{"id":19082,"date":"2013-03-25T09:36:16","date_gmt":"2013-03-25T13:36:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=19082"},"modified":"2013-03-25T09:36:16","modified_gmt":"2013-03-25T13:36:16","slug":"none-of-the-hardened-ex-ltte-fighters-i-have-met-wanted-to-take-up-arms-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dbsjeyaraj.com\/dbsj\/?p=19082","title":{"rendered":"“None of the Hardened Ex-LTTE Fighters I have met Wanted to Take up Arms Again”"},"content":{"rendered":"

By<\/p>\n

Frances Harrison<\/strong><\/p>\n

He lay in agony on the ground on a tarpaulin sheet in the open, bandaged in rags in the scorching tropical heat after two major surgeries on his leg and hip, but Thevam considered himself extremely lucky. Just the day before he\u2019d been moved out of the school building turned into a makeshift hospital. A day later and he too would have been among the eight dead and many more injured in the shell attack on the hospital. No matter that the building had a clear red cross painted on its roof, visible to government drones and surveillance planes.<\/p>\n

Thevam is a 39-year-old Tamil shopkeeper with a wife and two young children from northern Sri Lanka. He is a witness to war crimes whose mother was killed while sheltering in a bunker, and himself still bears huge angry scars on his body. He was granted refugee status in Australia two years ago but is not free to restart his life. Thevam is one of 51 Tamils who have failed their security clearance and shockingly he hasn\u2019t even been told why.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

How the security clearance process operates is unclear. When Australia screens refugees from Sri Lanka the intention may be to keep out former members of the Tamil Tigers \u2013 a group widely proscribed as a terrorist outfit, though not in Australia \u2013 that recruited teenagers and pioneered suicide bombing. That may sound sensible but it misses many key points.<\/p>\n

Refugee advocates believe it\u2019s possible Australia\u2019s security screening could be based on information supplied by the very government from which the refugees are seeking sanctuary. Sending names to Sri Lanka to ask if individuals have cases outstanding against them is a nonsense if you know how random the persecution of war survivors has been. <\/p>\n

In most cases the Sri Lankan security forces detain Tamils on suspicion of being terrorists and then extract large bribes to release them and help them flee the country. Detainees are routinely tortured and then forced to sign a confession in a language they can\u2019t understand. Any adult man who lived in the warzone is a potential suspect for the Sri Lankan authorities\u2013 but also a witness to the government\u2019s war crimes and crimes against humanity now documented by UN lawyers.<\/p>\n

In the UK Tamil asylum seekers actually strive to prove they were members of the rebel movement, knowing it will convince a tribunal that they are still at risk after the war. I\u2019ve testified in appeals to confirm an individual was a Tiger and that\u2019s clinched their case. In Australia refugees have to hide their connection to the organization for fear of a negative security assessment.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also necessary to understand that in the patch of Sri Lanka ruled by the Tigers every family had to hand over one child to fight, whether they liked it or not. Civilians in that area also had to pay taxes and give free labour to the rebel movement that ran the administration.<\/p>\n

I have interviewed scores of survivors from the final phase of Sri Lanka\u2019s civil war in which the UN says possibly 70,000 civilians were killed in just five months in an area of at most 35 square kilometres. In terms of intensity and speed, the former Norwegian peace mediator Erik Solheim says the slaughter in Sri Lanka in 2009 was probably the worst in the world this century.<\/p>\n

Those who survived are deeply traumatised \u2013 often suicidal. None of the hardened fighters I met wanted to take up arms again. They\u2019ve had it crushed out of them. Most just want to hide somewhere quiet and try and rebuild their lives, haunted by the memories of babies\u2019 heads blown off and the cries of the injured as they died in agony. These broken people cannot be a security risk to Australians.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s posing a security risk is the continued persecution of Tamils in Sri Lanka, which threatens to rekindle the civil war. In 2009, when the Tigers were defeated, the government had a window of opportunity to reconcile communities. That\u2019s long gone. Now it\u2019s clear that Tamils who survived the war are being targeted for detention, torture and extortion. There\u2019s one soldier for every five civilians in the north \u2013 the army actually increased in size after the end of the war. Sexual harassment by the security forces is rife \u2013 especially of women Tigers. Recently I met a Tamil girl who\u2019d been continuously gang raped, beaten and burned with cigarettes in a Sri Lankan police station for 47 days \u2013 as recently as last November. Australian politicians who say everything is fine in Sri Lanka should meet her and many like her turning up in Europe.<\/p>\n

The repression of Tamils in northern Sri Lanka today is so intense that anger is bubbling up. Almost every family lost someone in the war zone but the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, has documented how the authorities prevent survivors from holding religious gatherings to mourn their dead. None of the root causes of the conflict has been addressed \u2013 a triumphalist government refuses to devolve power to Tamil areas. So it\u2019s only a matter of time before violence erupts again from another humiliated generation with nothing to live for.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile many of Sri Lanka\u2019s top military commanders, in charge when war crimes were committed, have been posted abroad as Ambassadors, benefiting from diplomatic immunity. Instead of locking up recognised refugees at great expense, Australia would do better to target the perpetrators of war crimes who roam free.<\/p>\n

(Thevam is not the refugee\u2019s real name)<\/strong><\/p>\n

COURTESY:ASIAN CORRESPONDENT<\/em><\/p>\n

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By Frances Harrison He lay in agony on the ground on a tarpaulin sheet in the open, bandaged in rags in the scorching tropical heat after two major surgeries on his leg and hip, but Thevam considered himself extremely lucky. Just the day before he\u2019d been moved out of the school building turned into a …<\/p>\n

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