This week both Australia and Canada are confronted by yet more ships carrying yet more Tamils fleeing yet another murderous Sinhala regime in Sri Lanka. These unfortunates are, by no means, the first Tamils to come to the West thus and, until the international community decisively confronts the repressive ethnocracy masquerading as a democracy in Sri Lanka, they will undoubtedly be followed by many more.

Lest it be forgotten, the - now much studied and talked about - Tamil Diaspora in the West is the product of waves of flight from Sinhala persecution over the past four decades. As we - and some clear eyed international analysts – have repeatedly warned, Sri Lanka’s repression is fast deepening, fuelled by the triumphalism of Sinhala victory in the war against the Tamil (Tiger)s, and confidence in international inaction. What is also important is that the logic of racial hierarchy and exclusion embedded in the Sri Lankan state has long celebrated the flight of Tamil aliens from a space considered to have been bequeathed to the Sinhalese by Buddha himself.

Whilst a few Tamils migrated to Britain and other Western states before 1983, the Black July anti-Tamil pogrom was a watershed. Since then, hundreds of thousands of Tamils have fled Sinhala oppression, seeking refugee in neighbouring India and in the West. Others have scattered across Asia and even some African places. Whilst ‘Mother’ India penned many of our people in refugee camps, those who were able to overcome the often pitiless hostility of Western immigration were able to successfully rebuild their lives. As a community we have struggled, worked incredibly hard and done just that: we now constitute one of the most integrated and successful Diaspora communities in the West. We can be justifiably proud of ourselves.

The possibility that Sinhala oppression could be ended by Norwegian-led international ‘peace’ intervention temporarily slowed the flow of escapees, but the brutality of Sri Lanka’s renewed war has created a new groundswell of fear and loathing amongst the island’s Tamils. It was only a matter of time before the fleeing began anew. The mass-killings this year of tens of thousands of Tamils and the casual incarceration of the entire Vanni population – all under international scrutiny – has decisively spurred the primary driver of the now forty-year old Tamil outflow from the island: a thoroughly ‘well founded fear of persecution’.

This year the Diaspora has become an object of intense scrutiny and study. Western states, it appears, want to understand us: who exactly we are, how we belong, think, calculate and feel. Some of these studies’ sponsors want to know whether the Diaspora can be ‘peace-builders’ or a vehicle for ‘development’ in Sri Lanka (notions that are as discordant with the realities of race relations in that horrific place as Western interpretations of Tamil economic transactions in Sri Lanka are simplistic).

What is striking – and, quite frankly, laughable - is how none of these studies are particularly concerned with how ‘the Tamil Diaspora’ came to exist in the first place! Were this to be considered, the dynamics of Sri Lankan state repression, of execution, torture and rape by the ‘security forces’, and of exploitation by the ethnic supremacy embedded in state and society would be laid clearly open: the survivors of thirty years of Sinhala rule are here, in the West no less, to tell their stories.

The Diaspora will gradually be joined by yet more Tamils who, when confronting the stark choice faced by refugees the world over for millennia – stay and die or die escaping – opt to flee. They know where their fellow Tamils are living safely. They know –as did we, when we fled – that the slimmest chance away from Sinhala hegemony is all they need to thrive anew. (Recall how when the peace process came in 2002, the Tamils rebuilt war-ravaged Kilinochchi and Mullaitivu within months and contrast this with Sinhala-governed Tamil places).

The Diaspora must embrace our people when they come seeking refuge. We must encourage, even demand, that the international community – especially the powerful Western liberal states where many of us now reside –be compassionate, just and honourable. Because we too know the brutal realities of Sinhala persecution. Actually the world does too – though for decades it has chosen to look away, blaming our people’s resistance for their persecution.

At the same time, we must be unrelenting in insisting the international community confront the Sinhala chauvinism that seeks relentlessly to render impossible the Tamils succeeding as a people in their own historic homeland. It is not forgotten how, before the Sinhalese were handed rule over us on a platter, we had in Eelam all that we have rebuilt in the West.

15 abducted from transit camp

Fifteen Internally Displaced Tamil men were abducted by a group of unidentified persons clad in army uniform from the transit camp located in the complex of Eachchilampathu Sri Shenpaga Maha Vidiyalayam in Seruvila division in Trincomalee district. The abducted IDPs are married men between 25-45, according to complaints filed with the police and the civil authority by abductees relatives. A group of one hundred IDPs held in Vavuniyaa internment camp were brought to Eachchilampathu Sri Shempaga Maha Vidiyalayam transit camp. The IDPs, all former residents of villages in Moothoor east and released from Vavuniya camps, were housed temporarily in Sri Shenpaga Maha Vidiyalayam to be resettled in their villages after screening by security forces to find out whether they were involved in terrorist activity. The abductions occurred while the refugees were awaiting resettlement. (TamilNet)

