MEDIA RELEASE
Sydney, Wednesday, 4th April 2012
As death risks rise, humanitarian appeal launched - to other nations!
Deportations research just conducted in Afghanistan by the respected Australian social justice organisation, Edmund Rice Centre, has revealed further horrors confronted by asylum seekers who have been returned there by the Australian Government.
“In this visit to Kabul, further to our previous visits, we met and interviewed another 31 returned asylum seekers. Sadly, 29 of these 31 are living in extreme danger,” affirmed ERC Director, Phil Glendenning. “We confirmed the deaths of another two returnees and the kidnapping of one other who is now presumed dead.”
“The majority of these men are unable to live with their wives and children because of the risk their simple presence would pose to the safety of their family,” he said. “We were able to find a 17 year old boy who was sent back from Australia last year and has ended up living on the street.”
“One man I interviewed had recently survived a rocket being fired through his house. His wife and his father were killed instantly. He lives now in hiding in Kabul - along with his six children – all under the age of nine.”
“The returnees are being actively targeted for having left the country, because they are seen as being favourable to the West, and many are falsely held to have converted to Christianity. According to the Independent Human Rights Commission the situation is deteriorating rapidly and security just fifteen minutes on the road to Ghazni cannot be guaranteed,” Mr Glendenning continued.
“We hold deep concern as to both the accuracy and independence of the information about the security situation for civilians in Afghanistan that was provided to asylum seekers whilst held in Australia’s detention centres. The evidence provided by the returnees in our interviews indicates the systemic use of deceptive practices as part of a strategy to coerce the signing of forms accepting voluntary repatriation or to encourage acceptance of forcible removal from Australia.”
“These asylum seekers and their families should never have been returned to Afghanistan. They must not now continue to be forgotten,” he said.
“The Edmund Rice Centre is recommitting to doing three things: firstly, publishing the results of our research of the deportees’ cases for the UN and the Australian Government; secondly, with this research lobbying in Australia and internationally for changes and increased safeguards and oversight; thirdly, rebuilding public awareness to highlight the appalling mistakes made and the need for Australia to take responsibility for what we have done, and to work to get these poor people finally to safety.”
“In the past the Edmund Rice Centre has had some success in advocating through the UN for the asylum seekers deported from Australia to achieve resettlement in the US, UK, Canada, NZ and Sweden. This year we will be taking this humanitarian appeal to these same nations again,” Mr Glendenning said.
“It is hard to believe we share the same planet. At some stage our nation has got to recover its humanity. I think that doing whatever we can to help those thrown away by us is a step in that direction.”
Over the past ten years the Edmund Rice Centre has conducted research into what happens to Australia's rejected asylum seekers. Two major reports have been published Deported to Danger and Deported to Danger II – leading to the making of the television documentary, A Well Founded Fear, which screened nationally in 2008.
For interview or comment contact:-
Phil Glendenning: 0419 013 758 or Sean Cleary: 0403 434 512
Thursday, April 5, 2012
Friday, March 23, 2012
SRI LANKA: Extrajudicial Killings: The miserable breakdown of the rule of law
An Article by the Asian Human Rights Commission
By Nilantha Ilangamuwa
Our lives are spinning out
from world to world;
the shapes of things
are shifting in the wind.
What do we know
beyond the rapture and the dread?- Stanley Kunitz*
“They finished off my husband after two days of torture, and then took me to Hambantota where a number of women were held on suspicion. To my knowledge, most of them were innocent like me. There too they tortured me and urged me to reveal the names of the people who had connections with the JVP, but I did not know anyone who had JVP connections and I didn’t have any link with them either.” - Mrs. Premasili**
Every national and international observer agrees that Sri Lanka today is a state facing tremendous upheaval and chaotic social disorder, even after the elimination of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), on May 19, 2012 (when the Government of Sri Lanka officially declared the longest civil war in Asia over1). The national and international civil society organizations have documented that violations of fundamental human rights are occurring every day2. The tabling of the drafted resolution on human rights in Sri Lanka by the United State of America, to the 19th Session of the Human Rights Council in Geneva, has questioned an old phenomenon in a new framework, though it continues, as previous resolutions have, to open widespread discussion on human rights violations by the Government of Sri Lanka, as well as by non-state actors in recent times in the island nation. There is no doubt that the Government of Sri Lanka needs tremendous pressure from the international community, not only to take responsibility for its conduct during the war, but also to address the many constitutional shortcomings that resulted from the introduction of the 1978 Constitution3 and most of its amendments, where the principles of common law were manipulated by the executive branch to place itself above the law.
In regard to the threat to human lives, there is no significant difference between open warfare and political competition between the powerful political parties of Sri Lanka. Since 1971 when the UF Government4 introduced the practice of extrajudicial killing for the first time against the JVP insurrection, many dissidents, both rebel and civilian, have been killed in cold blood. Extrajudicial killings have become a norm of daily life in Sri Lanka. Even though the present regime has made some symbolic developments on extrajudicial killings, they remain part of daily life. Sri Lankans, rightly, remain fearful of abduction and the white van syndrome has become a powerful symbol of extra judicial killings in recent years. However, the Government of Sri Lanka remains unwilling to conduct genuine investigation on “White Van” abductions and it is commonly believed that the Government is the one of the main perpetrators of these heinous crimes.
The worst development of this practice was reported on the second week of February this year, when an armed gang entered the premises of a courthouse and abducted an individual who was being escorted by security officials from the courthouse to prison, after hearing a case against him. The following morning, Tuesday 14th February, 2012, a body of a male was dumped and burnt near Sri Lankan President Mr. Mahinda Rajapaksa’s private residence in Boteju Mawatha, in Colombo. Around 9.30 am on 14th February, unidentified persons arrived in a white van, dumped a male body, and burnt it in front of Mr. Rajapaksa’s private residence.
The Asian Human Rights Commission has documented a case of a man who was tortured and illegally detained for 28 months and was abducted before the Supreme Court could hear his Fundamental Rights application. On 11 February, 2012, Mr. Ramasamy Prabakaran was forcibly abducted in the presence of his wife, Shiromi, and their daughter, near their home in Canal Bank Road, Wellawatte. Prabakaran, who owns Panama Traders, an electronic shop in Majestic City Shopping Complex, is a Tamil of Indian origin.5 It has been reported by the media, that there have been 32 unexplained abductions documented between last October and this February, mostly in Colombo and suburb or northern Sri Lanka; the victims being a mix of Sinhala, Tamil and Muslim6.
As a part of the militarization of the country, not only of the North and East, but of the entire country, the rule of law has come under threat while the military controls whole sectors of the country and has been given enormous power to undermine the peoples’ basic rights, rights that have been confirmed in the Constitution of Sri Lanka, international treaties which have been signed by the Government of Sri Lanka, and even in election manifestos issues by each of the political parties, including the present ruling alliance. Former high court judge, Mr. W.T.M.P.B. Warawewa, at a felicitation organized in his honor by the Young Lawyers Association, has claimed that the current breakdown of the rule of law is the result of certain judges failing to maintain the dignity of their profession and having no self-strength. Some judges would fall to any lowly depth for personal gains and this corruption has allowed human rights violations to flourish. Honesty and courage are essential for a judge, and that is why the people respected the judiciary. Very soon, it would not be surprising if the Army’s major generals are appointed to the Supreme Court, as the judiciary has recognized a court martial as a legitimate court of law for accused civilians, as well as military personnel.
