Why we Canadians should welcome boatful of Tamil refugees
by Harsha Walia
From the Komagata Maru carrying 376 Punjabi passengers and the SS St. Louis travelling with 900 Jewish asylum seekers, to the boats with 600 people from China's Fujian province and the Ocean Lady that docked in B.C. last year with Tamil refugees - there is something about boatloads of migrants that triggers a national hysteria. Perhaps it is the realization that the expanse of ocean is not enough to enforce the divide between the West and the so-called Third World.
Harsha Walia ~ Harsha Walia has a law degree and is a local activist with, among other social justice groups, No One Is Illegal.
This past week has been no different with the arrival of the MV Sun Sea and approximately 500 Tamil migrants. With little substantiation, officials and media are regurgitating the refrain of "terrorists," "illegals" and "queue jumpers." Yet refugee advocates have repeatedly reminded us that there is no queue for refugees. It is inherent to the refugee experience that one does not wait in a line, fearing serious harm or death, to make the difficult decision to flee. Nor are they so-called illegals; they are asylum seekers. Canadian and international refugee law recognizes that many asylum seekers will be forced to travel irregularly, including by boat, to seek safety.
Relying on sound-bites about organized crime and terrorism is the best way to close public debate about government actions. Instead of relying on sensationalism, let us ask: On what basis are the Tamil migrants being declared terrorists? Is it even logical that well-financed and often state-backed terrorists or traffickers would suffer in a three-month long, arduous journey risking death? Even if we believe that women and children were forced onto this boat, how do we justify jailing them as a humane response?
What we do know is that United Nations Secretary-General Ban Kimoon has appointed a panel to investigate war crimes committed by the Sri Lankan government against Tamils. Human rights organizations have documented government and military atrocities including indiscriminate killings, arbitrary detentions and imprisonment, and mass displacement of Tamils. Canada has itself accepted more than 90 per cent of refugee claimants from Sri Lanka in the past two years.
Last year we succumbed to unfounded panic when the Ocean Lady landed with 76 Tamils aboard. All the men were eventually released when the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) was forced to admit they had no evidence of terrorist connections. Ottawa even tried to use Section 86 of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, a draconian section that allows for secret evidence in closed hearings, to make their case. Still, based on a lack of evidence, in January the CBSA announced that it would not contest the release of the last group of detainees.
Rohan Gunaratna, the anti-terrorism expert who is the government's primary source, was discredited by immigration lawyers as well as adjudicator Otto Nuppanen during the Ocean Lady proceedings. As detailed in news articles, his unverified sources were questioned, as well as his credibility, given his close relationship with the Sri Lankan government. Following a recent investigation by the newspaper the Sunday Age in Australia, Gunaratna has retracted some of his alleged credentials.
So Canadian officials are either continuing to make uninformed statements despite the lack of evidence, or they are deliberately relying on the racist stereotyping of all Tamils as likely being associated with terrorism in order to fuel public fears. Their irresponsibility is facilitating a climate where anti-immigration advocates are gaining more traction in their demands for the boat to be sent back and for Canada to stop welcoming refugees.
Harsha Walia at G20 Summit Press Conference ~ June, 2010
Frankly, I think there is more reason to be mistrustful of Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Citizenship and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney and Public Safety Minister Vic Toews than of the migrants. Their regime has advanced an agenda of corporate bailouts and economic austerity; ballooning military, police and prison budgets; unmitigated resource extraction and environmental destruction; and an immigration policy that is moving toward the repressive Australia and Arizona models of accepting fewer refugees and jailing more asylum seekers and undocumented migrants. These politicians sell us strange paradoxes - military occupation as liberation, refugees as terrorists.
Instead, author McKenzie Wark reminds us, "Those who seek refuge, who are rarely accorded a voice, are nevertheless the bodies that confront the injustice of the world.
They give up their particular claim to sovereignty and cast themselves on the waters.
Only when the world is its own refuge will their limitless demand be met."
courtesy: Vancouver Sun
10 Comments
"Harsha Walia' a Canadian? LAMO !. I love that green card or what ever you call it!
Harsha Walia is a beautiful lady with even more beautiful soul !!
Thanks for these article, Harsha Walia !
Canadian officials are relying on the racist stereotyping of all Tamils as terrorist in order to fuel public fears.
Canada is fed propaganda by the Sri Lankan government through Rohan Gunaratna who were discredited by Canadian adjudicator Otto Nuppanen and immigration lawyers.
Harsha Walia. You are doing an excellent job.Keep it up
First off Immigration Lawyers are leaches.
The Tamils are coming to Canada in boatloads, because:
1. The LTTE is not there to stop them.
2. The remnants of the LTTE have nothing to do, and are out to make a quick buck. So they organize these boat tours.
3. The Tamils know that in the near future they will be delisted from the refugee index. So it's now or never.
Why do the Tamils risk making this perilous sea voyage, because:
1. They are dirt poor.
2. The standard of living is immensely better in Canada than in Sri Lanka.
3. Their children have a better chance of living the good life in Canada.
4. They can get all sorts of government aid in Canada.
5. Because the Canadian government is not wise to their wily ways (Canadian laws are lax and Canadians are trusting) they can get away with anything.
The above are the same reason that almost everyone in Sri Lanka wants to go abroad. Sinhalese, Tamils, Muslims the whole lot.
The question that we should be asking ourselves is, should we support these beggars? Is this is what defines us as Canadians? Or is it the fact that we would like to believe that we are not Americans..., hehe.
Blessed are the poor in Spirit for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.
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Blessed are the meek for will inherit the earth.
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BLESSED ARE THE MERCIFUL FOR THEY SHALL BE SHOWN MERCY.