54 PTA, ER arrestees remanded

Colombo Chief Magistrate Nishantha Hapuarachchi ordered remand till November 12 for forty-five suspects, majority of them Tamils, arrested by the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) and Emergency Regulations (ER) for allegedly being involved in terrorist activities in the hill country in the central province. They were produced in court after being interrogated by the CID held under the detention order of the Defence Ministry. Some of the suspects are Muslims and Sinhalese. CID officers told court that they arrested the suspects on receipt of information that they had under gone training under Liberation Tigers in Mullaiththeevu and had been told to work for them. The suspects had even provided shelter and other facilities in the hill country to Liberation Tigers, they said. CID said they had recorded confessions made by the suspects detailing their involvement in terrorist activities and moved court to remand the suspects until the conclusion of the investigations. (TamilNet)

Colombo household checking again

The new Inspector General of Police (IGP), Mahinda Balasooriya, on his assumption of duty has reimposed checking of house holds of Tamil residents in Colombo. As in the LTTE war period, police personnel have been instructed to question any visitor lodged in a residence not registered with the respective police station in the area and to take any person living in a household unregistered into police custody. Meanwhile, police personnel attached to stations in Colombo complain that they have to perform duties of civic police after fulfilling their normal 12-hour duty. The renewed rounds of checking have drained police personnel attached to other branches due to renewed checking of households after the new IGP assumed office. According to police sources there are 10-member units of civic police in a police station and these personnel function under an officer who is in charge of a given street. The civic police functions under a DIG. (TamilNet)

IDPs suffer in flooded camps

Most of the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) internment camps for Vanni IDPs in Vavuniyaa being flooded due to the current down pour many of the IDPs held in Menik Farm camp had fled from their shelters seeking refuge in the public halls and school buildings located inside the camp. Meanwhile, amid heavy rains and thunder civil authorities continue to transfer IDPs from Menik Farm during nights and drop them in public places in areas where their homes are located. These IDPs with their bags and baggage are stranded without any one to take them to safe places till they find their way to their homes in nights. (TamilNet)

35,000 students still interned

Thirty-five thousand students displaced from Vanni in the last leg of war are still being detained in internment camps in Vavuniyaa. The number of IDP students in these internment camps earlier was about 65,000. The number had dropped to 35,000 following current resettlement, education authority sources claim. UNESCO has provided 50,000 US dollars for the maintenance of these IDP students. Part of UNESCO funds would be used to improve mental health related facilities of the students and for this purpose multimedia projectors for short films, computer games, music, drawing materials and books worth about Rs.3.5 million were handed over to the education authorities. (TamilNet)

No shelter for displaced taken to Jaffna

The Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) taken to Jaffna district from the Sri Lanka Army (SLA) internment camps in Vavuniya are suffering in pouring rain without sufficient shelter for them. Divisional Secretaries (DSs) of Jaffna district find hard to meet their immediate needs for want of funds. The ten government ministers recently appointed by the President of Sri Lanka for Divisional Secretary areas in Jaffna to function as resettlement coordinators have failed to return to Jaffna after their first visit. Jaffna district DSs are at a quandary to take decisions without the approval of the respective ministers and due to lack of funds to spend on the immediate needs of the IDPs. 3,964 persons of 1,242 families were brought to Jaffna recently. They have nothing but tarpaulins to stay in and sufficient arrangements have not been made to meet their immediate needs as rain pours down in Jaffna district. (TamilNet)

R2P reduced to "noble rhetoric"

During an invited lecture at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) of London University, Noam Chomsky, one of the world's well known intellectual and professor emeritus of linguistics at MIT, said on Sri Lanka, that although there's "a lot of noble rhetoric about Responsibility to Protect (R2P), there is no particular Western advantage in protecting people who are being slaughtered, and are being thrown into concentration camps. Somehow these didn't make it in the noble rhetoric," and added Sri Lanka was a "horror story, especially towards the end." Chomsky added that in the way West acts, "there is no protection for any people who it doesn't do any good [to the West] to protect, and basically Sri Lankans [Tamils] are in that unfortunate position." On China's engagement with Sri Lanka, Chomsky said, "they [China] don't gain anything by supporting the Tamil refugees in concentration camps, so why should they do it [help]? Infact, most of the South supported the Sri Lankan Government. That's who they are," Chomsky said. On R2P, Chomsky referred to a discussion he had this summer in the UN General Assembly, and said the "hypocrisy was so profound, it was suffocating." (TamilNet)

Sri Lanka has expressed its outrage over a request by the US Department for Homeland Security (DHS) for meeting with Chief of Defense State General Sarath Fonseka

The request for the meeting outraged top Sri Lankan officials who demanded Washington officials to drop the request for the interview.

"The Department of Homeland Security should forthwith desist from any endeavor to interview General Fonseka," Rohitha Bogollagama told Reuters.

"Whatever information General Fonseka may have acquired in the exercise of his official duties is privileged by nature. Therefore, it cannot legally be shared with third parties without the prior approval and consent of the Sri Lanka authorities."

"The U.S. authorities should not exert procedures on [Fonseka]. The interview should not take place,” Bogollagama was quoted by Time magazine as saying to US Ambassador to Sri Lanka, Patricia Butenis .