The victims of forceful abduction and extrajudicial killings are not only ordinary people, but it has been widespread among all level of the society and some of members of the Government itself are in fear of abduction and execution. In an interview with this writer7 the President of the Urban Council, Kolonnawa, Colombo suburb, Mr. Ravindu Udaya Shantha revealed that the Government was responsible for the extrajudicial killing of his own brother, who was abducted on February 21, 2012, in a white van, as well as an endeavor to abduct him by an armed group attached to the Sri Lankan Army on 11th March 2012, in Umagiliya, Kolonnawa. There is no investigation regarding his brother’s abduction, while the Minister of Economic Development Affairs, who is the brother of the President as well as an adviser, Mr. Basil Rajapakse, unofficially informed Mr. Ravindu that his brother had been killed. There has been no investigation into the abduction of Mr. Ravindu, even after four people who were involved in the attempt were handed over to the police station in Wellampitiya. They were released on special order from the Defence Authority that same day.
Forceful abduction and extrajudicial killing have been constantly growing after the killing of former parliamentarian and an advisor to the President, Mr. Bharatha Lakshman Premachandra, as a result of internal power struggles within the ruling alliance, in Mulleriyawa, Colombo on October 08th 2011. As the Asian Human Rights Commission disclosed, all business transactions and even human transactions will suffer from the unscrupulous actions of persons who will refuse to respect the law. Already this situation exists to a large degree. Guns, goons, and the police and politicians acting illegally have a great influence on business activities both big and small. Those who have influence with the criminal elements and the politicians that support such elements will ensure that the 'cake' only belongs to them. Of course these persons will fall out with each other and resort to the same tactics against their former friends.8 Most of abductions and extrajudicial killings that have occurred recently, not only in Colombo but everywhere in the country, targeted businesses, both lawful and unlawful.
There is also the case of Mr. Mohamed Sali Mohamed Niyas, also known as “Loku Seeya”, who was abducted in a Colombo suburb by an armed gang in a white van, and then taken to an unknown location in the Eastern province where it is believed that he was tortured, killed, and his body then dumped at sea. It is questionable how such abductions can occur, taking a victim hundred kilometers away from the place where he was abducted when the abducting gang has to go through at least five major security points. The statement of the wife of Mr. Mohamed Sali Mohamed Niyas a.k.a. Loku Seeya, Mrs. K.G.C Ruika Niyas, shows the kind of gruesome murders taking place in the country. According to the post-mortem, he was strangled and his throat slit. He had also been pounded in the head and stabbed a number of times. He was also administered 3 injections of unknown chemicals. I am still unable to imagine how brutal that must have been. The body had over 100 kgs of weight strapped on to it which was wrapped with barb wire. The body was then covered with polythene and secured further with chicken fencing ( same as barbed wire) . It also had something like an anchor attached to the body. In spite of all that it washed ashore at Akkarai Paththu. The body was flown back home and the funeral proceedings were conducted.9
Meanwhile, there is no justice for the abduction and murder of the human rights activist Mr. Pattani Razeek. He disappeared on 11 February 2010. After much delay in the police investigation, his dead body was found on 28 July 2011 by the police in Kavathamunai, Oddamavadi, Valaichenai, Eastern province. It has been reported that the family and lawyer of Mr. Razeek has yet to receive the post-mortem report and the deoxyribo nucleic acid test (DNA) report that may reveal the truth behind the murder of Razeek.
It has been widely reported that the party of the ruling alliance was directly involved in an abduction and extrajudicial killing in Northern district, in the Jaffna peninsula. On the first week of March 2012, a thirteen-year –old school girl, Jesudasan Lakshmi, was abducted, raped and killed by breaking her skull using a stone, when she was on her way to the school on Delft Island, by a man who is a member of the Eelam People’s Democratic Party (EPDP), led by Douglas Devananda, who is a minister of the Government. In the beginning of the year, on January 28, 2012, there was another extrajudicial killing in Jaffna where sixteen-year-old school student Miss. Iridiyanar Sineshika, of Alwari North, Point Pedro, Jaffna was murdered. Also, on November 10, 2011, Mr. Subramanium Dayabaran (45) who was the Principal of the Karanakuri School, Kodikamam, Jaffna, was murdered. Like other parts of the country, the Jaffna peninsula remains a dangerous place, even after the elimination of the LTTE. There is still no news of Mr. Lalith Kumar and Mr. Kugan Muruganathan who were abducted at the end of last year by an armed group.
Corruption within law enforcement and police brutality towards civilians has resulted in the killing of unarmed civilians who were engaged in peaceful demonstration, due to the loss of their essential rights. The AHRC, over the past few decades, has highlighted the loss of independence of the police, and their shift by government elements towards the unlawful practice of social control and now the police have become another tool to secure the absolute power of politicians. Through the killing of a torture victim, Mr. Sugath Nishantha Fernando, who was pursuing a fundamental rights application against Negambo police, and the killing of Mr. Gerald Perera, who was a torture victim pursuing a case against several police officers at Wattala Police station, the AHRC has examined the country’s policing system and the decline of genuine investigations. Recently, the killing of Mr. Roshan Chanaka Rathnasekara, a worker at the Free Trade Zone (FTZ) in Katunayake, Colombo and the assassination of Mr. Anthony Fernando of Chilaw, who was shot dead while engaged in a peaceful demonstration against the rise in the prices of oil, reveals the changes of law and order, policy, and attitudes relating to murder and its these developments destroy faith in the country's legal system.
Nationally and internationally pressuring the Government of Sri Lanka to implement the recommendations given in the Report by the Commission of inquiry on Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation (LLRC) is essential to stop the abduction, torture, and extrajudicial killings that have become part of daily life in the island nation. The government has denied human rights to the people and identified opposition to this policy as a threat to national security and part of an international conspiracy against the country. Meanwhile, the government claims that their action plan for the protection and promotion human rights is the result of a government and people deciding to take concrete action to bring about positive change. “In developing the Action Plan, the Government assessed the measures in place to protect and promote human rights, identified areas that need improvement and have committed ourselves to improving the protection and promotion of human rights.”10 However the LLRC report highlights some important aspects of social developments in the country. Acknowledging the losses and suffering of the past and providing mechanisms for recompense, social justice and for restoration of normalcy and expressions of empathy and solidarity, are steps aimed at redress. Relationship building following violent conflict, addressing issues of lack of trust, prejudice, and intolerance whilst accepting commonalities and differences, is the essence of reconciliation.11 The culture of suspicion, fear, mistrust and violence needs to be removed and opportunities and space opened up in which people can hear each other and be heard.12
While we welcomed the draft resolution by the US on Sri Lanka, which urges the implementation of recommendations given by the LLRC, the AHRC believes that there will be little hope for the reconciliation of disordered social institutions unless the Government takes action to change the present constitution to limit the powers of the executive and respect basic law in order to restore social order. The people of Sri Lanka expect that the government of Sri Lanka will be encouraged in the Universal Periodic Review to take gradual action, not only at the legislative level, but beyond that to implement basic principles of rule of law, where complaints will be systematically investigated, and where crimes will be properly prosecuted, regardless of whether they were committed by state agencies or non-state actors.
_______________________________________________
*Stanley JassponKunitz( 1905-2005) was an American poet
** Mrs. Premasili,a Sinhalese widow. Her husband was killed in cool blood by the Sri Lanka Army, while interrogating in detention camp in 1988.
