Land without checkpoints feels free to Tamil refugees
by Farah Farouque
''IT FEELS like freedom, now,'' says Sanmugam Sarpatheepan.
Around him are the markers of his new life; the modest home in Melbourne's west is well maintained but has few personal touches, except for a couple of unwashed teacups in the kitchen.
At home in Melbourne: Sanmugam Sarpatheepan (right) and Kanapathippillai Thajaparan, who chose to flee Sri Lanka and were rescued with other Tamils by the customs ship Oceanic Viking. Photo: Pat Scala
Mr Sarpatheepan, 25, and his intellectually impaired housemate, Kanapathippillai Thajaparan, 24, are no ordinary new arrivals: they are the only Sri Lankans off the customs ship Oceanic Viking to have been resettled in Australia after the October stand-off involving 78 asylum seekers.
The duo, who are distant relatives, landed at Melbourne Airport on December 20 from Jakarta, but their route here has been tumultuous.
It was reported during the impasse that each passenger had paid $US12,000 to a people smuggler, but these young men say they paid $US6000 each for passage on the ''no-good boat'' from Jakarta. When it started sinking after about four days, they were picked up by the Australian ship, but in Indonesia's search and rescue zone.
Although in Australia barely a week , Mr Sarpatheepan is alive to some of the nuances of the refugee debate that followed the boat's interception. He agreed to speak, he says, because he wants to show the desperation that drives Tamils to get on to ''bad boats'' to seek refuge in a far-off continent.
''Being born as a Tamil in Sri Lanka, you have no freedom … the ultimate choice is to flee the country,'' says Mr Sarpatheepan. His family home near Jaffna, in the north, was at the frontline of the bloody ethnic conflict between the Government and Tamil Tiger rebels.
The Tigers have now been defeated, but thousands of displaced civilian Tamils are fearful, he says.
Although he mostly speaks through an interpreter, he barely pauses to draw breath as he recalls neighbours and friends, all young men, who have ''got disappeared'' after an encounter with the Sri Lankan army. The interrogators, he alleges, would accuse every civilian of being a Tiger operative. Young women in his home town would regularly be sexually assaulted.
Mr Sarpatheepan remembers, most graphically, his friend, Danu, then 22. ''He got arrested one day, and he didn't come back,'' he says. Determined that their son avoid this fate, the salesman's parents raised the money to buy him an air ticket to Jakarta in 2006 that could eventually secure a sea passage to Australia.
But in Jakarta on a one-month tourist visa, he was jailed by police and then spent about 10 months in a detention centre in Makassar, South Sulawesi. When he was released, the International Organisation for Migration placed him on Lombok Island, near Bali, where he stayed in a hotel for two years.
Mr Sarpatheepan said it was in Lombok, where he had ''freedom of movement'', that he was able to make arrangements to cross to Australia. His cousins, many of whom had already resettled in Western countries, raised the money for the passage.
''Australia is a land of freedom,'' he said. ''There is no checkpoint, and I don't get stopped by the military.''
He smiles, but there is a touch of longing for things lost. ''You know, every Tamil would go back to Sri Lanka if there is no war.'' - courtesy: The Age - Australia
7 Comments
The point here is that nobody in Sri Lanka's political establishment is concerned as to how Tamils, especially young Tamil men and women feel, perceive and live the ground situation in the island.
This kind of article could be easily condemned as 'propaganda' or efforts by the so-called West and the exiled Tamils to tarnish the 'image' of the Sri Lankan government....but what this blind critique blatantly forgets is that the government is thoroughly insensitive and totally unwilling to be sensitive to the real issues and concerns of young Tamil men and women. As long as this situation continues, illegal immigration will thrive, a whole lot of young Tamils will suffer, and the task of post-conflict transformation will remain unachieved.
If Colombo 'sincerely' wants to change things for the better in terms of ethnic relations, it has to change its ideology and discourse, and resort to a new ideology of inclusion, de-militarisation, mutual respect and ethnic accomodation. This by any means,does not look achievable on realistic grounds in the near future - as the country plunges from one crisis to another.
Chaminda Weerawardhana, very well articulated comment/observation., Thank you
Chaminda Weerawardhana thank you for your frank and sincere comments. I guess you are living away from your motherland and has seen the world outside Srilanka. In my view you are one in thousand of the educated Sinhalese who accept facts with regard to one of the major Srilankan National issues that has been simmering for the last 60 years since 1948.