The Sri Lankan government believes that despite Fonseka's status as a green-card holder, the U.S. does not have any jurisdiction over him at this point because he entered the country on a Sri Lankan passport.

"General Fonseka is a citizen of Sri Lanka and he holds a diplomatic passport from Sri Lanka," Bogollagama added.

The minister said that Fonseka could not divulge privileged information he knew of the war and its conduct without approval from his superiors and the Sri Lankan government.

Whilst the request was termed to be a ‘volunteer meeting’, the Sri Lankan embassy in Washington was quick to organize legal representation for the former Army commander and to seek advice on whether the US authorities had the legality to override his diplomatic immunity.

Responding to previous international criticism, the Sri Lankan government has declared that it would not subject any of its military commanders or civilian officials who led the war to any kind of international investigation or war-crimes tribunal.

The Sri Lankan government is coming under mounting pressure internationally about its human rights abuses, including from the European Union which has threatened not to extend the GSP + program that allows Sri Lanka certain trade advantages on its garment exports to the EU.

The office of the UN High Commissioner for the Human rights also made fresh calls on October 22 into an external inquiry into war crimes committed by Sri Lanka, along the lines of war crimes investigation into the Israeli attack on Gaza.

Bruce Fein, a lawyer for the US-based group Tamils Against Genocide, has argued that the political justification for a genocide investigation was strengthened because the "United States has been vocal with Serbia, Bosnia and other nations about policing and punishing their own citizens or residents for genocide", reported ther Guardian newspaper.

In an exclusive interview with the Sri Lankan Guardian, Ms. Arundhati Roy shared her views on Sri Lanka.

“The situation sounds in Sri Lanka absolutely grim,” she exclaimed.

“Indian civil society is a vast and varied creature. Most people in India have absolutely no idea what happened in Sri Lanka, because the Indian media was careful not to report it,” she said when I asked about present gloomy interests of an Indian civil society towards situation in Sri Lanka.

Speaking about war in Sri Lanka which has ended last May, Ms. Roy suggested, “I believe that the Government of Sri Lanka should be investigated for committing war crimes.”

“I am in no way pro LTTE nor have I ever been. I cannot admire those whose vision can only accommodate justice for their own and not for everybody,” she has pointed out on her view regarding the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.

Even talking about the policy of the Government of Sri Lanka, Ms. Roy asserted, “I do believe that the LTTE and its fetish for violence was cultured in the crucible of monstrous, racist, and injustice acts that the Sri Lankan government and to a great extent Sinhalese society visited on the Tamil people for decades.”

Has the Rajapakse Government's openly nationalized almost fascist rhetoric? What has Arundhati Roy said? Read full text of the interview is below:

Q. So how do you summarize the present political developments in Sri Lanka six months after the elimination of the Tamil Tigers?

A: The situation sounds absolutely grim. I have not visited the camps myself, but from the reports that are emerging it is obvious that there is an unconscionable humanitarian crisis unfolding which the world seems to be turning it's eyes away from. For hundreds of thousands of people to be herded into camps and held there by a government that is so blatantly gloating over its military victory over them is a terrifying situation. Mind-numbing. The use of the term 'concentration camp' does seem appropriate given the few testimonies that have made their way out of the steel wall of silence the government has erected around them. If these testimonies are untrue, and if the Government of Sri Lanka has nothing to hide it should allow the media free access to the camps so they can see what is going on.

Q. The Government of Sri Lanka is saying it will resettle all Internally Displaced People (IDPs) before end of January 2010. It is interesting to read that the Government is ready to offer Colombo schools to ex-Child Soldiers of Tamil Tigers. Always we can hear victory euphoria from the Government side and its tune all the time is very optimal. Meanwhile, many Rights groups and some countries like the United States criticized the action of the Government of Sri Lanka, and are saying the Government is violating basic human rights, as well as there are some critical issues over war crimes by the Government in the final battle against the Tamil Tigers. But it seems the Indian civil society is having very little sympathy to the suffering of Sri Lankan Tamils. Let me know your views on War on Terror in Sri Lanka and the minority’s future in the Island Nation?

A: Indian civil society is a vast and varied creature. Most people in India have absolutely no idea what happened in Sri Lanka, because the Indian media was careful not to report it. The section of the Indian establishment - those with a 'voice' are increasingly developing a ghoulish fascination for State power and its ability to crush people. There is a great admiration for Israel and its methods among this crowd. It is shameful. So this section has no problem with what ha been done to an ethic minority. They have tolerated a huge amount of state brutality in their own country, in Kashmir, in Nagaland, in Manipur for years. My views on the Sri Lankan War? I believe that the Government of Sri Lanka should be investigated for committing war crimes.

Q. It is claimed by some quarters that India was behind the conflict from the beginning and gave weapons and other logistical support and also training facilities in her soil for the Tamil militancy few decades ago. But later India went against the Tamil militancy and went close to the Government of the Island nation. Let me know your views on the India’s approach towards its southern neighbour in the future?