1.Address by the President MahindaRajapaksa at the ceremonial opening of Parliament, Sri Jayawardhanapura - Kotte, May 19, 2009. (http://www.president.gov.lk/speech_New.php?Id=74 )
2. The Phantom Limb: Failing Judicial Systems, Torture and Human Rights Work in Sri Lanka , Chapter 01- What is and What is Not of Human Rights in Sri Lanka , Asian Human Rights Commission (http://www.humanrights.asia/resources/books/the-phantom-limb )
3. 1978 Constitution original promulgation by the National State Assembly on 7 September 1978, by Prime Minister J. R. Jayewardene then he became first executive president of Sri Lanka. It is Sri Lanka's second republican constitution and its third constitution since the country's independence (as Ceylon) in 1948; perhaps it has been formally amended 18 times up to 2010 September.
4. The United Front ( UF) was a political alliance in Sri Lanka, formed by the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), the Lanka SamaSamaja Party (LSSP) and the Communist Party of Sri Lanka (CPSL) in 1968. It came to power in the 1970 general election, but broke up in September 1975.
5. SRI LANKA: Abduction of a torture victim seeking judicial remedies from the Supreme Court (http://www.humanrights.asia/news/urgent-appeals/AHRC-UAC-023-2012 )
6. Sri Lanka's sinister white van abductions (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-17356575 )
7. Interview with Mr. RavinduUdayaShantha, Mayor, KolonnawaUC ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxBQH875bVc&feature=youtu.be )
8. Sri Lanka: It is not enough to 'cry for the country' (http://www.humanrights.asia/news/ahrc-news/AHRC-STM-155-2011/?searchterm=Bharatha%20Lakshman%20Premachandra )
9. Sri Lanka: The abduction and the brutal murder of Mohamed Sali Mohamed Niyas -- the family writes to the human rights organisations (http://www.humanrights.asia/news/ahrc-news/AHRC-STM-202-2011 )
10. Sri Lanka: The National Action plan for protection and promotion of human rights (2011 -2016)
11. The Report by the Commission of inquiry on lessons learnt and reconciliation ( LLRC), Chapter 09-173
12. ibid ( Chapter 09-174)
# # #
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By Nilantha Ilangamuwa
Our lives are spinning out
from world to world;
the shapes of things
are shifting in the wind.
What do we know
beyond the rapture and the dread?- Stanley Kunitz*
“They finished off my husband after two days of torture, and then took me to Hambantota where a number of women were held on suspicion. To my knowledge, most of them were innocent like me. There too they tortured me and urged me to reveal the names of the people who had connections with the JVP, but I did not know anyone who had JVP connections and I didn’t have any link with them either.” - Mrs. Premasili**
Every national and international observer agrees that Sri Lanka today is a state facing tremendous upheaval and chaotic social disorder, even after the elimination of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), on May 19, 2012 (when the Government of Sri Lanka officially declared the longest civil war in Asia over1). The national and international civil society organizations have documented that violations of fundamental human rights are occurring every day2. The tabling of the drafted resolution on human rights in Sri Lanka by the United State of America, to the 19th Session of the Human Rights Council in Geneva, has questioned an old phenomenon in a new framework, though it continues, as previous resolutions have, to open widespread discussion on human rights violations by the Government of Sri Lanka, as well as by non-state actors in recent times in the island nation. There is no doubt that the Government of Sri Lanka needs tremendous pressure from the international community, not only to take responsibility for its conduct during the war, but also to address the many constitutional shortcomings that resulted from the introduction of the 1978 Constitution3 and most of its amendments, where the principles of common law were manipulated by the executive branch to place itself above the law.
In regard to the threat to human lives, there is no significant difference between open warfare and political competition between the powerful political parties of Sri Lanka. Since 1971 when the UF Government4 introduced the practice of extrajudicial killing for the first time against the JVP insurrection, many dissidents, both rebel and civilian, have been killed in cold blood. Extrajudicial killings have become a norm of daily life in Sri Lanka. Even though the present regime has made some symbolic developments on extrajudicial killings, they remain part of daily life. Sri Lankans, rightly, remain fearful of abduction and the white van syndrome has become a powerful symbol of extra judicial killings in recent years. However, the Government of Sri Lanka remains unwilling to conduct genuine investigation on “White Van” abductions and it is commonly believed that the Government is the one of the main perpetrators of these heinous crimes.
The worst development of this practice was reported on the second week of February this year, when an armed gang entered the premises of a courthouse and abducted an individual who was being escorted by security officials from the courthouse to prison, after hearing a case against him. The following morning, Tuesday 14th February, 2012, a body of a male was dumped and burnt near Sri Lankan President Mr. Mahinda Rajapaksa’s private residence in Boteju Mawatha, in Colombo. Around 9.30 am on 14th February, unidentified persons arrived in a white van, dumped a male body, and burnt it in front of Mr. Rajapaksa’s private residence.
The Asian Human Rights Commission has documented a case of a man who was tortured and illegally detained for 28 months and was abducted before the Supreme Court could hear his Fundamental Rights application. On 11 February, 2012, Mr. Ramasamy Prabakaran was forcibly abducted in the presence of his wife, Shiromi, and their daughter, near their home in Canal Bank Road, Wellawatte. Prabakaran, who owns Panama Traders, an electronic shop in Majestic City Shopping Complex, is a Tamil of Indian origin.5 It has been reported by the media, that there have been 32 unexplained abductions documented between last October and this February, mostly in Colombo and suburb or northern Sri Lanka; the victims being a mix of Sinhala, Tamil and Muslim6.
As a part of the militarization of the country, not only of the North and East, but of the entire country, the rule of law has come under threat while the military controls whole sectors of the country and has been given enormous power to undermine the peoples’ basic rights, rights that have been confirmed in the Constitution of Sri Lanka, international treaties which have been signed by the Government of Sri Lanka, and even in election manifestos issues by each of the political parties, including the present ruling alliance. Former high court judge, Mr. W.T.M.P.B. Warawewa, at a felicitation organized in his honor by the Young Lawyers Association, has claimed that the current breakdown of the rule of law is the result of certain judges failing to maintain the dignity of their profession and having no self-strength. Some judges would fall to any lowly depth for personal gains and this corruption has allowed human rights violations to flourish. Honesty and courage are essential for a judge, and that is why the people respected the judiciary. Very soon, it would not be surprising if the Army’s major generals are appointed to the Supreme Court, as the judiciary has recognized a court martial as a legitimate court of law for accused civilians, as well as military personnel.
The victims of forceful abduction and extrajudicial killings are not only ordinary people, but it has been widespread among all level of the society and some of members of the Government itself are in fear of abduction and execution. In an interview with this writer7 the President of the Urban Council, Kolonnawa, Colombo suburb, Mr. Ravindu Udaya Shantha revealed that the Government was responsible for the extrajudicial killing of his own brother, who was abducted on February 21, 2012, in a white van, as well as an endeavor to abduct him by an armed group attached to the Sri Lankan Army on 11th March 2012, in Umagiliya, Kolonnawa. There is no investigation regarding his brother’s abduction, while the Minister of Economic Development Affairs, who is the brother of the President as well as an adviser, Mr. Basil Rajapakse, unofficially informed Mr. Ravindu that his brother had been killed. There has been no investigation into the abduction of Mr. Ravindu, even after four people who were involved in the attempt were handed over to the police station in Wellampitiya. They were released on special order from the Defence Authority that same day.