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Blessed are the peacemakers for they will be called sons of God.
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Matthew 5:3,5,7,9 NIV
Which category do you belong to?
only one question to canadians.
If canada is sympathetic towards tamils please grant them refugee status via proper channels. Let them apply for visa via embassies. Who is prospering from human trafficking. why is it illegal?
By supporting these illegal human trafficking all of you are putting people's lives in danger at the seas and making the money spinning machine of the LTTE alive.
I'm sure this will not be posted as my previous comments
The USA became post-19th century's greatest industrial, military and economic power largely because of immigrant input. The Australian desert and
unproductive landmass became a bread-basket and economic power because of immigrants. It is reckoned Canada needs around 250,000 skilled workers annually for the next 20 years to maintain the current level of economic growth. The Harper Conservative Govt is trying to hide its racial prejudice under the "terrorist" cover and is in denial of its own economic imperatives. Every one of these 490 immigrants will be a valuable and productive resource within the next five years of their arrival as the post-1980s 300,000 Tamils in today's Canada are.
If Gen. Sarath Fonseka continued to be the Army Chief after May 19, 2009 it was his plan to physically eliminate the entire 2+ millions of Tamils in the North-East of the island (women, children, young, old without question) in a carefully engineered grand strategy of cultural genocide to rid the "exclusive land of Sinhala Buddhists" of the "Tamil menace" This is why he asked for a troop strength of 400,000 AFTER THE 30-YEAR WAR WAS CONCLUDED when the LTTE was wiped out to the last man on May 19. This plan had the shared and enthusiastic consent of almost the entire Sinhala Buddhist population lead by the heirarchial Rasputins of the Monkhood there. To their eternal credit there still remain many Sinhala scholars - Buddhist and Christian - within the Orwellian regime opposed to this inhuman policy. But they live in fear and their voice is silenced.
This invented bogey of remnants of the LTTE and the LTTE-influenced Tamil diaspora is nothing but bunkum to fool the suffering Sinhala masses and the world. The concerned and well meaning societies of the Western world and Oceania must come out to save innocent Lankan Tamils now under constant subtle and open attack from the plan to render them as voiceless and invisible as the Tamils of Myanmar. Former Canadian High Commissioner serving in Colombo since the 1980s will testify to this undeniable fact. Many of them have openly testified so in relevant fora both in Canada and elsewhere, which is why Canada and its political leadrs are a special target of the Sri Lankan government and its pliable and slavish diplomats serving a fascistic and uncompromising regime.
ISS
Prasad | August 15, 2010 09:19 PM
"They are dirt poor." Why are the Tamils poor and the Sinhalese are not? Ceylon was having the second largest per capita income in Asia during late 1940s and what happened to the Tamils now to flee their homeland? When Indians were going all over the world, the Tamils stay put at their homeland as they were not poor then. The question is "are they really poor?". No, they were comparatively richer than their neighbours. Almost all of them have a house in their own land with a well. Do not spit your venom on Tamils. They pay collosal sum to come this way. Beggars do not have that kind of money! If beggars can afford to come this way then half of Indians, about 700millions, would be in Canada tomorrow. Canadian system is different and much more civilized than the killer Governments of Sri lanka and India. You may wonder why I am including India! India abetted in the killing of more than 100000Tamils.
"The standard of living is immensely better in Canada than in Sri Lanka." Yes we all know that and Tamils in Sri Lanka know that too . That is why they pay such a huge amount to escape the killer squads of Sri Lanka.
" Their children have a better chance of living the good life in Canada." More than that their children will never be killed in Canada for being a Tamil. That is the main reason and this guarantee is not there in Sri lanka. Quite a lot of your folks called these guys LTTE but the Canadian officers treated them with respect which the Sri Lankan Tamils never experienced in Sri Lanka. Canadians are conducting the due process and if they find them as terroists then they would take appropriate actions. Acceptance rate of Sri Lankan Tamils is 85%. Canadian Government understand the Tamil issue and that is why this acceptance rate. My sister went to Dubai to live with her husband in mid eighties,not recently. When she landed in the Dubai airport she opened her handbag to the first officer who asked some question as she was used to show the handbag and everything to Sri Lankan officers, even 30years back.
"They can get all sorts of government aid in Canada" Government aids are conditional and it would not last long. You are just twisting the facts to spit venom on Tamils. Most of the Tamils go for minimum two shifts the moment they were allowed. Most of them go for under paid jobs and they cover that by working longer hours.
"Because the Canadian government is not wise to their wily ways (Canadian laws are lax and Canadians are trusting) they can get away with anything." Here law is supreme and that is why all want to come to Canada. When law is supreme everyone knows what is admissible and what is not. Canada shines because the law reins supreme. You must be suffering an anti Tamil phobia to ridicule Canada on this. Canadian government is wise enough to apply the same rule to everyone. Sri lankan Tamils too expected the same in their homeland and it was denied.
Easwaran
Harsha walia, if you need your fees upped, please let us know.............
After the defeat of the LTTE, Rajapakse government offered many nations to take the "refugees" from the Internment Camps but none of the Nations who are now barking so much about "war crimes" prepared to take refugees from the Internment camps.
Further we all know well how LTTE was brutal in Sri Lanka as well as in Canada.
Tamil Canadians know well who are those people in the ship.
Canada accept refugees as part of their imigration system. Canada annually needs 250,000 immigrants. These 490 is nothing to Canada but Canadian Tamils are worried because these people are not refugees of any kind but LTTE.
All Tamil Canadians know well about the "terror" unleashed on them by the LTTE goons before the current government ban the LTTE.