A: That the Indian government armed and trained the LTTE is well known. But then it switched sides. India has done everything it can, including blocking the demand for an investigation into the possibility that the Sri Lankan government might be guilty of having committed war crimes in this war against the Tamil people of Sri Lanka. India, China and Pakistan came together to block it. International politics is a cold, unforgiving game.

Q. The Prevention of Terrorism Act–or as you have called it, the ‘Production of Terrorism Act’–is still in force in Sri Lanka, whilst hundreds of youth, most of them ethnic Tamils are being arrested under the PTA and held prisons or in undisclosed clandestine camps. It seems Patriotism, National Security, Humanitarian Mission etc of the government are overshadowing the Law and Order in the country. It is easy for people to be branded as patriots or traitors by under these missions thus undermining the law and order needed at this difficult juncture. If this continued what will be the long term consequences for Sri Lanka?

A. That is exactly what anti-terror laws are meant for. They are never meant for real terrorists. They are meant to terrorize ordinary people, to criminalize democratic space.In Gujarat in 2002 after Hindu mobs massacred Muslims on the streets, only Muslims were booked as 'terrorists'. Today India is passing laws that allows the government to call anyone it wants to a Maoist, a Naxalite. In India the bogey of 'Islamist terrorism' had an inherent flaw - the minimum qualification for a person to be booked was that he or she had to be Muslim. Now with the 'Maoist Terror' bogey that flaw has been rectified. The media’s wild stories about Maoist terror has allowed the Indian Government to vastly expanded the catchment area of suspects. It can apply to any one of us. In Sri lanka the long term consequences cannot be good. I don’t believe that people who have been brutalized and robbed of their dignity will just keep taking it. The Tamils will rise again, not now, but some years from now.

Q. Whenever you came out with your views on the ground realities, you came under severe criticism of the Sri Lanka government as a supporter of the LTTE. Is this because your comments are considered pro-LTTE sentiments?

A. That is a pretty standard, self-serving way that most right wing governments have of dealing with criticism. It’s the old Bush doctrine ‘If you are not with us you are with the terrorists.” I refuse to submit to it. I am in no way pro LTTE nor have I ever been. I cannot admire those whose vision can only accommodate justice for their own and not for everybody. However I do believe that the LTTE and its fetish for violence was cultured in the crucible of monstrous, racist, injustice that the Sri Lankan government and to a great extent Sinhala society visited on the Tamil people for decades. I also believe that the LTTE must take at least some responsibility for the cataclysm that has befallen the people it claimed it spoke for, and fought for. The tragedy of Sri Lanka’s Tamil people is one that all armed struggles, including the Maoists of India ought to learn from.

The "tough talk" over the case of Sri Lankan Tamil asylum seekers by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and Australia's abrogation of its responsibility to these people in deals with Indonesia (which have turned sour) has left me puzzled and disappointed.

Where was this "tough talk" when Tamil civilians in Sri Lanka were being relentlessly shelled by the Sri Lankan military in the war earlier this year? What practical measures has the Australian Government taken to address the suffering of Tamil civilians in the internment camps in Sri Lanka since the war ended in May? More than 250,000 Tamil civilians have been detained since May in barbed-wire fenced internment camps, where they are subject to massive overcrowding, shortage of food and medical facilities, abductions, including the abduction of children, rape, torture, disease, and when the monsoons set in, flooding.

It is the extreme, so-called "push factors" and the entrenched discrimination against Tamils in Sri Lanka that leads to desperate acts, such as embarking on a dangerous voyage on unsafe vessels.

Human Rights Organisations, such Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, have repeatedly expressed their concern about the conditions in the camps. Both organisations have repeatedly called for the release of Tamil civilians from the internment camps and have accused the Sri Lankan Government of falsely claiming that it had allowed thousands of detained civilians in the camps to return home. In reality, many of the people that the Government claims to have released have been transferred from one detention camp to another, a so-called "way station". Asia director at Human Rights Watch Brad Adams has said: "While the Government has the right to screen the displaced persons for security reasons, the process has turned into a ruse to hold as many Tamils for as long as possible in the camps. The Government's untruthful statements and promises should not fool anybody anymore."

Amnesty International has stated that the camps are filthy, overcrowded and dangerous. Heavy rains in September caused rivers of water to cascade through the tents, forcing camp residents to wade through sewage. Monsoon rains are expected to start soon, threatening to flood the camps. One escapee told Amnesty that some women are forced to give birth in front of strangers without privacy.

All international media and non-governmental organisations have been locked out of the camps, ensuring that the suffering of the people is far from public attention. The Times newspaper in England has reported that 1400 civilians each week are dying in the camps. British Foreign Secretary David Miliband has admitted to the House of Commons that the British Government was aware that the extrajudicial killing of Tamils has taken place, both inside and outside the camps. The European Union is set to recommend withdrawing trade benefits from Sri Lanka over alleged human rights abuses in the last stages of the civil war. The EU has investigated whether Sri Lanka violated the UN Convention against Torture, UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and UN Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. In August it completed a report that described a culture of "complete or virtually complete impunity in Sri Lanka", citing police torture, abductions of journalists and uninvestigated disappearances.