Forceful abduction and extrajudicial killing have been constantly growing after the killing of former parliamentarian and an advisor to the President, Mr. Bharatha Lakshman Premachandra, as a result of internal power struggles within the ruling alliance, in Mulleriyawa, Colombo on October 08th 2011. As the Asian Human Rights Commission disclosed, all business transactions and even human transactions will suffer from the unscrupulous actions of persons who will refuse to respect the law. Already this situation exists to a large degree. Guns, goons, and the police and politicians acting illegally have a great influence on business activities both big and small. Those who have influence with the criminal elements and the politicians that support such elements will ensure that the 'cake' only belongs to them. Of course these persons will fall out with each other and resort to the same tactics against their former friends.8 Most of abductions and extrajudicial killings that have occurred recently, not only in Colombo but everywhere in the country, targeted businesses, both lawful and unlawful.
There is also the case of Mr. Mohamed Sali Mohamed Niyas, also known as “Loku Seeya”, who was abducted in a Colombo suburb by an armed gang in a white van, and then taken to an unknown location in the Eastern province where it is believed that he was tortured, killed, and his body then dumped at sea. It is questionable how such abductions can occur, taking a victim hundred kilometers away from the place where he was abducted when the abducting gang has to go through at least five major security points. The statement of the wife of Mr. Mohamed Sali Mohamed Niyas a.k.a. Loku Seeya, Mrs. K.G.C Ruika Niyas, shows the kind of gruesome murders taking place in the country. According to the post-mortem, he was strangled and his throat slit. He had also been pounded in the head and stabbed a number of times. He was also administered 3 injections of unknown chemicals. I am still unable to imagine how brutal that must have been. The body had over 100 kgs of weight strapped on to it which was wrapped with barb wire. The body was then covered with polythene and secured further with chicken fencing ( same as barbed wire) . It also had something like an anchor attached to the body. In spite of all that it washed ashore at Akkarai Paththu. The body was flown back home and the funeral proceedings were conducted.9
Meanwhile, there is no justice for the abduction and murder of the human rights activist Mr. Pattani Razeek. He disappeared on 11 February 2010. After much delay in the police investigation, his dead body was found on 28 July 2011 by the police in Kavathamunai, Oddamavadi, Valaichenai, Eastern province. It has been reported that the family and lawyer of Mr. Razeek has yet to receive the post-mortem report and the deoxyribo nucleic acid test (DNA) report that may reveal the truth behind the murder of Razeek.
It has been widely reported that the party of the ruling alliance was directly involved in an abduction and extrajudicial killing in Northern district, in the Jaffna peninsula. On the first week of March 2012, a thirteen-year –old school girl, Jesudasan Lakshmi, was abducted, raped and killed by breaking her skull using a stone, when she was on her way to the school on Delft Island, by a man who is a member of the Eelam People’s Democratic Party (EPDP), led by Douglas Devananda, who is a minister of the Government. In the beginning of the year, on January 28, 2012, there was another extrajudicial killing in Jaffna where sixteen-year-old school student Miss. Iridiyanar Sineshika, of Alwari North, Point Pedro, Jaffna was murdered. Also, on November 10, 2011, Mr. Subramanium Dayabaran (45) who was the Principal of the Karanakuri School, Kodikamam, Jaffna, was murdered. Like other parts of the country, the Jaffna peninsula remains a dangerous place, even after the elimination of the LTTE. There is still no news of Mr. Lalith Kumar and Mr. Kugan Muruganathan who were abducted at the end of last year by an armed group.
Corruption within law enforcement and police brutality towards civilians has resulted in the killing of unarmed civilians who were engaged in peaceful demonstration, due to the loss of their essential rights. The AHRC, over the past few decades, has highlighted the loss of independence of the police, and their shift by government elements towards the unlawful practice of social control and now the police have become another tool to secure the absolute power of politicians. Through the killing of a torture victim, Mr. Sugath Nishantha Fernando, who was pursuing a fundamental rights application against Negambo police, and the killing of Mr. Gerald Perera, who was a torture victim pursuing a case against several police officers at Wattala Police station, the AHRC has examined the country’s policing system and the decline of genuine investigations. Recently, the killing of Mr. Roshan Chanaka Rathnasekara, a worker at the Free Trade Zone (FTZ) in Katunayake, Colombo and the assassination of Mr. Anthony Fernando of Chilaw, who was shot dead while engaged in a peaceful demonstration against the rise in the prices of oil, reveals the changes of law and order, policy, and attitudes relating to murder and its these developments destroy faith in the country's legal system.
Nationally and internationally pressuring the Government of Sri Lanka to implement the recommendations given in the Report by the Commission of inquiry on Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation (LLRC) is essential to stop the abduction, torture, and extrajudicial killings that have become part of daily life in the island nation. The government has denied human rights to the people and identified opposition to this policy as a threat to national security and part of an international conspiracy against the country. Meanwhile, the government claims that their action plan for the protection and promotion human rights is the result of a government and people deciding to take concrete action to bring about positive change. “In developing the Action Plan, the Government assessed the measures in place to protect and promote human rights, identified areas that need improvement and have committed ourselves to improving the protection and promotion of human rights.”10 However the LLRC report highlights some important aspects of social developments in the country. Acknowledging the losses and suffering of the past and providing mechanisms for recompense, social justice and for restoration of normalcy and expressions of empathy and solidarity, are steps aimed at redress. Relationship building following violent conflict, addressing issues of lack of trust, prejudice, and intolerance whilst accepting commonalities and differences, is the essence of reconciliation.11 The culture of suspicion, fear, mistrust and violence needs to be removed and opportunities and space opened up in which people can hear each other and be heard.12
While we welcomed the draft resolution by the US on Sri Lanka, which urges the implementation of recommendations given by the LLRC, the AHRC believes that there will be little hope for the reconciliation of disordered social institutions unless the Government takes action to change the present constitution to limit the powers of the executive and respect basic law in order to restore social order. The people of Sri Lanka expect that the government of Sri Lanka will be encouraged in the Universal Periodic Review to take gradual action, not only at the legislative level, but beyond that to implement basic principles of rule of law, where complaints will be systematically investigated, and where crimes will be properly prosecuted, regardless of whether they were committed by state agencies or non-state actors.
_______________________________________________
*Stanley JassponKunitz( 1905-2005) was an American poet
** Mrs. Premasili,a Sinhalese widow. Her husband was killed in cool blood by the Sri Lanka Army, while interrogating in detention camp in 1988.
1.Address by the President MahindaRajapaksa at the ceremonial opening of Parliament, Sri Jayawardhanapura - Kotte, May 19, 2009. (http://www.president.gov.lk/speech_New.php?Id=74 )
2. The Phantom Limb: Failing Judicial Systems, Torture and Human Rights Work in Sri Lanka , Chapter 01- What is and What is Not of Human Rights in Sri Lanka , Asian Human Rights Commission (http://www.humanrights.asia/resources/books/the-phantom-limb )
3. 1978 Constitution original promulgation by the National State Assembly on 7 September 1978, by Prime Minister J. R. Jayewardene then he became first executive president of Sri Lanka. It is Sri Lanka's second republican constitution and its third constitution since the country's independence (as Ceylon) in 1948; perhaps it has been formally amended 18 times up to 2010 September.
