Blow
to asylum battle as intelligence links Sri Lankan official to smugglers
The
Australian can reveal that Australia's intelligence agencies have identified the
official, who has a high profile and is known to be close to President Mahinda
Rajapaksa. The agencies believe he is responsible for authorising numerous boats
in the past 10 months, fuelling the surge of asylum-seekers from Sri Lanka that
has threatened to overwhelm Australia's detention system.
[TamilNet,
Friday, 01 February 2013, 02:31 GMT]
Australia's
Intelligence services linked a senior Sri Lankan government official who is
close to Sri Lanka's president Rajapakse as responsible for "authorizing
numerous boats in the past 10 months, fuelling the surge of asylum-seekers from
Sri Lanka that has threatened to overwhelm Australia's detention system," The
Australian reported Friday. While the complicity of this official in people
smuggling was widely known at senior levels of the Gillard government, Foreign
Minister Bob Carr during his visit to Sri Lanka in December never raised the
matter with the Sri Lankan government, the paper pointed out.
Bob Carr, Minister for Foreign Affairs, Australia
"While
official corruption is a common feature of the people-smuggling industry across
the world, the involvement of such a senior member of the government would
appear to be unprecedented. The assessment inside the Australian government is
that the official is "complicit" in people-smuggling, posing
a serious obstacle to Australia's attempts to stop the flow of boats from Sri
Lanka," the paper said.Speaking
on behalf of the Australian government, a spokesman for Immigration Minister
Chris Bowen said the government was working closely with the Sri Lankans to
break the smuggling syndicates, but declined to address the allegations against
the official directly. "As you know, we do not publicly discuss people-smuggling
or national security intelligence," the paper quoted the spokesman as
saying.Colombo's
senior envoy to Australia flatly denied the allegations and described the
allegations as a "smear campaign against the (official)".According
to Customs and Border Protection, a total of 122 asylum boats left Sri Lanka for
Australia last year, with the first arriving in February.
A
spokesman for the Australia-based Tamil Refugee Council (TRC), Trevor Grant,
said in a press release: “We have suspected this all along. It would be
virtually impossible for so many boats to leave such a small island without
co-operation from the Sri Lankan Navy, and its Government...Even when the
Foreign Minister Bob Carr went to Sri Lanka last December to talk about the
increased flow of asylum-seeker boats with high-ranking officials, including the
president, he did not mention it. Yet at the same time he offered $45 million of
Australian taxpayers’ money to supposedly help stop the boats, knowing full well
that there was corruption going on within Government ranks," Mr Grant
said.
Julie Bishop, Opposition Deputy Leader
Meanwhile,
TRC also accused the opposition Foreign Affairs spokesperson, Julie Bishop, for
giving a misleading account of her meeting with Tamil representatives during her
visit to Sri Lanka, according to a Tamil MP who spoke to her at length. Bishop
had told listeners to ABC Radio’s Connect Asia program on Tuesday that she had
spoken to Tamil National Alliance MPs, and other Tamil people in the north,
where most Tamils live, and had seen or heard no evidence of persecution of
Tamils. TRC pointed out that Tamil National Alliance MP Sivagnanam Sritharan
contradicted Bishop's assertions in a recent Canadian Tamil Radio
interview.External
Links:
THURSDAY,
31 JANUARY 2013
A
senior Sri Lankan government official is suspected by Australian authorities of
being personally "complicit" in the people-smuggling trade, directly undermining
Canberra's attempts to stop the surge in asylum-seeker boats.
The
Australian can reveal that Australia's intelligence agencies have identified the
official, who has a high profile and is known to be close to President Mahinda
Rajapaksa. The agencies believe he is responsible for authorising numerous boats
in the past 10 months, fuelling the surge of asylum-seekers from Sri Lanka that
has threatened to overwhelm Australia's detention system.
The
intelligence assessments about the figure, whom The Australian has chosen not to
identify, are widely known at senior levels of the Gillard
government.
It
is understood options were canvassed as to how to handle the allegations before
Foreign Minister Bob Carr's visit to Sri Lanka in December. Senator Carr never
raised the matter with the Sri Lankan government, and Canberra has been pleased
with the sharp reduction in boats from the nation in recent
weeks.
The
allegations against the official drew a flat denial from the Sri Lankan
government, with Colombo's senior envoy to Australia, Bandula Jayasekara,
describing them yesterday as "unbelievable, ridiculous, and
mischievous".
While
official corruption is a common feature of the people-smuggling industry across
the world, the involvement of such a senior member of the government would
appear to be unprecedented. The assessment inside the Australian government is
that the official is "complicit" in people-smuggling, posing a serious obstacle
to Australia's attempts to stop the flow of boats from Sri Lanka.
Australia's
intelligence agencies believe it would be impossible for so many asylum-seeker
boats to leave the island's shores without the individual's direct
involvement.
However,
one senior government source said he had not seen a "smoking gun" that proved
it.
Speaking
on behalf of the government, a spokesman for Immigration Minister Chris Bowen
said the government was working closely with the Sri Lankans to break the
smuggling syndicates, but declined to address the allegations against the
official directly.
"As
you know, we do not publicly discuss people-smuggling or national security
intelligence," the spokesman said.
Mr
Jayasekara described the allegations as a "smear campaign against the
(official)".
"The
government of Sri Lanka and the Sri Lankan defence authorities, incurring great
expense, have worked overtime to prevent people-smugglers," Mr Jayasekara
said.
"I
deplore in the strongest terms your attempt to tarnish the image of Sri Lanka
and the good name of the (official) by reports which I would not hesitate to
call malicious. I would also like to question if there is a hidden agenda or
two-legged tiger paws behind your attempt to discredit the
(official)."
However,
several Australian officials spoken to by The Australian said there was concern
within government that the Sri Lankan government's near-total control over the
island's maritime domain meant that the official had the power to "turn on the
tap" and unleash untold asylum boats.
That
presents a diplomatic dilemma for Australia, which must steer a middle course
between lobbying Sri Lanka to improve its tainted human rights record while at
the same time trying to avoid offending the Sri Lankan government.
According
to Customs and Border Protection, a total of 122 asylum boats left Sri Lanka for
Australia last year, with the first arriving in February.
The
surge provoked confusion and alarm within the government, which had been
confident it had broken the back of the Sri Lankan smuggling trade, which
flourished briefly in the aftermath of Sri Lanka's 2009 civil war.
But
since Senator Carr's visit to Sri Lanka, government sources have expressed
optimism about the Sri Lankan problem, as the flow of boats has
stopped.
Australian
officials credit the reduction in arrivals to several factors, including bad
weather and the success of the Gillard government's policy of "screening out"
and promptly returning boatpeople who do not raise refugee claims.(The
Australian)
Australia's
Intelligence services linked a senior Sri Lankan government official who is
close to Sri Lanka's president Rajapakse as responsible for "authorizing
numerous boats in the past 10 months, fuelling the surge of asylum-seekers from
Sri Lanka that has threatened to overwhelm Australia's detention system," The
Australian reported Friday. While the complicity of this official in people
smuggling was widely known at senior levels of the Gillard government, Foreign
Minister Bob Carr during his visit to Sri Lanka in December never raised the
matter with the Sri Lankan government, the paper pointed out. 