In addition, earlier this week, in a 70-page report, the US Government was highly critical of the Sri Lankan Government. The report alleged that Sri Lankan Government forces abducted and killed ethnic Tamil civilians, shelled and bombed no-fire zones, and killed senior rebel leaders with whom they had brokered a surrender. The report describes a hellish scene, in which a no-fire zone, crowded with civilians, was struck by sustained shelling and bombing. It estimated that 100 people per day were killed by Sri Lankan army shelling and bombing. Hospitals in the area were continually struck by shells, even though their locations had been carefully reported to the Government.

Many of the critics of the 260 asylum seekers label them "queue jumpers". How can one jump a queue, when one was never allowed to join the queue? The United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR), which is responsible for processing the claims of refugees, is not allowed in the camps.

The Australian Government's response has been to pledge to send Australian police to Sri Lanka to help the Government there clamp down on the exodus of asylum seekers. This is after the Australian Government that sent its deputy chief of the navy, Rear Admiral Davyd Thomas, to Colombo in June 2009 to urge that young Tamils be prevented from coming to Australia. Has Australia sent a parliamentary delegation to Sri Lanka to inspect the internment camps and see the conditions for themselves? The answer is no. The weak response of the Australian Government to its own citizen, UNICEF spokesman James Elder who was expelled from Sri Lanka, illustrates its lack of conviction in addressing the human rights concerns of the Tamil people. Furthermore, in July, a second Australian citizen, also a senior UN diplomat was given two weeks to leave the country, for providing detailed rebuttals of Sri Lankan Government "wartime propaganda" during the final battles against the Tamil Tigers. Both expulsions were under the instructions of Palitha Kohona, the then permanent secretary to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Sri Lankan Government. He has just been awarded permanent representative of Sri Lanka to the UN. Kohona is also an Australian citizen, who, before returning to Sri Lanka, was the head of the trade and investment section of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

People do not flee their home countries lightly. Demonising asylum seekers or people smugglers does not help the situation. We need to understand the conditions that force people to flee their home countries. The definition of a refugee is someone who flees persecution. It would be worth examining why Sri Lankan Tamils fear persecution. The Australian Government should look carefully at the situation in Sri Lanka, and urge the Sri Lankan Government to improve its treatment of Tamil citizens if it wants to stem the tide of asylum seekers.

David Feith is the author of Conflict in Sri Lanka and Stalemate: Refugees in Asia.

This country enjoyed a warm glow early in the life of the previous Government when it relieved Australia of some of the so-called Tampa refugees.

Green MP Keith Locke believes we should do it again, this time for asylum-seekers from Sri Lanka who have been picked up by an Australian customs vessel and returned to Indonesia, where they are refusing to disembark.

This country needs to be careful as well as compassionate.

It must do nothing to undermine Australia's legitimate efforts to control its borders. With a vast, empty coast facing Asia and the Indian Ocean, Australians naturally harbour a deep-seated fear of mass illegal immigration by sea.

The Howard Government's refusal to admit the boat-people to the Australian mainland, keeping them encamped in Nauru, Papua New Guinea or Christmas Island, may have seemed hard-hearted in New Zealand but across the Tasman it won John Howard more friends than enemies.

So much so that he was accused of exploiting his hard line for election gains.

Be that as it may, Mr Howard can now point to a measure of success in stemming the flow of sea-borne asylum- seekers during his period in power.

And for all that the Australian Labor Party criticised him at the time, the Rudd Government is doing much the same. It has shut the Nauru and PNG camps but increased air and sea patrols and maintained arrangements that deny refugee appeal rights to those held on Christmas Island.

The public, however, believes Mr Rudd has softened the line and blames him for a recent resurgence in numbers of boat-people trying to make landfall in Australia.

Two polls published this week returned adverse verdicts on his border security. Perception is probably a bigger problem than the reality. Australia accepts 13,500 refugees a year. More than 95 per cent arrive by plane.

The number intercepted at sea over the past year is about 1800. Almost 700 of them have been stopped in the past six weeks. Most come from Afghanistan, Iraq and, more recently, Sri Lanka. Tamils fleeing Sri Lanka since their defeat in that country's long civil war have created a new wave of need.

The 78 who are refusing to leave the Australian customs patrol ship Oceanic Viking in the West Java port of Merak have created an incident that dramatises both the plight of the Tamils and the Australian Government's dilemma.

New Zealand should not take any of the 78 except at Canberra's request. There is a welcome and well-established Tamil immigrant community in this country and extra numbers could easily be absorbed, but orderly procedure is important.

The Australian Foreign Minister has been in Sri Lanka this week trying to discourage Tamils from fleeing to Indonesia in the belief they can slip across to Australia by boat.

Meanwhile, Indonesia has set a deadline of Friday for the Oceanic Viking to depart. Churches and trade unions are calling for the 78 to be allowed into Australia so their need for asylum can be properly assessed.

But the Rudd Government's reluctance can be understood. It is one thing to assess an asylum-seeker who arrives on a commercial aircraft and send him away back on the next plane if his claim fails; it is a different thing entirely to bring the people in on Australian ships or aircraft and preserve the option not to let them stay.

