The Sri Lankan envoy to Australia Admiral Thisara Samarasinghe has told Australian newspaper The Age that Tamil refugees deemed a security threat by Australian officials are needed back home.
Dozens of Tamil refugees have been given adverse assessments by the Australian Security and intelligence Organisation (ASIO), which makes it impossible for them to settle in Australia. The refugees are unable to appeal the assessment by the ASIO and are stuck in a legal limbo.
Admiral Samarasinghe told The Age that the refugees are welcome in Sri Lanka.
''Help is required in Sri Lanka now. Those who have got a negative assessment, please come back to Sri Lanka. Even if you have been sent out from the place, you will be treated justifiably and fairly and you will be permitted to meet up with your families. Of course, law of the land will prevail.''
He said the option for the refugees to return should not be ruled out as Sri Lanka had already ‘rehabilitated’ 11,000 individuals, alleged to be former LTTE members.
''This is a record that no country in the world can match,'' he said.
''That is the extra mile that the Sri Lankan government is going in reconciliation, but the West doesn't unfortunately appreciate that and give any credit.''
Amnesty International said in a report released in March this year that hundreds of Tamils are held in detention camps and are denied due process. The detainees are denied access to family members and there is widespread torture and abuse.
The government this week announced it had established a mechanism that would "provide of the details of the detainees and those who are already released by the Terrorist Investigation Division" and encouraged close family members of detainees to contact government officials to find out more details about their loved ones.
However, Yolanda Foster of Amnesty International said the government was insincere in its efforts. Speaking at a Frontline Club debate in London on Wednesday, Ms Foster said the government’s promise was ‘completely empty’.
She quoted sources in Vavuniya that attempted to trace the whereabouts of their loved ones, but found that their complaints to government officials have been ‘futile’ and questioned whether they would ever know the fate of their relatives.