What a contrast you throw to elucidate the warped thinking of many educated Sinhalese like Dayan Jayatilleke who seeks external help from people like Ram.
Dear M. Thiru,
I hold no brief for DJ, but it's fairly clear that his recent writings are quite consistent with the same concerns for the future raised by Chaminda Weerawardhana. Unfortunately, your apparent knee-jerk criticism only illustrates how much of Sri Lankan debate is debased to mere personalistic mudslinging and innuendo without attention to actual facts.
DJ has written many articles in the past month - and most of these appear to have been triggered by an urgent concern about the risks of miltarization posed to Sri Lanka in the current situation. These are fairly consistent in the stated opinions and his position:
(i) He is on the record as not being enthusiastic about MR as a choice in the coming Presidential election, and his opinion that MR lacks vision. These are hardly the views expressed by the run of the mill pro-regime sycophants.
(ii) However, his advocacy of MR's re-election aspirations has been clearly explained as due purely to his belief that General Sarath Fonseka is an ever worse choice for the country.
Of the reasons why he and many people, who stop to think instead of letting themselves go on an emotionalistic high, have rejected SF, there are two common ones:
(i) SF broke with MR over one policy issue alone - namely his desire to expand the military in the post-war period, recruiting 100,000 additional troops, and to establish a visible and over-powering military presence in the north in the form of cantonments and military bases. MR disagreed with this, and vetoed these plans in the national security council according to SF's own admission.
(ii) MR was also concerned that expansion/maintenance of the military establishment after the war ended in May was ultimately a threat to the democratic order in Sri Lanka and potentially lay the grounds for a miltarization of Sri Lankan politics and government, as in Pakistan. This is not denied again by SF, and he has said he was very personally upset by these views of MR, and MR's references to Pakistan.
So, If we can all agree that militarization of Sri Lanka is really bad and a significant risk at the current time, then DJ's position in recent days is perfectly consistent, and we ought to be thanking him for giving an erudite explanation why many voters who care about these things should hold their noses and vote for MR.
The other point that needs to be made is that SF is on the record in media interviews as to how he looks at the issue of ethnic relations. These reveal a position fundamentally at variance with those of us who want an inclusive, Sri Lanka where everyone is equal. If we agree with Chaminda Weerawardhana, as apparently DJ does in his writings, that Sri Lanka needs to move towards a new ideology of inclusion, demilitarization, mutual respect and ethnic accomodation, then SF's voluntarily expressed comments that the minorities should in effect play second fiddle to the majority and not complain too much ought to be ringing alarm bells all over Sri Lanka.
It is unfortunate and also symptomatic of the lack of sincerity of most politicians in Sri Lanka that when SF made those remarks about the need of the minorities to not make untoward demands earlier this year to the international press, that there was complete silence from the same people who now claim to be exercised by these issues. At the very least metaphorically, SF should have been hit with a ton of bricks by civll society and opposition politicians for speaking on a political issue which was clearly outside his remit and beyond the acceptable boundaries of action as a serving military officer subservient to the civilian political leadership. The fact that he made those remarks is grounds enough for even ardent UNP supporters, like myself, who are concerned about the future militarization of Sri Lanka to take a similar position to DJ.
Incidentally, I have never met DJ, but I recall that DJ was one of the most ardent supporters of the last elected UNP president, who embodied the values of social class and ethnic inclusiveness more than any of our other leaders in the past four decades. This alone should make all of us think harder why somebody like him should want to turn the other way in the past 3-4 years.
We hope someone will provide President Rajapakse with the comment made above by Chaminda Weerawardhana. We are sure that President Rajapakse will find this comment quite edifying.
*** 'IT FEELS like freedom, now,'' says Sanmugam Sarpatheepan***
That's Right Sanmugan. TAMILS ARE FREE to clean the TOILETS of their Former White Masters and live as SECOND CLASS CITIZENS in THEIR lands for the rest of their lives. As long as you earn Mucho Dollars for Coolie class work then you people are happy to accept the confines of your new SOCIETAL PRISON and call it as "Freedom"
comment #6
If Sri Lanka is so good, why is the commentator living in a foreign country? For him everyone else is a "toilet cleaner" except him!!!He does not realise it is better to be an honest and harworking person than stealing the countries wealth and murdering innocent people like his President and his extended family!!! May be he also gets a percentage of the spoils!!!!