4. The United Front ( UF) was a political alliance in Sri Lanka, formed by the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), the Lanka SamaSamaja Party (LSSP) and the Communist Party of Sri Lanka (CPSL) in 1968. It came to power in the 1970 general election, but broke up in September 1975.
5. SRI LANKA: Abduction of a torture victim seeking judicial remedies from the Supreme Court (http://www.humanrights.asia/news/urgent-appeals/AHRC-UAC-023-2012 )
6. Sri Lanka's sinister white van abductions (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-17356575 )
7. Interview with Mr. RavinduUdayaShantha, Mayor, KolonnawaUC ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxBQH875bVc&feature=youtu.be )
8. Sri Lanka: It is not enough to 'cry for the country' (http://www.humanrights.asia/news/ahrc-news/AHRC-STM-155-2011/?searchterm=Bharatha%20Lakshman%20Premachandra )
9. Sri Lanka: The abduction and the brutal murder of Mohamed Sali Mohamed Niyas -- the family writes to the human rights organisations (http://www.humanrights.asia/news/ahrc-news/AHRC-STM-202-2011 )
10. Sri Lanka: The National Action plan for protection and promotion of human rights (2011 -2016)
11. The Report by the Commission of inquiry on lessons learnt and reconciliation ( LLRC), Chapter 09-173
12. ibid ( Chapter 09-174)
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Tuesday, March 6, 2012
After Fukushima, Vatican joins growing army of opponents of nuclear power
Irish Times 6/3/2012
SEÁN McDONAGH
RITE AND REASON: I AM certain that the word prayer does not appear in any manual outlining how to deal with a serious accident at a nuclear power station anywhere in the world. Yet, prayer ran like a thread through the hour-long BBC2 programme Japan – Inside the Meltdown on February 23rd.
Key witnesses were interviewed who had been trying to prevent a catastrophe at the plant when a severe earthquake and subsequent tsunami swamped three of the reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant.
These included the prime minister Naota Kan, the director of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant Masao Yoshida, senior management at Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco), army personnel and firefighters.
At some point, each one said that during the crisis, he was praying that a catastrophe could be avoided. One of the workers, dressed in boiler suit and goggles, described a conversation he had with this wife before entering the plant to attempt to open the vents.
He realised he was risking his life by entering into the stricken nuclear plant and exposing himself to deadly levels of radiation. His wife was naturally very worried, but as the conversation ended she said she would be praying for him.
Even though Catholics are a small minority in Japan, the bishops responded to the Fukushima disaster.
Auxiliary bishop of Osaka Michael Goro Matsuura said: “I believe that this serious incident should be a lesson for Japan and for the entire planet and will be an incentive to abandon these projects. We call on the solidarity of Christians worldwide to support this campaign.”
After Fukushima, statements from bishops’ conferences in Korea and the Philippines called on their governments to abandon nuclear power. This negative critique of nuclear power was not confined to Asia.
On May 26th, 2011, the German government published a document which was prepared by a commission of experts under the leadership of Cardinal Reinhard Marx of Munich, calling for an end to the use of nuclear power.
Writing in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung on May 29th, Cardinal Reinhard said he felt “a technology that had incalculable consequences for entire generations could not be trusted”.
It seems very strange that the Vatican, which in other spheres preaches a pro-life ethic, should endorse civilian nuclear power.
At the International Atomic Energy Agency in September 1982, Msgr Mario Peressin, then the Vatican representative at the agency, supported the civilian use of nuclear power.
In an address he stated: “The benefits of peaceful use of nuclear energy should thus be extended to all countries, in particular to developing countries.”
He went on to accuse “certain groups of naïve idealists and even certain personalities from the scientific, political, cultural or religious worlds who condemn the use of nuclear power simply because there are some risks”.
So I was surprised and delighted that the Vatican seemed to do a U-turn on its traditional support for civilian nuclear power.
Msgr Michael Banach, the current Vatican representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency, told a conference in Vienna on September 20th last that “this year’s nuclear disaster in Japan has raised new concerns about the safety of nuclear plants around the world”.
He asked whether nuclear power plants should be built and operated in areas prone to earthquakes and whether plants that already exist in such areas should be shut down.
“The long-term effects of the [Fukushima] disaster,” he said, “include economical, medical and rebuilding costs in one of Japan’s richest agricultural areas.”
It seems the Vatican has joined the ranks of “naïve” idealists!
Fr Seán McDonagh is a Columban priest, author and environmental activist. His forthcoming book, Is Fukushima the Death Knell for Nuclear Energy?, will be published shortly.
SEÁN McDONAGH
RITE AND REASON: I AM certain that the word prayer does not appear in any manual outlining how to deal with a serious accident at a nuclear power station anywhere in the world. Yet, prayer ran like a thread through the hour-long BBC2 programme Japan – Inside the Meltdown on February 23rd.
Key witnesses were interviewed who had been trying to prevent a catastrophe at the plant when a severe earthquake and subsequent tsunami swamped three of the reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant.
These included the prime minister Naota Kan, the director of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant Masao Yoshida, senior management at Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco), army personnel and firefighters.
At some point, each one said that during the crisis, he was praying that a catastrophe could be avoided. One of the workers, dressed in boiler suit and goggles, described a conversation he had with this wife before entering the plant to attempt to open the vents.
He realised he was risking his life by entering into the stricken nuclear plant and exposing himself to deadly levels of radiation. His wife was naturally very worried, but as the conversation ended she said she would be praying for him.
Even though Catholics are a small minority in Japan, the bishops responded to the Fukushima disaster.
Auxiliary bishop of Osaka Michael Goro Matsuura said: “I believe that this serious incident should be a lesson for Japan and for the entire planet and will be an incentive to abandon these projects. We call on the solidarity of Christians worldwide to support this campaign.”
After Fukushima, statements from bishops’ conferences in Korea and the Philippines called on their governments to abandon nuclear power. This negative critique of nuclear power was not confined to Asia.
On May 26th, 2011, the German government published a document which was prepared by a commission of experts under the leadership of Cardinal Reinhard Marx of Munich, calling for an end to the use of nuclear power.
Writing in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung on May 29th, Cardinal Reinhard said he felt “a technology that had incalculable consequences for entire generations could not be trusted”.
It seems very strange that the Vatican, which in other spheres preaches a pro-life ethic, should endorse civilian nuclear power.
At the International Atomic Energy Agency in September 1982, Msgr Mario Peressin, then the Vatican representative at the agency, supported the civilian use of nuclear power.
In an address he stated: “The benefits of peaceful use of nuclear energy should thus be extended to all countries, in particular to developing countries.”
He went on to accuse “certain groups of naïve idealists and even certain personalities from the scientific, political, cultural or religious worlds who condemn the use of nuclear power simply because there are some risks”.
So I was surprised and delighted that the Vatican seemed to do a U-turn on its traditional support for civilian nuclear power.
Msgr Michael Banach, the current Vatican representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency, told a conference in Vienna on September 20th last that “this year’s nuclear disaster in Japan has raised new concerns about the safety of nuclear plants around the world”.
He asked whether nuclear power plants should be built and operated in areas prone to earthquakes and whether plants that already exist in such areas should be shut down.
“The long-term effects of the [Fukushima] disaster,” he said, “include economical, medical and rebuilding costs in one of Japan’s richest agricultural areas.”