New Zealand should make known its willingness to help, as it did in the Tampa incident, but not too loudly. There is no credit in displays of compassion from a position of comfort.

Asylum- seekers and the agents who prey on them must not imagine that a bid for illegal entry to Australia will result, at worst, in admission to New Zealand. The lucky few admitted from the Tampa did not interfere with the Howard Government's clear message. The same care would be needed again.

“If you write anymore, we will kill you and slice you into pieces.”

These were the words of “hand written death threats”, received by two female editors of The Sunday Leader, a leading broadsheet in Sri Lanka.

The threats were sent to the editors, Frederica Jansz and Munza Mushtaq, after the paper published a story relating to the infamous Channel 4 execution video, reporting that the video was authentic.

The letters, received on October 22, were written in red ink, and were reported by Jansz to be “almost identical to what Lasantha (Wickrematunge) got three weeks before he was murdered”.

The former Sunday Leader editor received the threats just before he was assassinated.

A professional graphologist P.H. Manatunge, confirmed that the writings sent to Wickrematunge were similar to the ones received recently and may have been sent by the same person.

The threats followed an article written in the government run Media Centre for National Security website, attacking Frederica Jansz for comments made in an interview with Al-Jazeera.

The article went so far as to even carry terminology such as “prostituting” and “prostitute.”

“This newspaper has consistently in the entire 15 years of its existence come under attack. We have been burnt, bombed, sealed, harassed and threatened, culminating in January this year with the brutal killing of Lasantha Wickrematunge,” reported the paper.

“Not satisfied with that assassination, The Sunday Leader has continued to come under attack.”

The threats were received after the paper published a front page news article reporting the findings of a United States forensic analyst company.

The American company had said in a preliminary report that there had been no tampering of the controversial Channel 4 video clip, in either the audio or video portions of the footage.

The video showed men in Sri Lankan Army uniform executing naked, blindfolded Tamil civilians, with their hands tied behind their backs.

“The police must treat these death threats written in red ink with the utmost seriousness, especially as they were sent to two journalists whose press group has repeatedly been the target of physical violence,” Reporters Without Borders said.

“We urge the police to track down and arrest those who wrote these letters.”

“It is also vital that the authorities order the security forces to put a stop to their unwarranted summonses and arrests of journalists, and to register the complaints submitted by journalists when they are physically attacked," carried on the non-governmental organisation which advocates press freedom.

Since President Mahinda Rajapakse came into power in 2006 at least 14 media workers have been killed and over 30 media workers have been seriously assaulted in the last 2 years.

The President has ordered an investigation into the threats, “but like all the inquiries he has ordered in the past, nothing will come of this one too,” reported the paper.

“Over the past three years, numerous journalists have been detained in Sri Lanka while others have fled the country,” reported Amnesty International.

“Investigations have not resulted in prosecutions.”

“Our concern is that these most recent threats, like so many others, and the deaths of 11 journalists since President Mahinda Rajapaksa came to power in 2006, will remain unexplained and those behind them will remain unprosecuted,” said Bob Dietz of the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists.

“The air of impunity surrounding violence against the media is having a chilling effect on journalists.”

A boatful of asylum seekers, believed to be Tamil refugees, was detected off the shores of Australia last week, capsizing before it had reached land.

Twelve civilians aboard the boat are believed to have drowned and 27 were rescued.

The boat is believed to have set sail from the Batticaloa, Sri Lanka, with the ultimate destination being Australia.

The surviving asylum seekers  were sent to a detention centre on Christmas Island,  off the northern coast of Australia.

After 24 hours a rescue operation to find further survivors was called off.

“Medical advice received indicates that there is no further chance of survivability,” Australian Home Minister Brendan O'Connor said in a statement. “This is a tragic incident.”

The refugees were rescued by a trawler and bulk freighter which responded to their distress signals.

They arrived to find debris from the boat strewn about the water and a "significant" number of the passengers in the ocean.

Two teenage boys aged 13 and 14 were among the missing, feared dead after the boat capsized near the Cocos Island.

One body was recovered and a two more were sighted in the water, international media reports said.

Meanwhile, 245 asylum seekers are still aboard a boat boarded West Java port of Merak in Indonesia, which was first detected on October 17. Since then, they have refused to disembark from the boat and step foot onto Indonesian soil.

Ten refugees have come off the boat for urgent medical reasons.

"We all wish to come to Australia," said 30-year old Anton speaking from an Indonesian hospital.

The group’s spokesman Alex, has told reporters that he was deported from Canada in 2003, but was reluctant to talk about his past, fearing for the safety of his wife and children, who are still in Sri Lanka.

He said that he would "hold the Australian government and the Indonesian government responsible for their murders," if anything were to happen to them.

Many of the refugees on board the boat have said that they were held in the infamous Menik Farm IDP camp.

"They are deeply traumatised and fear being returned to camps if they hand themselves over to the Indonesian government,” said Pamela Curr from the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre in Melbourne.

