Category Archives: people smugglers

July 26, 2013 · 10:14 am

A grieving Tamil couple … and credulous Australians

Michael Roberts

The headline picture in The Australian was — and remains — gut-wrenching, harrowing. It is a tale of searing suffering: a  young Sri Lankan Tamil couple have just lost their ten-month old infant after a boat with asylum seekers that had set off from Java sank off shore. Take Peter Alford’s story filed from Java yesterday.
  • TAMIL COUPLE
    Hard line unheard or unheeded by asylum-seekers

    The Australian·20 hours ago   

    A baby boy and a 10-year-old girl are believed to be among the dead after an asylum boat sank off Java. THE asylum-seekers from the latest sinking tragedy….

The two are Antony Jayaseelan and Rose Anu Resana, Tamils of Catholic background. They were among the 204 people on board on a boat that had left Cidaun in Java on Tuesday and then floundered in the sea, leaving 44 missing and 4 confirmed dead. It would seem that these asylum-seekers were not aware of the new Rudd-government’s hardline policy. Said Jayaseelan: “We didn’t know but even if we did know we could not stay in Sri Lanka.” Continue reading →

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April 13, 2013 · 9:28 am

Migrant Remittances drive “Asylum-Seeker” Out-Migration from Sri Lanka

Dinoo Kelleghan in The Weekend-Australian, 13 April 2013 where the title is Tamils flee for cash, not from harm … Dinoo Kelleghan is a former foreign editor of The Australian and was a member of the Refugee Review Tribunal from 1997-2004.

gERALDTON A=S -BOAT

IN contrast to the weary boatloads of Sri Lankans making the dangerous asylum-shopping trip to Australia, millions of different shoppers are out in force here as the island prepares for Sinhala and Tamil New Year celebrations this weekend. This year, economists noted a change in the spending patterns – lower-income people are spending more freely than the better-paid shoppers in the capital, Colombo. The reason? The gushing torrents of remittances home from Sri Lankans who have gone abroad for employment, often making empty claims of persecution to leapfrog others who stand patiently in long queues outside Western embassies in Colombo to get a work visa. Continue reading →

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April 10, 2013 · 7:27 am

Vorsicht! “Deutsche Bank” penetrates Australian Shores. Australia in a Tizz

Ben Packham, in The Australian, 10 april 2013  with title “Asylum boat’s arrival on mainland may force border patrol rethink”

D-BANK The boat carrying 66 Sri Lankans arrived in Geraldton harbour, 430km north of Perth, at 12.45pm local time yesterday en route to New Zealand. Picture: Graeme Gibbons Source: News Limited

BORDER protection authorities will review the adequacy of asylum boat patrols after a vessel carrying 66 Sri Lankans made it to the West Australian mainland undetected.  Home Affairs Minister Jason Clare said the boat, which arrived in Geraldton yesterday, is believed to have sailed direct from Sri Lanka. He said it appeared to have taken a much longer and more southerly route than most asylum-seeker vessels, keeping it at sea for 44 days.

“I’m concerned,” Mr Clare told ABC radio. “I’ve asked Customs and Border Protection to review the circumstances of this case and advise me whether there needs to be changes to the way in which we patrol the seas in the north-west.The point to stress is this is very unusual. We haven’t had a boat head for the mainland and make the mainland now in about five years. It’s a much shorter journey for people to travel to Cocos Island or to Christmas Island.” Continue reading →

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April 4, 2013 · 1:22 am

Twenty Väddas and Thuppahies deported to Sri Lanka from Australia?

Michael Roberts

AUSSIES CHECK A-S Hon Brendan O'ConnorAt a press conference today in Perth the Immigration Minister, Brendan O’Connor, announced that 20 (twenty) “Sri Lankans” had been placed on a plane and deported back to Sri Lanka. This despatch meant that a total of 963 “Sri Lankans” had been sent back to Sri Lanka since August 2012, for the most part “involuntarily.” This  would, said O’Connor, send a clear message to would-be asylum seekers and people smugglers. It would save people from “dangerous journeys.”