It seems the Vatican has joined the ranks of “naïve” idealists!
Fr Seán McDonagh is a Columban priest, author and environmental activist. His forthcoming book, Is Fukushima the Death Knell for Nuclear Energy?, will be published shortly.
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
3. Chocolate, agribusiness and the Ivory Coast Crisis
The Roots of the Côte d'Ivoire Crisis
James North
This tropical West African nation, once the most prosperous in the region, is sliding even deeper into civil war. At press time, after a weeklong street battle for Abidjan, the commercial capital of 5 million, there were reports of a fragile settlement. But the vicious violence could break out again at any time. Mainstream Western press accounts included depressingly familiar explanations: the stolen presidential election in November, rising ethnic conflict. The explanations were accurate, as far as they went.
Right now, Côte d’Ivoire’s 21.5 million people are living in a terrible human rights crisis, a catastrophe that is being downplayed partly because the uprisings in the Arab world are distracting attention. But several thousand people have already died here, and up to 1 million are refugees. The small United Nations peacekeeping force should be strengthened, and the world pressure to force the election’s loser, Laurent Gbagbo, to give way to Alassane Ouattara must continue. (Right now Gbagbo is still hanging on to power.) But a change in presidents will not end the danger—and the crisis in Côte d’Ivoire is representative of deeply rooted structural problems in many other African nations.
You have to come here, to one of the forest regions where Côte d’Ivoire’s million-plus cocoa farmers live, to find the fundamental reason that fighting is breaking out again: a profoundly unjust international economic order that pays the people who supply our primary products a pittance and leaves their nations chronically ill with unemployment and poverty, and with people who will fight one another over scarce resources. Here, too, you will learn that the giant American agribusiness corporations Cargill and Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) are one part of the problem, even though their names do not appear in the grim dispatches about widespread killings and mass graves.
To read the full article,cut and paste the link below to your browser:
http://www.thenation.com/article/159707/roots-cote-divoire-crisis
James North
This tropical West African nation, once the most prosperous in the region, is sliding even deeper into civil war. At press time, after a weeklong street battle for Abidjan, the commercial capital of 5 million, there were reports of a fragile settlement. But the vicious violence could break out again at any time. Mainstream Western press accounts included depressingly familiar explanations: the stolen presidential election in November, rising ethnic conflict. The explanations were accurate, as far as they went.
Right now, Côte d’Ivoire’s 21.5 million people are living in a terrible human rights crisis, a catastrophe that is being downplayed partly because the uprisings in the Arab world are distracting attention. But several thousand people have already died here, and up to 1 million are refugees. The small United Nations peacekeeping force should be strengthened, and the world pressure to force the election’s loser, Laurent Gbagbo, to give way to Alassane Ouattara must continue. (Right now Gbagbo is still hanging on to power.) But a change in presidents will not end the danger—and the crisis in Côte d’Ivoire is representative of deeply rooted structural problems in many other African nations.
You have to come here, to one of the forest regions where Côte d’Ivoire’s million-plus cocoa farmers live, to find the fundamental reason that fighting is breaking out again: a profoundly unjust international economic order that pays the people who supply our primary products a pittance and leaves their nations chronically ill with unemployment and poverty, and with people who will fight one another over scarce resources. Here, too, you will learn that the giant American agribusiness corporations Cargill and Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) are one part of the problem, even though their names do not appear in the grim dispatches about widespread killings and mass graves.
To read the full article,cut and paste the link below to your browser:
http://www.thenation.com/article/159707/roots-cote-divoire-crisis
Nuclear Regulatory Commission Report on Japan
US Sees Array of New Threats at Japan's Nuclear Plant
Wednesday 6 April 2011
by: James Glanz and William J. Broad, The New York Times
United States government engineers sent to help with the crisis in Japan are warning that the troubled nuclear plant there is facing a wide array of fresh threats that could persist indefinitely, and that in some cases are expected to increase as a result of the very measures being taken to keep the plant stable, according to a confidential assessment prepared by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Among the new threats that were cited in the assessment, dated March 26, are the mounting stresses placed on the containment structures as they fill with radioactive cooling water, making them more vulnerable to rupture in one of the aftershocks rattling the site after the earthquake and tsunami of March 11. The document also cites the possibility of explosions inside the containment structures due to the release of hydrogen and oxygen from seawater pumped into the reactors, and offers new details on how semi-molten fuel rods and salt buildup are impeding the flow of fresh water meant to cool the nuclear cores.
In recent days, workers have grappled with several side effects of the emergency measures taken to keep nuclear fuel at the plant from overheating, including leaks of radioactive water at the site and radiation burns to workers who step into the water. The assessment, as well as interviews with officials familiar with it, points to a new panoply of complex challenges that water creates for the safety of workers and the recovery and long-term stability of the reactors.
While the assessment does not speculate on the likelihood of new explosions or damage from an aftershock, either could lead to a breach of the containment structures in one or more of the crippled reactors, the last barriers that prevent a much more serious release of radiation from the nuclear core. If the fuel continues to heat and melt because of ineffective cooling, some nuclear experts say, that could also leave a radioactive mass that could stay molten for an extended period.
The document, which was obtained by The New York Times, provides a more detailed technical assessment than Japanese officials have provided of the conundrum facing the Japanese as they struggle to prevent more fuel from melting at the Fukushima Daiichi plant. But it appears to rely largely on data shared with American experts by the Japanese.
To view the complete article, please cut and paste the link below into your browser:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/06/world/asia/06nuclear.html?_r=2&ref=global-home
Wednesday 6 April 2011
by: James Glanz and William J. Broad, The New York Times
United States government engineers sent to help with the crisis in Japan are warning that the troubled nuclear plant there is facing a wide array of fresh threats that could persist indefinitely, and that in some cases are expected to increase as a result of the very measures being taken to keep the plant stable, according to a confidential assessment prepared by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Among the new threats that were cited in the assessment, dated March 26, are the mounting stresses placed on the containment structures as they fill with radioactive cooling water, making them more vulnerable to rupture in one of the aftershocks rattling the site after the earthquake and tsunami of March 11. The document also cites the possibility of explosions inside the containment structures due to the release of hydrogen and oxygen from seawater pumped into the reactors, and offers new details on how semi-molten fuel rods and salt buildup are impeding the flow of fresh water meant to cool the nuclear cores.
In recent days, workers have grappled with several side effects of the emergency measures taken to keep nuclear fuel at the plant from overheating, including leaks of radioactive water at the site and radiation burns to workers who step into the water. The assessment, as well as interviews with officials familiar with it, points to a new panoply of complex challenges that water creates for the safety of workers and the recovery and long-term stability of the reactors.
While the assessment does not speculate on the likelihood of new explosions or damage from an aftershock, either could lead to a breach of the containment structures in one or more of the crippled reactors, the last barriers that prevent a much more serious release of radiation from the nuclear core. If the fuel continues to heat and melt because of ineffective cooling, some nuclear experts say, that could also leave a radioactive mass that could stay molten for an extended period.
The document, which was obtained by The New York Times, provides a more detailed technical assessment than Japanese officials have provided of the conundrum facing the Japanese as they struggle to prevent more fuel from melting at the Fukushima Daiichi plant. But it appears to rely largely on data shared with American experts by the Japanese.
