Refugees are not criminals: NCCT demands removal of Conservative Party ad and apology
TORONTO, March 28 /CNW/ - The National Council of Canadian Tamils (NCCT) is calling on the Rt. Hon. Stephen Harper, Prime Minister of Canada, to remove an election advertisement which insinuates that Tamil refugees who are forced to arrive through unconventional means are "criminals", and apologize to Tamil Canadians.
Nenje nenje, nee engai, naanum angai
(Soul, wherever you are, I am there too.)
- Lyrics from one of the Tamil songs played every week in front of the Burnaby detention centre.
For the last three months, No One Is Illegal Vancouver has organized weekly demonstrations outside the Burnaby Youth Detention Centre where approximately 75 mothers and children who arrived aboard the MV Sun Sea last summer are still being detained. They were amongst the 492 Tamil refugees who made the three-month journey from Sri Lanka to B.C., only upon their arrival to be forced into three detention centres across the Lower Mainland amidst a national hysteria about "illegals" and "criminals."
After the MV Sun Sea was boarded and escorted into Canadian waters on August 12, speculation has been rampant about whether there are members of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE, or Tamil Tigers) on board, and whether this is an instance of human smuggling.
Columnists and news anchors have been wondering how these refugees who were "languishing in camps" managed to escape and find a boat to take them across the Pacific. This is the wrong question. The refugees who arrived on the MV Sun Sea and the Ocean Lady, which landed in Canada last October, probably escaped the Sri Lankan Civil War months beforehand.
Surviving a dangerous three-month ocean journey, 492 Tamil refugees -- including around 60 women and 55 children -- arrived in B.C. after fleeing war and persecution in Sri Lanka. When the ship the MV Sun Sea first neared Esquimault on Vancouver Island, the territories of the Songhees First Nation, it was immediately boarded by the Canadian armed forces, border services, and RCMP.
Whatever else happens, the MV Sun Sea shall be remembered as having posed a security, immigration and moral dilemma for Canada, depending on who you speak to.
A Thai registered cargo ship, the MV Sun Sea had approximately 500 potential claimants for refugee status, all of whom are of Tamil origin. It originated in Sri Lanka and was denied permission to dock by Thailand and Australia.
The ship arrived in Canadian waters Friday and was intercepted by armed Canadian military and the RCMP. After health and security officials boarded the ship in Victoria, B.C., the passengers were given medical check-ups; most have been moved to detention centres in the Vancouver area while their refugee claims are being processed. Hearings are due to begin today.
The war in Sri Lanka spanned over three decades and reached its bloody conclusion in May 2009. Both the UN Panel of Experts on Sri Lanka and a U.K. film entitled Sri Lanka's Killing Fields agreed that the Sri Lankan Armed Forces committed war crimes and crimes against humanity. Thousands of men, women and children were killed throughout northern Sri Lanka during the last phase of the war.
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