Tamil Sydney

Tamils flee genocide - refugees should be welcomed ! - Green Left

Jay Fletcher. 19 October 2009
On October 15, almost 260 Tamil refugees were stranded at an Indonesian port in west Java. They were refusing to disembark from the boat that had carried them from Malaysia and pleaded for the Australian government to hear their case. That evening they declared a hunger strike. Alex,a spokesperson for the group, told the media: “We decided on the strike to let the whole world know that we need their assistance as soon as possible. We need somebody to consider our case.”

Interview with Asylum Seekers in Indonasia - Australian Tamil Broadcasting Corporation
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How quickly the PM has forgotten - Paul Daley, Sydney Morning Herald

Full Text:
After compromising on climate change, Kevin Rudd has a chance to deliver on his promise to show compassion to asylum seekers. ON THE way to attaining power in November 2007, Kevin Rudd assured us that climate change was "the great moral challenge of our generation". The dictates of political pragmatism (not least a waning economy, a hostile Senate and more than a smattering of global warming scepticism on his front bench) soon compromised his initially ambitious greenhouse targets and timetable for the introduction of a carbon pollution reduction scheme.

The killing of Mr Magno Alvarado last Saturday in Cronulla and the arrest of a young man for allegedly bashing the elderly man to death in a drunken race-hate crime clearly shows that much work still needs to be done to combat racism by governments and by community organisations. Australia is clearly a less racist and more accepting nation that it was half a century ago but some sections of our community have failed to embrace this. A very small minority continues to hold extreme racist views that are condemned by most Australians and by the international community.

Billionaire investor Raj Rajaratnam, founder of Galleon Group was arrested on Friday in an alleged $20 million insider trading scheme that US prosecutors called the biggest ever involving hedge funds.Galleon Group said in a statement it is "shocked by the arrest" of Raj Rajaratnam and had "no knowledge of the investigation before today," according to CNBC report.
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Sri Lanka may lose clothes trade benefits for alleged human rights abuses

The Time UK
The European Commission is to recommend withdrawing trade benefits from Sri Lanka over alleged human rights abuses in the last stages of the civil war against the Tamil Tigers, The Times has learnt. The decision could affect British shops including Marks & Spencer, Tesco and Next, which have imported hundreds of millions of poundsworth of Sri Lankan-made clothes since the benefits were granted after a tsunami in 2004. The scheme waives import taxes. Withdrawing the benefits would add about 6 per cent to the cost of products, forcing many retailers to buy from cheaper producers such as China, India and Bangladesh.

The former Eelam Tamil Association President and one of the founder members of the Australian Tamil Congress –Victorian chapter Mr Nithiyakeerthy has passed away. ATC mourns the loss of a great patriot of our mother nation. Mr. Nithiyakeerthy also served the Tamil community in New Zealand as the President of Wellington Tamil Society for four years.

"..Opposition infrastructure spokesman Adam Giles later retracted this statement - and said it was a slip of the tongue. He said the attack was aimed at people smugglers. But the Territory Government has not accepted this explanation and believes Mr Giles was clearly attacking the asylum seekers. Mr Giles made the comments during a speech on Thursday night about the Federal Government's use of demountable houses - originally intended for short term accommodation in Alice Springs - to house asylum seekers on the overcrowded Christmas Island. .."
Click here to view Video - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7HyQWM2X6U

The Australasian Federation of Tamil Associations (AFTA), the umbrella body of the peak Tamil Associations in Australia and New Zealand calls on the Australian government to show compassion towards the 260 Tamil refugees who had been intercepted by the Indonesian Navy reportedly on the request of our Prime Minister Hon. Kevin Rudd.

''My son says: 'Mama, Mama. I don't want this. Why are you taking me? Why am I on this boat?' It is very difficult for them to understand,'' says Varshini, a mother of two from Jaffna who says she had no choice but to leave Sri Lanka after her husband was abducted. Marthavan, her seven-year-old son, and Amirtha, her four-year-old daughter, spend most of their time below decks on the crowded 30-metre boat. They are taking food and water, as are some of the breastfeeding mothers and a pregnant woman.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd must urgently travel to Sri Lanka to inspect overcrowded camps in the country's north, housing up to 300,000 displaced people, according to an Australian-based Tamil rights advocate. ''He took the easy option rather than the correct option,'' Dr Senewiratne said. ''He rang [Indonesian President] Bambang Yudhoyono and said stop the boat people from coming. ''What he should have done was to have taken the next step - not to Indonesia but to Colombo and ask [Sri Lanka's President] Mahinda Rajapaksa what he is doing to his people, which is the source of all the people coming to this country and creating problems for Australia.''

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