Asylum seekers declare hunger strike

The 255 Sri Lankans aboard a boat in western Java have unfurled a large banner declaring a hunger strike.

The ethnic Tamils are refusing to leave their wooden boat in Merak Harbour after being intercepted at sea at the weekend on their way to Australia.

Indonesian authorities have been surveying local options to accommodate the asylum seekers in hotels and guest houses, because detention centres are too full.

Their spokesman, who calls himself only 'Alex', was led away to inspect them when others on the boat protested apparently worried that his actions may send the wrong signal.

'Alex' then returned to the boat and after a debate helped unfurl a large blue banner on the boat's cabin roof declaring a hunger strike to the international community.

"We have got some information to say that the navy is about to try to get us off the boat because no country is about to take us and they want to try to get us to land," he said.

"So we decided on the strike to let the whole world know that we need their assistance as soon as possible. We need somebody to consider our case."

The words life and death are written in the banner's corner alongside a question mark.

The group wants to be immediately accepted as refugees into a third country and does not want to enter the United Nations' system in which claims can take up to 10 years to process.

The asylum seekers' boat was intercepted by Indonesian authorities after Prime Minister Kevin Rudd personally spoke to President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.

Australia says responsibility for the group of asylum seekers now rests with Indonesian immigration officials.

Banten Province's immigration chief, Dr Harry Purwanto, has rejected suggestions the Sri Lankans will be moved to Indonesian detention centres.

He says the centres are too full and authorities are instead scouting local hotels and guest houses as possible places to house the asylum seekers.

Indonesian officials say the Sri Lankans will not be forced to come ashore and there is no time limit on their decision.

However, immigration officials suggest negotiations may take one to three days; the navy says not more than a week.

Limited places

But the United Nations says it is possible the group of asylum seekers will end up in Australia.

The regional spokesman for the UN's Refugee Agency, Richard Towle, says his staff in Indonesia will deal with anyone who wants to claim asylum.

But he says there could be delays because the number of places available for refugee resettlement are limited.

"They could end up in Australia and that again is not a new phenomenon. Australia takes recognised refugees from Indonesia on a regular basis and has a generous tradition of doing that," he said.

"The number of available places internationally to resettle refugees is quite limited.

"The key states that offer resettlement places globally have only limited capacity to take refugees and that's where we often get the delays. It's not in the UNHCR processing side, it's in finding states that are willing to accept cases on a resettlement basis."

The asylum seekers are clearly desperate. Last night members of the group made a direct plea to Mr Rudd for help, telling reporters they were fleeing "genocide" in Sri Lanka and feared being killed if they were returned to the country.

It is possible they are talking to people via mobile phones and gathering information about some of the media reaction from Australia.

The asylum seekers keep repeating to the media that they are not terrorists.

In stark contrast to their threat to blow themselves up on the boat earlier this week, they are now trying to deliver a softer line, saying that they want international assistance.

© ABC

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Asylum seekers declare hunger strike - Brisbane Times

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Convener of the Inter-university Students’ Union further remanded

When Mr Udul Premaratne, convener of the Inter-University Students’ Union was produced before the Gangodawila Magistrate yesterday (14) his lawyers made a request to release him on bail. But the Police raised their objection to this move as usual and he was further remanded.

Considering the appeal the Magistrate stated that a decision whether to grant him bail or not will be taken up o 16th.

© Lanka Truth

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Sri Lankan president invents an “international conspiracy”

By Vilani Peiris - The Sri Lankan army captured the last area held by the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in May, slaughtering most of its top leadership in the process. The fighting has concluded, but none of the underlying political reasons for the conflict have been addressed, let alone resolved. Successive Colombo governments have exploited the anti-Tamil war for 26 years to divert, divide and suppress opposition from working people over their pressing problems.

Now lacking a war, President Mahinda Rajapakse has invented an “international conspiracy” to fill the ideological gap. With the backing of the Colombo media, the government regularly denounces unnamed powers and their local co-conspirators for smearing the name of the Sri Lankan military and undermining its “victory” against the “Tiger terrorists”. The “conspiracy” is woven into the government’s tub-thumping jingoism and used to denounce any critic of its war crimes and anti-democratic methods.

The theme was prominent in the government’s campaign for the Southern Provincial Council elections held last Saturday. Speaking at an election meeting on October 7, Rajapakse declared: “A section of the international community backed by a few locals with vested interests are conspiring to tarnish the image of the country and its war heroes using false and malicious allegations… Although we have strong and friendly relationships with other nations we are not ready to bow down in front of injustice and unreasonable conditions. We would never betray the honour of our motherland. It comes before everything else.”

The “conspiracy” being referred to began in May when several European powers, backed by the US, attempted to pass a resolution at the UN Human Rights Council calling for a limited investigation into war crimes in Sri Lanka and greater access to detention camps into which more than 250,000 Tamil civilians have been herded. In the final weeks of the war, the military was responsible for killing thousands of civilians through indiscriminate bombardment of the remaining LTTE-held territory.