To view the complete article, please cut and paste the link below into your browser:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/06/world/asia/06nuclear.html?_r=2&ref=global-home
1. Book review of Great Soul: Mahatma Gandhi and His Struggle with India
A Different Gandhi
Anita Desai
Great Soul: Mahatma Gandhi and His Struggle with India
by Joseph Lelyveld
Knopf, 425 pp., $28.95
Even in his lifetime the legend of Mahatma Gandhi had grown to such proportions that the man himself can be said to have disappeared as if into a dust storm. Joseph Lelyveld’s new biography sets out to find him. His subtitle alerts us that this is not a conventional biography in that he does not repeat the well-documented story of Gandhi’s struggle for India but rather his struggle with India, the country that exasperated, infuriated, and dismayed him, notwithstanding his love for it.
At the outset Lelyveld dispenses with the conventions of biography, leaving out Gandhi’s childhood and student years, a decision he made because he believed that the twenty-three-year-old law clerk who arrived in South Africa in 1893 had little in him of the man he was to become. Besides, his birth in a small town in Gujarat on the west coast of India, and childhood spent in the bosom of a very traditional family of the Modh bania (merchant) caste of Jains, then the three years in London studying law are dealt with in fine detail and with a disarming freshness and directness in Gandhi’s Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments with Truth. Lelyveld’s argument is that it was South Africa that made him the visionary and leader of legend. He is not the first or only historian to have pointed out such a progression but he brings to it an intimate knowledge based on his years as a foreign correspondent for The New York Times in both South Africa and India and the exhaustive research he conducted with a rare and finely balanced sympathy.
To read the full review, cut and paste the link below in your browser :
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2011/apr/28/different-gandhi/?pagination=false
Anita Desai
Great Soul: Mahatma Gandhi and His Struggle with India
by Joseph Lelyveld
Knopf, 425 pp., $28.95
Even in his lifetime the legend of Mahatma Gandhi had grown to such proportions that the man himself can be said to have disappeared as if into a dust storm. Joseph Lelyveld’s new biography sets out to find him. His subtitle alerts us that this is not a conventional biography in that he does not repeat the well-documented story of Gandhi’s struggle for India but rather his struggle with India, the country that exasperated, infuriated, and dismayed him, notwithstanding his love for it.
At the outset Lelyveld dispenses with the conventions of biography, leaving out Gandhi’s childhood and student years, a decision he made because he believed that the twenty-three-year-old law clerk who arrived in South Africa in 1893 had little in him of the man he was to become. Besides, his birth in a small town in Gujarat on the west coast of India, and childhood spent in the bosom of a very traditional family of the Modh bania (merchant) caste of Jains, then the three years in London studying law are dealt with in fine detail and with a disarming freshness and directness in Gandhi’s Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments with Truth. Lelyveld’s argument is that it was South Africa that made him the visionary and leader of legend. He is not the first or only historian to have pointed out such a progression but he brings to it an intimate knowledge based on his years as a foreign correspondent for The New York Times in both South Africa and India and the exhaustive research he conducted with a rare and finely balanced sympathy.
To read the full review, cut and paste the link below in your browser :
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2011/apr/28/different-gandhi/?pagination=false
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Our Asylum Seeker Policy Is Brutal
Our Asylum Seeker Policy Is Brutal
Ben Eltham
New Matilda, March 23 2011
Australia's leaders continue to make political hay from the suffering of asylum seekers. Our system of mandatory detention is morally bankrupt, and must be abandoned, writes Ben Eltham
The asylum seekers at Christmas Island continue to be deprived of their liberty. The laws of our society have been explicitly rewritten against them, and they have been imprisoned against their will by an impersonal and callous bureaucracy that operates under a cloak of legal nicety. Not only do they lack access to justice or a safe environment, they suffer from a corrosive uncertainty, as men and women who have never met them decide their fate according to a set of rules that make no sense, as demagogues rail against them from the soap-boxes of talk radio shows.
And when those who were locked up and oppressed tried to escape, what happened? Squads of riot police shot tear gas and bean-bag bullets at them. Christmas Island looked suddenly like Bahrain, or any other country where an authoritarian regime needs to impose force on protesters.
But, being Australia, the concentration camp at Christmas Island is not even run by the government. It’s run by a private contractor called Serco. In the cosmic wonderland of Australian immigration policy, the incarceration and possible mistreatment of asylum seekers is now a legitimate profit-making activity. Serco is currently the beneficiary of a five-year, $370 million contract to manage seven detention centres.
Serco is not doing a very good job of it. It is under investigation for using unlicenced security guards and a leaked police dossier claims many of its staff have received ‘minimal or no training’. Despite the chronic overcrowding at the Christmas Island centre — thanks to the government’s policy of locking up each and every person who arrives on our shores in an ‘unauthorised’ manner — the centre was ‘typically 15 staff short per day’. Serco has been fined more than $4 million in contract breaches.
And why do our governments keep acting like this? The historical roots of mandatory detention of asylum seekers are complex and run all the way back to the Hawke-Keating government, but at its core, it’s simple: oppressing asylum seekers is popular. As in any society, there are plenty of Australians who are openly and confidently racist and xenophobic.
The harsh reality is that many of us are uncomfortable with people who are different to us. And we tell politicians and opinion pollsters this. Hard-line policies on asylum seekers are very popular in certain sections of the community; every time Labor tries to soften its policies, the Opposition attacks, and Labor’s support drops. As a result, we have absurdly oppressive immigration policies.
After all, politicians make policies which they hope will gain them re-election. It doesn’t matter that both Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott immigrated to Australia by boat. What counts was Labor’s election loss in 2001, which the party continues to believe was the result of the Tampa affair. Hence we have a race to the bottom where ludicrous arguments about ‘queues’ and ‘border integrity’ are used to justify what is essentially a kind of exemplary cruelty. Australians seem to like the fact that our government locks up asylum seekers. There’s no getting around it: detention centres are popular.
I know this because every time I write an article about asylum seeker policy, out come the racists and the hate-mongers. Some of the them blame it all on the people smugglers, but most seem quite happy with hating asylum seekers themselves. One commenter on an article I wrote for the ABC even suggested the government shoot arriving boats with machine guns. That would surely deter illegal entries, he wrote.
Opposition Immigration spokesman Scott Morrison takes a frighteningly similar position. Doing anything to alleviate the cruel and unusual conditions at Christmas Island will only send a message that Australia is ‘putting the white flag up’, he said this week. According to Morrison, not detaining people offshore — where they are excised by a special part of the Migration Act from the due process of Australia’s legal system — effectively means ‘all you have to do is get to Australia and you won’t even be detained anymore’.
Can you imagine that? According to Scott Morrison, there is a grave risk that asylum seekers might escape injustice and oppression in Afghanistan or Sri Lanka, travel thousands of kilometres in a leaky boat on the open ocean and legally claim refugee status in this country under a 60-year international treaty that Australia is a signatory to — and won’t even get locked up.
No wonder Immigration Minister Chris Bowen rushed to assure the media that ‘in all cases they are regarded and treated as offshore entry persons’.
Sometimes public policy is a difficult and complex thing to explain. Emissions trading, or tariff reductions, or the operation of the proposed mining tax are like this. In all of these cases, complex technical issues cloud the over-arching moral calculus we might bring to the rights and wrongs of pricing carbon, removing trade protections for local industry or asking mining companies to pay more tax.