None of the media personnel asked O’Connor for an ethnic breakdown of the 20 or 963 deportees or questioned the premise of inevitably dangerous voyages. So much for acumen and background nous. For my part speaking as a Thuppahi [mongrel], I wondered if all TWENTY were either Väddas orThuppahi. That would please me no end. Sri Lanka needs more thuppahi in order to reduce the scourge of Sinhala extremism and Tamil extremism. The pukka Burghers left long ago so that problem no longer exists as a major force. Continue reading →

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March 27, 2013 · 11:22 pm

Turning back the boats helps stem the Sri Lankan tide. Is this part of the solution for Australia?

Joe Kelly & Amanda Hodge, in The Australian, 28 March 2013

CO-OPERATION between Sri Lanka and Australia – and turning back asylum boats – is helping to beat people-smugglers, says Sri Lanka’s high commissioner Thisara Samarasinghe. As the Sri Lankan navy yesterday intercepted the first asylum boat to be picked up there for more than a month, the former naval chief said authorities had stopped more than 3000 asylum-seekers leaving on more than 60 boats last year. He defended the practice as safe and manageable.

Lankan as-seekers-march 2013 Thisara_Samarasinghe-WIKI Continue reading →

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March 26, 2013 · 6:49 am

The Original Cave Man at PUNYELROO in Outback Australia

 Cave1 … captured by Alan Marriage

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February 5, 2013 · 11:43 pm

Focus on Sri Lanka and its Boat People in Australia

I> Aussie Press conference on Sri Lanka … SEE http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_us_2XXRKmc

II> Coalition to disclose details to Sri Lanka  by Paul Maley and Lauren Wilson in The Australian, February 06, 2013 12:00AM

A COALITION government would greatly enhance the intelligence-sharing arrangements with Sri Lanka, providing Colombo with more information on the backgrounds of arriving asylum-seekers. The Coalition promise came as veteran nurse Marianne Evers — who worked in the Nauru regional processing centre for three weeks last year — likened the site to a concentration camp and claimed gang rapes had occurred in the island facility. “I actually liken it to a concentration camp — but the Australians don’t have the guts to kill these people and put them out of their misery, because miserable it is,” she told ABC TV’s Lateline. Ms Evers said she witnessed three or four hangings and had been informed by other staff on the island there had been rapes. Continue reading →

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January 9, 2013 · 9:42 am

Emily Howie’s Summary Update on the Reportage about Boat People

Emily Howie
SMUGGLER BOATS -LAKE HOUSE

Australian Naval Ship on Good Will Visit to Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka Ministry of Defence, 7 January 2012 …..
The HMAS Anzac arrives in Colombo on a goodwill visit. Continue reading →

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January 4, 2013 · 12:10 am

Sri Lankan Boatpeople rescued after a week adrift

RESCURED BOAT PEOPLE-- The dailt telegraph Pic courtesy of The Daily Telegraph

Joe Kelly, in The Australian, 4 January 2012

A GROUP of 46 Sri Lankan asylum-seekers has been rescued after spending Christmas and the new year drifting about 330 nautical miles off Sumatra in a failed bid to enter Australia. Indonesian search and rescue agency Basarnas was first alerted to the disabled vessel on December 23 by Australian authorities after a tip-off from a recently arrived asylum-seeker. But the stranded boatpeople were not picked up until Tuesday by a nearby merchant ship and were transferred to an Indonesian search and rescue vessel before being taken to the Indonesian port of Teluk Bayur in Padang yesterday. Continue reading →

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December 24, 2012 · 12:39 pm

BOB and GOTHA embrace cooperation on the high seas

BOB AND GOTHA

I: “Visible links to terrorism by human smugglers” – Australian FM Sen. Bob Carr by Ranil Wijayapala

The visit of the Australian Foreign Minister, Senator Bob Carr, at a time Sri Lanka and Australia engaged in the massive task of controlling hundreds of boat people reaching Australia as illegal immigrants, provided a good forum for the two stakeholders to sit and discuss the matter at length, while laying a strong foundation to continue the relationship between the two countries as friendly nations in the future, Sri Lanka High Commissioner in Australia, Admiral Thisara Samarasinghe said. Continue reading →

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