The resolution was completely hypocritical, given the murderous neo-colonial wars waged by the US and its allies in Afghanistan and Iraq. Its purpose was to pressure the Rajapakse government to accept US and European calls for a “political solution” to the war and to enhance Washington’s influence in Colombo against its rivals, particularly China. The Sri Lankan government, with the backing of China, Russia and India, blocked the resolution and passed a cynical counter-resolution praising its victory in the “war on terrorism”.

Ongoing pressure by the US and European powers on Sri Lanka has kept the “conspiracy” alive. Having failed at the UN Human Rights Council, the US held up a much-need IMF loan for months as the Sri Lankan economy slid deeper into crisis. The European Commission has threatened to end its General System of Preference (GSP) concessions for Sri Lankan exports unless an investigation is carried out into human rights abuses. The loss of the concessions on garments and other exports could cost Sri Lanka around $US150 million in exports.

Limited criticisms from US and European officials have added further fuel. On September 30, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton declared in the UN Security Council that, “[W]e’ve seen rape used as a tactic of war before in Bosnia, Burma and Sri Lanka and elsewhere.” The comments produced uproar in the Colombo media and protests from the Sri Lankan government. A US State Department spokeswoman noted that while there were no reports of the Sri Lankan military using rape as a weapon, Colombo nevertheless “must focus to the future and move forward on the promotion of peace and the protection of human rights.”

Rajapakse’s posturing as an opponent of the major powers is absurd. He is unable to even name the “Western conspirators” because his government is desperately seeking to patch up its differences with the US and Europe. The president has sent his brother and advisor Basil Rajapakse to Europe to explain the Sri Lankan government’s case and to argue for the maintenance of GSP concessions, while refusing any investigation of its human rights record.

Nevertheless, Rajapakse is clinging to his “Western conspiracy” like the proverbial drowning man. While the government has easily won a series of provincial council elections, the results are deceptive. The main opposition parties—the United National Party and the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna—offer no alternative for working people. They backed the war, joined in the triumphal victory celebrations and vigorously deny being part of a conspiracy to tarnish the country’s reputation. Neither party has any solution to the economic and social problems facing workers and the rural poor.

Popular discontent and anger are, however, rising. Five months after the end of the war, Rajapakse’s claims that it would usher in a new period of peace and prosperity are wearing thin. The government is confronting a deepening economic crisis produced by its huge military spending and compounded by the global recession. Unemployment jumped to 6.3 percent in the second quarter, up from 5.2 percent in the first quarter. According to government statistics, 155,000 industrial jobs were lost in the second quarter of 2009. Having finally received the IMF loan, the government is preparing to make savage cutbacks to social spending and price subsidies as well as accelerating privatisation and holding down wages.

Fearful of the eruption of social discontent, the government has maintained the huge police state security apparatus built up in the course of the war. With the backing of the opposition parties, the parliament continues to approve ongoing emergency regulations that give the president sweeping, anti-democratic powers. Far from being demobilising, the army is being expanded and preparations made for the permanent occupation of the North and East of the island. Throughout the country, roadblocks and checkpoints manned by heavily armed police and soldiers have been maintained. Security sweeps through residential neighbourhoods, arbitrary detentions without trial and “disappearances” by pro-government death squads continue.

The government is compelled to invent justifications for these draconian measures. Along with the “international conspiracy”, the government couches everything in the language of militarism. Shortly after the defeat of the LTTE, Rajapakse announced an “economic war” to “build the nation”—that is, to demand new sacrifices from working people to defend corporate profits. He has also declared a “war on the underworld” to justify the ex-judicial murder of alleged criminals.

At the same time, the defence ministry, military and police keep up a steady barrage of scare stories to maintain the poisonous communal atmosphere in the country. Daily announcements are made of the arrest of LTTE “terrorists” and the discovery of suicide bomber jackets, and massive hauls of arms and ammunitions. If one relied on the Colombo media, it is as if the war had not ended.

A few recent headlines give the flavour: “Thirty kilos of explosives found at Puthukkudiyiruppu”; “A doctor who helped Tigers captured”; and “A van loaded with Tigers’ explosives captured, they were to bring to Colombo.” Arguing for a further extension of the emergency powers last week, Prime Minister Ratnasiri Wickremanayake declared that although the “terrorists were defeated”, threats still remain.

The real conspiracy against working people in Sri Lanka is by the government and the Colombo political establishment as a whole. Utterly incapable of meeting the aspirations of workers and the poor for democratic rights and decent living standards, it is continuing a campaign of anti-Tamil communalism, conspiracy theories, half-truths and lies as it prepares to use police state measures to suppress any opposition by the working class to the ongoing assault on its jobs, conditions and living standards.

© World Socialist Web Site

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