Helping hand for Tamil refugees Man part of local effort to assist moves to Canada

November 14, 2011
Carol Sanders

In a spartan basement office in East Kildonan, the phone of the minister for internally displaced persons, refugees and prisoners of war rings constantly.

Twice a week, at least, it's the Tamil mom in India calling about her missing son who, out of desperation, got on a boat for Australia months ago and hasn't been heard from since.

For Sam Ratna, a civil engineer elected by Winnipeg's Tamils to serve on the Transnational Government of Tamil Eelam, finding a safe home for 200,000 displaced people is a calling.

"Before I die, I want to see my people living happily," said Ratna, a volunteer in the cabinet of Prime Minister Visvanathan Rudrakumaran, a human rights lawyer in New York.

The government was formed at the end of the brutal, 26-year civil war in Sri Lanka. The minority Tamils were victims of systemic discrimination and exclusion by the majority, and fought for independence, said Ratna, who left in 1975. The Tamil government is not formally recognized.

The Sri Lankan government has accused it of trying to perpetuate terrorism. Ratna says it's trying to help uprooted Tamil people who've lost everything get on their feet and, he hopes, go home someday.

"Our people who escaped from the war are suffering and they're all over the place," said Ratna, who came to Winnipeg in 1993 from the United Kingdom with his wife and three kids.

Here, he works with international human rights lawyer David Matas to help Tamil refugees who fled persecution in Sri Lanka settle in nearby countries such as India and Malaysia and new homes in faraway places such as Canada and Ecuador.

In Winnipeg, 13 families are sponsoring Tamil refugees with the help of the Manitoba Interfaith Immigration Council, said Ratna.

One is Jayakaumar, a 33-year-old with a business degree stuck in Kajang, Malaysia.

"He's a very good worker but he can't do anything now," said Joseph, his sponsor and a family friend. Malaysia doesn't allow refugees to work or go to school, said Joseph, a foreign-trained doctor working as a research assistant until he gets his licence to practise in Manitoba.

The Tamil refugee came to Canada in 2001 and doesn't want his last name published. He and others in Winnipeg with relatives living in Sri Lanka are worried that speaking out against the government could hurt loved ones there. Joseph said his brother was killed by the military in Sri Lanka and Jayakaumar was shot in the ankle and had his life threatened. He desperately wants a safe place to live and to not waste his life, said Joseph.

"He is well-educated -- 100 per cent, I know he'll get a job here," said Joseph, who is married with one child. He worked at McDonald's when he first arrived in Canada and is building his own home in Winnipeg.

"I'll take care of him until he gets a job."

There are a dozen other Winnipeg people trying to help Tamil refugees come to Canada one at a time.

Ratna is trying to help thousands of others, burning up phone lines, meeting on Skype and travelling on his own dime, with donations from some of the 150 Tamil families in Winnipeg. In 2010, he went to Malaysia where 3,298 Tamils -- 2,399 men, 520 women and 185 boys and 184 girls -- languished without basic humanitarian assistance, he said.

In January, he and Matas will travel to Malaysia to get information on the Tamil refugees. They can't get medical treatment, live in substandard conditions and have few if any rights, said Ratna. If they get caught trying to work, they end up in detention centres, which are worse than where they are now, he said.

It's unsafe for them to go back to Sri Lanka, he said.

The Tamils have a history of persecution that didn't end with the civil war in 2009, said Matas. Since the Sri Lankan government won, the mistreatment of the Tamil minority that sparked the war has become more cruel, he said.

Canada took in more than 60,000 Vietnamese boat people over two years, said Matas, and the Tamils are the new boat people. Canada should again come up with a plan to work with countries in Asia to respect refugee rights and to share resettlement in countries that traditionally offer refuge, said Matas.