“Three people from this boat have been hospitalised and five people with little children have left the boat because of the children. Last week water was restricted and no medical care given for conjunctivitis which was sweeping through the boat. Over 30 cases reported on Friday," she said.

"IOM and Indonesian officers are pressuring the people to disembark. However after living in camps in Sri Lanka these people are not ready to commit to camps in Indonesia," she added.

Australia on Sunday, November 8, urged Sri Lanka, having defeated the Tamil Tigers in May, to now embrace political reform and reconciliation to stem the flow of asylum seekers leaving the country.

Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith met his Sri Lankan counterpart Rohitha Bogollagama in Colombo on Monday, November 8 amid a standoff in Indonesia involving 78 Tamil asylum seekers, who are refusing to leave an Australian vessel that rescued them last month.

"I will reiterate Australia's view that having won the war, Sri Lanka now needs to win the peace through political reform and reconciliation," Smith said in a statement before his meeting with his Sri Lankan counterpart.

"Mr Bogollagama and I will discuss bilateral and regional cooperation on people smuggling and ways in which Australia will continue to assist Sri Lanka rebuild after decades of internal conflict."

The Australian statement however was not publically reiterated after Smith’s arrival in Colombo. Instead, Australia and Sri Lanka signed a legal cooperation agreement to fight people smuggling.

The memorandum of understanding will make it easier to investigate and prosecute smugglers while legal assistance and extradition measures will be strengthened, Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith said in a statement, without detailing specific steps.

“People smuggling remains a high priority,” Smith and Bogollagama, said in a joint statement. “It presents a threat to the integrity of border security.”

The standoff in Indonesia involves an Australian customs vessel which rescued a group of boatpeople in Indonesian waters.

It took them to the Indonesian port of Tanjung Pinang but the asylum seekers have refused to leave the vessel.

Last Friday Indonesia extended for another week a deadline for the ship to leave its waters.

The arrival in Australia of several boats carrying asylum seekers, many of them Sri Lankan Tamils displaced by the conduct and end of civil war, has ignited what is a hot-button political issue in Australia.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has had to defend his border security policy, which critics say has been softened and is attracting more boatpeople. Opinion polls show the popularity of Rudd's government has taken a tumble in the past few weeks as a result of its handling of the issue.

Almost 300,000 civilians were forced from their homes and moved into the cramped camps in the north of Sri Lanka during the final months of Sri Lanka's civil war against the LTTE which ended in May.

“I viewed what happened on the beach below through the lens of a camera recorder from the seventh floor of a building located next to the Bambalapitya railway station”, Assistant News Editor of TNL News channel, Sisikelum Dahampriya Balage said, giving evidence to the Colombo Fort Magistrate’s inquest into the killing of Balavarnam Sivakumar, 26.

He said that he saw a man being chased by three persons towards the sea and saw them assaulting the man they were chasing, with sticks. But he could not clearly make out the three men chasing the lone man were police officers or not.

But the witness said that it was his impression that it took place “under the supervision of the police”.

The elder brother of the victim, Balavarnam Kadirgamanathan, informed the courts that Sivakumar had mental depression for a couple of years for which he received medical treatment from a mental hospital.

“I have five elder sisters and one younger sister. He is my only brother. He had been undergoing treatment for his mental illness. When I saw him for the last time, he was wearing a black T-shirt and brown trouser. On October 30, I went to the morgue and identified the body of my brother,” he told the Magistrate.

He urged the courts to carry out a proper investigation into the killing of his brother so that justice was served. 

The Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU) has justified an attack on the Christian ‘Centre for Hope’ at Koswatte, in central Sri Lanka, resulting in the healing centre being severely damaged.

JHU Spokesman Nishantha Sri Warnasinghe told The Sunday Leader that they had no option but to protest against the Centre for converting followers of other faiths into Christianity.

A violent protest ensued last Thursday, November 5, with JHU supporters including parliamentarians protesting and stoning the Centre decrying an incident over two female deaths on October 31 at a ‘healing service’ at the Viharamahadevi Park.

“If the government, the police or the authorities concerned do not want to take action against such illegal activities, we as the JHU who pledged to build a ‘Buddhist nation’ have a right to raise a voice against the church. That was why we protested and urged the government to take necessary action against the pastor who is responsible for the two deaths on October 31,” Warnasinghe claimed.

The Talangama police are yet to take action against the perpetrators, he said.

“We were there when the protestors came and stoned the Centre for Hope. They also warned our Pastor A.J. Joseph who was not in at the moment with death threats unless he stopped the healing programmes. They accused the pastor of unethical conversions which is baseless,” Channa who works at the centre said.

Channa alleged that, JHU Parliamentarian Ven. Ellawala Medhananda was a notable protestor who stoned the building and added that many prominent JHU members too were among the crowd.

Meanwhile Pastor Joseph told The Sunday Leader that he has nothing to do with the two deaths but added that they had come to the Viharamahadevi Park to get rid of the evil spirits they had been possessed of.

“I have received a special gift of the holy spirit and if people do come to get their illnesses healed through my prayers, what can I do? Anybody could say that I am wrong if I had given any medicine to the two ladies. Religious intolerance by a certain section of Buddhists over the past few years is on the rise again and this time it includes parliamentarian monks,” Pastor Joseph alleged.

