Australia should not cave into human smugglers

The boat people from "Sri Lanka" in Indonesian waters, issuing various threats including hunger strikes and blowing up their vessel, continue to make headlines in Australia.

It is likely that the interviews recorded and photographs taken of this group over the media have prompted the Australian authorities to be sceptical about this well planned adventure.

It is obvious that this is a cleverly assembled group of men, women and children of a privileged section of 'Sri Lankans'.

The manner of speech of the spokesperson, Alex and the little girl revealed that their mission is to live in Australia purely for economic reasons.

Sri Lankans do not have to live any longer with suicide bombings and terrorist attacks as in some other parts of the world.

The fact that the 'civil war' in Sri Lanka is over is under played by the interested groups to create an opportunity to continue their Sri Lanka bashing campaign.

There is only one airport with facilities for international flights in the country, where outbound travellers have to pass through immigration and passports checks.

How is it they could leave Sri Lanka without fear of revealing their identity, but are now fearful of going back? Or did they leave from Sri Lanka at all? "Alex" the "spokesman" for the group has explained he acquired his American accent because he worked in a call centre in Chennai. This opens up the possibility that this group has actually arrived from Tamil Nadu in India - where there are Sri Lankan Tamils in refugee camps, and are trying to get into Australia via the back door?

The Australian authorities along with Indonesian counterparts should investigate fully the subject group to ascertain their identity and take joint action to nab the ringleaders of this human smuggling group.

If this group is mollycoddled, Australia should get ready to open the gates for thousands of LTTE members and cadres who have access to millions of LTTE funds at their disposal to travel by air from Sri Lanka and get on board the boats in the Indonesian or Australian waters with human smugglers.

The LTTE strategically places its sympathizers in various countries including Australia, often exploiting humanitarian sentiments of host nations. Such LTTE operatives across the world have constituted part of its network for raising material and financial support for its campaign of terror in Sri Lanka.

The Australian Government should seriously consider helping Sri Lanka to resettle and rehabilitate the displaced people of all ethnicities so that the 'push factors' from Sri Lanka even for genuine asylum seekers will be minimal.

Meantime, the active LTTE fronts in Australia disguised under various nameboards collecting funds in encouraging racism and separatism in Sri Lanka should be monitored, as their ultimate objective is to revamp terrorism in Sri Lanka.

- Ranjith Soysa (SPUR Spokesman)