Australia,,if new zd accept them i will be a big mistake for two reason 1.it will encourage other people to follow the same foot step more and more people will try to enter. 2. most of these peoples are related to Terrorist organization and their families. i think some people know what's going on in UK and Canada they are simply terrorist and thieves.

12 Jul 2011 10:14p.m.

katrina wrote:

NZ can not afford to support more people. We have had our own stuff to deal with and as a country I think we are feeling tired and exhausted. Give NZ a break.

12 Jul 2011 09:37p.m.

R Halpita wrote:

It is very clear that these groups are trying to enter other countries illegally by posing as refugees. This is one aspect of human smuggling and it is the easiest way to pressurize countries to accept people when they are shown as refugees. A recent survey on "refugees from Sri Lanka" shows, that a fair percentage of them never originated in Northern Sri Lanka as claimed but were from Tamilnadu India and Malasia. They have paid large sums of money to Human smugglers who have promised them entry in to richer countries. The moment they boarded the boats their travel and identity documents were destroyed and were ordered to identify themselves as "individuals from Sri Lanka". Some others were found to be hard core terrorists who were found to be responsible for many crimes against humanity and are wanted by the judiciary yet were posing as “innocent refugees”. Some were posing as “spokesmen” for the groups with false identities and disguised with beards or bald heads!.Sri Lanka has never had an intolerance to other ethnic groups. It is clear by the fact that the majority of Tamils lived among the Sinhalese population even during the height of LTTE atrocities and the ethnic distribution in Colombo (Commercial capital of Sri Lanka) has a larger percentage of Tamils than Sinhalese. Anybody visiting Sri Lanka now can see that all that is being depicted today as evidence against the country are fabricated lies to keep the portal of migration open for the interested parties to enter richer countries. It has been proved that the much spoken about Channel 4 Video "Killing fields of Sri Lanka" is a doctored documentary with non-verified material and false declaration from impostures who has had direct links with the terrorist organisation that had the dirtiest history of child recruitment, using human shields, suicide attacks against civilian targets and mass scale ethnic cleansing by terror and murder. Don't let NZ be manipulated by a pack of liars. Well said John Key

12 Jul 2011 08:06p.m.

Daiysun wrote:

Dear John, I'm a concerned Sri Lankan tamil student of Auckland Grammar, and I see this as being a chance to voice my true opinion on what is an issue which affects me to a deep extent. Being born in Sri Lanka and having lived there for only the first 6 months of my life i have often found myself wanting to go back. however, the state in Sri Lanka, which i believe is overshadowed by misleading media reports and unexposed conditions, has made it unable for my family to return since my birth. My main concern is that many do not fully understand the true conditions in which Tamils must endure in Sri Lanka Only a couple of months ago did we see the uprising of several minority groups in the middle east, yet the struggle in Sri Lanka , which has been going on for over 20 years, is yet to be exposed. the restriction of media is probably the major factor contributing to people's unawareness of the situation. I have seen multiple videos of the damage in Sri Lanka, filmed from normal handheld cameras, and some of them are quite gruesome that i doubt they would be appropriate to be aired on national television.yet even the less gruesome ones i believe would give people a better understanding of the true state and i do not see why the media would chose not to air them. Key's straightforward statement of not letting the refugees into NZ has bewildered me, and after watching the report on Cambell Live this has only added to my state of confusion. i don't think that Key truly understands the refugees' backgrounds, and revealing this might change the opinion of many. The 21% to 79% , I believe, can be easily flipped if people are able to understand the truth behind the war. I could quite easily give a Tamil perspective in what happened, however, as it always has been, it will be disregarded and be put to a side by a much larger opposition with a totally different point of view. In summary I believe that before reports are put forward to NZ, the New Zealanders should receive accurate background information to the true situation of the crisis, its current status and its results. the video shown on 3 News in my opinion was quite insufficient and I believe this is why a majority of people are unable to understand our point of view and of the refugee who was interviewed on cambell live.

12 Jul 2011 07:00p.m.

Dr Pauline Horrill wrote:

Dear John,
I request a broadcast of the UK Channel-4 documentary "Sri Lanka Killing Fields" to clarify the context to the problem of "Tamil asylum seekers". In addition, not only is the Key govt ‘not welcome’ comment a flagrant breach of international law and the right to seek asylum without prejudgment, but a gross negligence of this government to even acknowledge the crimes committed against the Tamil people as recently exposed in a UN special report on war crimes.

The documentary shows the various war crimes and crimes against humanity that was committed against Tamil civilians during the final phases of the civil war in Sri Lanka in 2009. This was recently aired in Australia and it prompted the Australian Foreign Affairs Minister Kevin Rudd to say "No-one watching this program could emerge from that undisturbed and we don't either."
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/07/05/3261911.htm?section=world

In addition, these comments are an insult to the Tamil people already living here in New Zealand and contributing to our progressive and diversifying society.

Ignorance and media coups serving Key’s political posturing have no place in the debate about NZ responsibility toward upholding international law in the world and in particular our neighbourhood and specifically in countries with whom we trade.

Having worked myself in Sri Lanka for Medicins Sans Frontiers in 1998 I have seen first hand the appaling conditions under which Tamil communities have had to endure for the long years of war. Many clear accounts of the atrocities conducted during 2009 to date are available on MSF website. The situation is NOT over and many Tamil people remain incarcerated in camps without freedom of movement and many disapeared people remain unaccounted for.
New Zealanders are being kept ignorant of the real facts about the bloody past of successive Sri Lanka government to address gross inequities in the rights of its citizens. it has been enough smoke and mirrors exercise and now, given the 'war' is over, who is checking the rights of citizens are respected in Sri Lanka and full equity of participation in the so called democracy is possible if it is not for global governements. Shame on John Key.

Regards

Pauline Horrill (DR)

12 Jul 2011 06:43p.m.

NZ's Interests First wrote:

Tamils are not a large ethnic community in NZ. Consequently, they are not influential in elections as they are in some other Western nations. It is only if their share of the voting public increases due to a large influx of refugees (the majority of Lankan Tamil iving in the West are) over a number of years that NZ governments will have to pay attention to their political agenda. This is evidenced by what has happened in parts of Canada and Britain.