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Refugees and asylum sneakers - Hey, just let ‘em all in. Where’s your compassion, Australia?

Just run a gangplank up to the next boat packed with unidentified arrivals and herd them ashore. Come on down, whoever you are. We’ve got compassion here in the land down under. Give Mr X and his bearded grandmother a hand, will you Smith? Just give their statement of demand to the Government rep and we’ll push ‘em through.
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Australia – Sri Lanka asylum-seeker deal arm-chair policy makers and ground realities

A storey published in The Australian written by Amanda Hodge exposed some ground realities in Sri Lanka and its lack of fitness with policies crafted by arm chair policy makers in Canberra. Some ground realities in Sri Lanka are, " Colombo-based human rights lawyer Gowry Tharawasa has little faith Australia's latest aid contribution, which brings Canberra's total financial aid package since the war's end in May to $49m, will find its way to the people most in need. "IDPs who have been released have not been given any proper facilities," Ms Tharawasa said yesterday."No aid has been provided. There's been big publicity about people released but they have been dropped in villages without even basic facilities."

The Australian reported, "A GROUP of Christmas Island detainees have been isolated inside the $400 million centre's feared "red block" for the first time. Six Sri Lankans who staged a dramatic eight-hour standoff inside the immigration detention centre on October 30 have been placed in the high-security block, designed for the most violent, unstable and dangerous detainees."."..Coalition for Asylum Seekers, Refugees and Detainees vice-chairperson Eira Clapton, who was on the same tour, said she and others were alarmed and angered by a small caged exercise enclosure about the size of an average bedroom which she said was reminiscent of Guantanamo Bay..."

The Australian today reported that Kevin Rudd is now working on Philippines solution as, "THE Rudd government is exploring plans to sail the Customs vessel Oceanic Viking to a detention centre in The Philippines or to Christmas Island as hopes fade for a deal to end the three-week standoff. ".."It was not clear last night how advanced the "Philippines solution" was. Nor was it known if the government in Manila had been approached." .

Radio Australia today reported that, Australian special envoy to Sri Lanka "Mr McCarthy also says if the problem is to be stopped at its source, then more must be done to help Sri Lankan Tamils who were affected by the country's civil war."
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Stephen Smith strike half baked solution - Warnings more Tamils will flee Sri Lanka

It is clear that Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith is desperate to resolve Asylum Seeker issue but he is striking half baked solutions than addressing the root-cause. A Human Rights activist in Sri Lanka said, "Until I think the checkpoints are removed, Tamils feel that they are not specially, under special scrutiny by the military and until the Government comes up with the political solution, at least a political proposal that meets the aspirations of Tamils to be equal citizens, to have some power in the areas in which they are a majority, I think Tamils will want to leave Sri Lanka."

Tamil Sydney - I welcome today’s signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Sri Lanka on legal cooperation against people smuggling. The MOU was signed by Australia’s Special Representative to Sri Lanka, John McCarthy, and Sri Lanka’s Justice Secretary, Suhada Gamalath.The MOU is the culmination of close cooperation between officials from Australia and Sri Lanka, under the guidance of the Minister for Home Affairs, Brendan O’Connor and his Sri Lankan counterpart, Minister of Justice and Law Reforms, Mr Milinda Morogoda, whom I met today.

CIVIL war is an oxymoron. For there is nothing remotely civil about conflicts which tear nations asunder from within as ethnic, religious or political schisms erupt into blood-soaked chaos.Civil wars bring with them words like rape, torture, genocide, oppression, famine and fear. In a country riven by such carnage the only growth industries are death, weaponry and the dark art of people-smuggling – where the wages of sin are earned in the trade of human flesh and the profits are stained with misery.

The spokesman for more than 250 Sri Lankans still aboard a wooden cargo boat in western Java has revealed that he's a former member of a violent Tamil gang in Canada."Alex" as he has called himself until now is actually Sanjeev Kuhendrarajah, who denies being a people smuggler as alleged by Sri Lanka's foreign ministry, but he admits to a violent gangland past. Kuhendrarajah say he ran out of options after being deported back to Sri Lanka from Canada.

A Sri Lanlan (SL) apologist labelled asylum seekers in boats off the Canadian and Australian shores as Sri Lanka's unwanted exports. The objective of SL and its apologists is shift the focus of debate internationally away from war crimes and sanctions for SL's genocide to the fate of a few asylum seekers (78 and 208) forgetting that the asylum seekers is the creation of the brutal genocide in SL.
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Greens challenge Australian Foreign minister Smith on Tamil camps in Sri Lanka

"..Foreign Minister Stephen Smith should push the Sri Lankan government to allow aid agencies access to Tamil camps, the Australian Greens say.Mr Smith is heading to Colombo for talks that aim to stem an exodus of Tamils from Sri Lanka.The visit comes as a group of 78 Sri Lankans refuse to leave the Australian Customs vessel Oceanic Viking moored in Indonesian waters..."
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Alex admits to past gang crime when teen, plead guilt but deny people smuggler allegation

In an interview to ABC, Alex the spokesman for more than 250 Sri Lankan asylum seekers said, "I can't try to defend my mistakes but I can see these mistakes were made when I was young, confused, under peer pressure and a lot of adolescent things that go through any teen's mind at the time," "It has been almost nine years since my conviction, since I was arrested, but I hope the Australian Government understands my refugee claims and I have the proof for my refugee claims to show the unit here."

Sri Lankan Watch today reported that Australian Federal Police Officers are permanently stationed in Colombo to stop asylum seekers leaving sri lanka and entering australian. It said, "Since the illicit asylum seekers issue the Australian government maintains a permanent police presence in Colombo to coordinate with Sri Lankan officials as part of a strategy to stem the flow of illicit immigration from Sri Lanka.

The US House of Representatives urged Sri Lanka's government Wednesday to guarantee the safety and quick release of some 300,000 Tamils and other war-displaced people currently held in camps. By an overwhelming 421-1 vote, lawmakers approved a non-binding resolution that calls on the authorities in Colombo to help the populations of widely condemned, tightly guarded camps return to their homes.
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On KP's Dilemma and Mandela's Thoughts about Prison Life

KP in the title refers to Selvarasa (aka Kumaran) Pathmanathan, the presumed leader of the post-Prabhakaran LTTE for 80 days – from May 18 to August 6, 2009. I have been reading the KP-related news items that appeared in the electronic media since May. Predictably, the majority of what has appeared so far has been biased towards the Government of Sri Lanka, and generated by anti-LTTE scribes – the likes of D.B.S. Jeyaraj, B. Muralidhar Reddy and Neville de Silva. Most of these news items are variations on the theme depicted in a cartoon on the Yiddish proverb: ‘The deaf man heard a mute describe how a blind man watched a kalikeh run.’ [kalikeh refers to a crippled woman in Yiddish.], shown nearby.

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