Sometimes, however, public policy is easy to explain. Sometimes the technicalities of the issue are at heart quite simple, and the moral clarity of the issue stark. Asylum seeker policy in Australia is like this. The facts of the matter are simple: our government is locking up innocent people. The moral situation is just as clear. It is a great injustice.
The liberal philosopher Isaiah Berlin once wrote, ‘everything is what it is’. He meant that liberty was not equality or fairness or justice. It is liberty.
Let’s be just as frank about asylum seeker policy. It’s not ‘border protection’, it’s oppression. It’s not ‘processing’, it’s incarceration. Asylum seekers are not ‘illegal’ or ‘unauthorised’ — they have a legal right to claim asylum in Australia. It’s not about ‘stopping the boats’, it’s about inflicting great harm on innocent people to satisfy the vicious hatreds of racist and xenophobic voters in marginal seats.
Berlin was talking about liberty, and he distinguished two kinds. One was what he called ‘positive liberty’, in other words, the ability of a person to make her own life choices or to attain a kind of self-mastery. Berlin called the other kind ‘negative liberty’, and this is the sense in which most of us understand it today: freedom from coercion or interference by an external body. When Hayek wrote The Road to Serfdom, he was talking about this kind of liberty: the liberty of individuals to be free from government control.
It’s seems like a long way from the philosophy textbooks to the situation inside razor wire at Christmas Island. But perhaps it shouldn’t be, because the situation there now resembles almost exactly the 20th century totalitarian societies about which Berlin and Hayek were writing. In the Cloudcuckooland of Australian asylum seeker policy, treating people decently and humanely according to international law is ‘putting the white flag up’. Alexander Solzhenitsyn would have found it all too familiar.
Ben Eltham
New Matilda, March 23 2011
Australia's leaders continue to make political hay from the suffering of asylum seekers. Our system of mandatory detention is morally bankrupt, and must be abandoned, writes Ben Eltham
The asylum seekers at Christmas Island continue to be deprived of their liberty. The laws of our society have been explicitly rewritten against them, and they have been imprisoned against their will by an impersonal and callous bureaucracy that operates under a cloak of legal nicety. Not only do they lack access to justice or a safe environment, they suffer from a corrosive uncertainty, as men and women who have never met them decide their fate according to a set of rules that make no sense, as demagogues rail against them from the soap-boxes of talk radio shows.
And when those who were locked up and oppressed tried to escape, what happened? Squads of riot police shot tear gas and bean-bag bullets at them. Christmas Island looked suddenly like Bahrain, or any other country where an authoritarian regime needs to impose force on protesters.
But, being Australia, the concentration camp at Christmas Island is not even run by the government. It’s run by a private contractor called Serco. In the cosmic wonderland of Australian immigration policy, the incarceration and possible mistreatment of asylum seekers is now a legitimate profit-making activity. Serco is currently the beneficiary of a five-year, $370 million contract to manage seven detention centres.
Serco is not doing a very good job of it. It is under investigation for using unlicenced security guards and a leaked police dossier claims many of its staff have received ‘minimal or no training’. Despite the chronic overcrowding at the Christmas Island centre — thanks to the government’s policy of locking up each and every person who arrives on our shores in an ‘unauthorised’ manner — the centre was ‘typically 15 staff short per day’. Serco has been fined more than $4 million in contract breaches.
And why do our governments keep acting like this? The historical roots of mandatory detention of asylum seekers are complex and run all the way back to the Hawke-Keating government, but at its core, it’s simple: oppressing asylum seekers is popular. As in any society, there are plenty of Australians who are openly and confidently racist and xenophobic.
The harsh reality is that many of us are uncomfortable with people who are different to us. And we tell politicians and opinion pollsters this. Hard-line policies on asylum seekers are very popular in certain sections of the community; every time Labor tries to soften its policies, the Opposition attacks, and Labor’s support drops. As a result, we have absurdly oppressive immigration policies.
After all, politicians make policies which they hope will gain them re-election. It doesn’t matter that both Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott immigrated to Australia by boat. What counts was Labor’s election loss in 2001, which the party continues to believe was the result of the Tampa affair. Hence we have a race to the bottom where ludicrous arguments about ‘queues’ and ‘border integrity’ are used to justify what is essentially a kind of exemplary cruelty. Australians seem to like the fact that our government locks up asylum seekers. There’s no getting around it: detention centres are popular.
I know this because every time I write an article about asylum seeker policy, out come the racists and the hate-mongers. Some of the them blame it all on the people smugglers, but most seem quite happy with hating asylum seekers themselves. One commenter on an article I wrote for the ABC even suggested the government shoot arriving boats with machine guns. That would surely deter illegal entries, he wrote.
Opposition Immigration spokesman Scott Morrison takes a frighteningly similar position. Doing anything to alleviate the cruel and unusual conditions at Christmas Island will only send a message that Australia is ‘putting the white flag up’, he said this week. According to Morrison, not detaining people offshore — where they are excised by a special part of the Migration Act from the due process of Australia’s legal system — effectively means ‘all you have to do is get to Australia and you won’t even be detained anymore’.
Can you imagine that? According to Scott Morrison, there is a grave risk that asylum seekers might escape injustice and oppression in Afghanistan or Sri Lanka, travel thousands of kilometres in a leaky boat on the open ocean and legally claim refugee status in this country under a 60-year international treaty that Australia is a signatory to — and won’t even get locked up.
No wonder Immigration Minister Chris Bowen rushed to assure the media that ‘in all cases they are regarded and treated as offshore entry persons’.
Sometimes public policy is a difficult and complex thing to explain. Emissions trading, or tariff reductions, or the operation of the proposed mining tax are like this. In all of these cases, complex technical issues cloud the over-arching moral calculus we might bring to the rights and wrongs of pricing carbon, removing trade protections for local industry or asking mining companies to pay more tax.
Sometimes, however, public policy is easy to explain. Sometimes the technicalities of the issue are at heart quite simple, and the moral clarity of the issue stark. Asylum seeker policy in Australia is like this. The facts of the matter are simple: our government is locking up innocent people. The moral situation is just as clear. It is a great injustice.
The liberal philosopher Isaiah Berlin once wrote, ‘everything is what it is’. He meant that liberty was not equality or fairness or justice. It is liberty.
Let’s be just as frank about asylum seeker policy. It’s not ‘border protection’, it’s oppression. It’s not ‘processing’, it’s incarceration. Asylum seekers are not ‘illegal’ or ‘unauthorised’ — they have a legal right to claim asylum in Australia. It’s not about ‘stopping the boats’, it’s about inflicting great harm on innocent people to satisfy the vicious hatreds of racist and xenophobic voters in marginal seats.
Berlin was talking about liberty, and he distinguished two kinds. One was what he called ‘positive liberty’, in other words, the ability of a person to make her own life choices or to attain a kind of self-mastery. Berlin called the other kind ‘negative liberty’, and this is the sense in which most of us understand it today: freedom from coercion or interference by an external body. When Hayek wrote The Road to Serfdom, he was talking about this kind of liberty: the liberty of individuals to be free from government control.
It’s seems like a long way from the philosophy textbooks to the situation inside razor wire at Christmas Island. But perhaps it shouldn’t be, because the situation there now resembles almost exactly the 20th century totalitarian societies about which Berlin and Hayek were writing. In the Cloudcuckooland of Australian asylum seeker policy, treating people decently and humanely according to international law is ‘putting the white flag up’. Alexander Solzhenitsyn would have found it all too familiar.
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