'Human smuggling' is big business

Dr. P.A. Samaraweera

During the last few weeks there were news about illegal immigrants from Sri Lanka to Australia. One boat was stopped halfway in Indonesia on the request of Australia and in it were 255 Tamil 'asylum seekers'.

Broadly, these are 'economic migrants' who want to migrate to the West on the pretext of persecution in Sri Lanka. Once their boat was intercepted, they have said that they are ready to die and threatened to explode the boat if they are forced to disembark without allowing them to proceed to Australia. The Indonesian Navy did not relent and subsequently they went on a hunger strike. After a day, this was called off as Indonesia did not relax the hard stance against the asylum seekers.

While the Indonesians were battling the boat people at one end, in Australia there was a hot debate between the Government and the Opposition. The Opposition Leader, Turnbull accused the Government of diversionary policies saying, "Prime Minister Rudd has recklessly opened our borders in a way that is placing the integrity of the whole immigration system at risk...".

Human smuggling is a business and one of the pivotal organizers of asylum seekers, Abraham Lauhenapessy, was found in the boat by the Indonesian officials. In the past, for human smuggling he had been in Indonesian prisons for two years and once released he was back in business smuggling ethnic Tamils to Western countries. For this trip, the duped Tamils had paid US $4 million. For the well off Tamils who are waiting to migrate to the West the money they paid is peanuts.

On TV, the so called asylum seekers confessed they are professionals. And they claimed that they lived in the jungles from persecution by the Sinhalese. A nine year old girl saying that she lived in the bush and speaking fluent English, stunned those watching the TV program. They looked healthy and well nourished. From their appearance and dress, they didn't seem to have lived in the jungles, starved or being persecuted in Sri Lanka as claimed by them. These bogus asylum seekers are nothing but future 'parasites' of the taxpayers of Australia.

On the one hand, we see the Australian Government and the Opposition having bitter political exchanges about how to control the border and prevent human smuggling. On the other, we have third parties like the well funded LTTE Front, humanitarian groups, social organizations and so on supporting the so called asylum seekers. However, by whatever name they are called, they are only encouraging human smuggling, which is a business for some. Therefore, countries like Australia should remain defiant and not cave into requests of bogus asylum seekers looking for greener pastures.