The US House of Representatives passed a motion calling on the Sri Lankan government to respect its commitments to care for and ensure the speedy return of civilians displaced by the fighting.

H. Res. 711 resolution, passed in the US House of Representatives Thursday, November 5, by a vote of 421 to 1, also drew attention to the approach of the 180 day deadline within which the Sri Lankan government had promised to release all the detained Tamil civilians.

That period is due to end on November 23, 2009.

Fewer than 20% of those detained have been released as of Oct. 23, 2009.

The resolution also emphasized that "the United States supports the rapid release and voluntary return of all civilian IDPs as a critical element of national reconciliation in Sri Lanka."

The resolution called on the Government of Sri Lanka to allow freedom of movement for "IDPs to leave their camps voluntarily and return in safety and dignity to their homes or, where that is not possible, to live with host families or move to open transit sites."

Congress resolved that the IDP camps needed to be 'truly civilian,' not military.

They also said it was imperative that NGOs and observers, including the ICRC have 'full access' to the camps by.

The Congress also urged the Sri Lankan government to “engage in dialogue with Tamils inside and outside Sri Lanka on new mechanisms for devolving power, improving human rights and increasing accountability."

Many Congressmen including Rep. Howard Berman, the head of the Foreign Affairs Committee, and Rep. Danny Davis, who visited all areas of Sri Lanka following the tsunami and who co-sponsored the resolution along with Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee, spoke in support of the resolution before the vote was taken.

The resolution was described as 'non-controversial and non-partisan,' and attracted 32 co-sponsors from both parties.

Isolationist Rep. Ron Paul of Texas was the only one to vote against the resolution.

The resolution marked increasing signs of impatience by the international community with the slow pace of release of the Tamils detainees held against their will in military run internment camps, commented TamilNet.

France’s Human Rights Ambassador François Zimeray, who spent three days visiting the island, criticised the government to continue to enforce what AFP described as “draconian legislation”.

"Ending of the emergency (in force since 1983) should have been the first consequence of ending the war (in May)," said the Ambassador.

"The fact that the conflict is over should be an opportunity to put an end to emergency laws.”

The “State of Emergency” that allow these laws to be enforced were extended for another month after a motion was passed in parliament.

The Tamil National Alliance (TNA) and Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC) were the only parties to vote against the motion.

These laws were used earlier on this year to sentence Tamil journalist J Tissanaiyagam to 20 years in jail, an issue that even US President Barack Obama commented on.

The French Ambassador’s visit coincided with an impending EU ruling on GSP+ trade concessions.

This is an issue that would influence Paris’s stance with regards to future trading with Sri Lanka, he pointed out.

While the envoy stressed that they were not trying to impose “western values” upon Sri Lanka, he stressed that the government has a duty to implement its own laws to protect human rights and ensure the rule of law.

French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, who arranged for the Human Rights Ambassador Zimeray to visit Sri Lanka, also condemned Colombo, for their treatment of civilians after the civil war has ended.

“Six months after fighting ended in the oldest conflict in Asia, the population of Sri Lanka is suffering the consequences of this dreadful war on a daily basis,” reported the Foreign Minister in a statement.

“Tens of thousands of people are still being held prisoner in camps and kept under the control of armed forces. The camps must now be permanently dismantled and the humanitarian organizations must be able to provide assistance and protection without any restriction to the displaced populations.”

“Several months after the end of the armed conflict, we are waiting for the Sri Lankan authorities to take resolute action to dispense justice to compensate the pain of all the victims of this conflict,” said Kouchner.

Meanwhile, the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) criticised Sri Lanka for becoming a country of lawlessness and urged for changes to the executive presidency system, which it claimed allows security needs to be put above the rule of law. 

“The essential problem that the country needs to resolve for its very survival as a nation is as to whether it can overcome the present state of lawlessness in the country,” said the AHRC.

“The executive presidential system, as it was introduced in 1978, was to displace all the legal mechanisms that existed within the country to ensure a basic system of the rule of law as the apparatus of governance in the country. Such a legal apparatus which did exist from the time of the country’s independence was replaced with a security apparatus which operates above the law,” the organisation said.

“Today, this security apparatus, which stands above all the legal institutions, has virtually displaced the rule of law mechanisms within the country”, reported the AHRC.

 “All those who have any kind of thinking capacity need to address their minds as to whether peace, reconciliation or power sharing makes any sense when the nation is in a state of lawlessness. Can the issue of peace be separated in Sri Lanka from the issue of law? If this issue is not addressed as carefully as possible by the opposition it cannot offer a viable alternative to the present state of affairs prevalent within the country now under the executive presidential system.”

“In the previous presidential elections the government promised the abolition of the executive presidency. However, the government approaches the next elections with a view to consolidate the power of the executive president more than for any other reason.”

The Citizen’s Movement for Good Governance also blames the executive presidency system and those in power for the systematic degrading of the independence and professionalism of the police force.