What the Tamils Are Fleeing

To understand why Tamils are showing up in Victoria packed into an overcrowded boat, we need to understand the war that drove them from their homeland.

The recent arrival of 492 Tamil refugees aboard the ship MV Sun Sea in Victoria has prompted a lot of debate in this country. Even before the ship docked, many politicians, journalists, and armchair pundits started making innuendos about the migrants. The labels attached to them included terrorists, illegal aliens, queue jumpers, and disease carriers. Despite the principle that everyone is innocent until proven guilty, these migrants were judged by many to be guilty before anyone had a chance to interview them.

With so much misinformation out there, it is important to understand the root cause of the conflict in Sri Lanka and how Canada can help the situation there so that Tamils no longer feel the need to flee their homeland.

Tamils have lived in the northern and eastern parts of Sri Lanka, once called Ceylon, as a distinct nation for thousands of years prior to the British unifying the island under a single government in 1833. When the British granted independence in 1948, Sinhalese politicians started using their parliamentary majority to enact discriminatory legislation that eroded Tamils’ right to exist in the country. From 1948 to 1983, when Tamils used Gandhian-style protests peacefully, pogroms were unleashed on innocent Tamil civilians with the tacit support of the mostly Sinhalese army and police. Tamils were driven out of the South, finding refugee in the North and East.

In the 1977 general election, 84 per cent of Tamils democratically voted to regain their sovereignty. Unfortunately, this resulted in further pogroms against Tamils along with draconian laws giving the Government of Sri Lanka (GoSL) wider powers to arrest and disappear tens of thousands of Tamil youth. After enduring 35 years of non-violent struggle being put down by GoSL-sponsored violence, large numbers of educated youths joined the armed struggle for independence.

The military stalemate between the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) and the GoSL led to the Norwegian-brokered 2002 Peace Accord, which recognized the existing areas of control by each side. Tamils did not flee Sri Lanka during this period. Indeed, many of them returned to help rebuild the war-ravaged areas during this time. The hope was to negotiate a lasting settlement that gave Tamils security and freedom to develop their traditional areas.

Unfortunately, midway through the negotiations the European Union and a few other influential countries listed the LTTE as a terrorist organization, undermining the equal status required for a negotiated settlement. The talks failed without producing any tangible results because the GoSL also failed to implement any of the trust-building measures agreed to during negotiations.

The GoSL pulled out of the peace accord and dispatched fighter jets to drop banned chemical weapons and cluster bombs on Tamil territory in 2008 and 2009, wiping out tens of thousands of innocent civilians. The UN did nothing more than issue statements during this time. The GoSL denied international media and UN workers access to the North and East, and carried out war crimes without hindrance. By May 2009, the all-Sinhalese armed forces overran the Tamil areas and corralled 300,000 innocent Tamil civilians into camps where they had no access to international media or UN personnel.

The discriminatory conditions that led to the war in the first place have only gotten worse for Tamils since then. Their lands have been expropriated and given to the families of Sinhalese soldiers, making Eelam Tamils a minority in their own lands. Now, the Eelam Tamils have no safe place to go when another anti-Tamil pogrom flares up. This in a country where, over the last 62 years, the major Sinhalese political parties have won power on the basis of who appeared more anti-Tamil.

Many Tamil families have been separated. Countless numbers have been taken in by the army for questioning and later disappeared. Women and young children have been molested with impunity. They have no free access to lawyers or media. These atrocities are well documented by the Amnesty International, International Crisis Group, and other NGOs. Those who have managed to escape from the camps live with constant fear in their traditional areas.

Under such conditions, many have attempted to escape from their ordeal. Until the UN conducts an impartial war crimes investigation and punishes those responsible, the Tamils have no hope of leading a normal life in the island of Sri Lanka. It is worthwhile to note that soon after the end of the war, two distinguished Canadians, namely Lloyd Axworthy and Allan Rock, argued in an op-ed in the Globe and Mail that Canada should have persuaded the UN to invoke the “Responsibility to Protect” doctrine to save Tamil lives at the height of the war.

Canada now must work together with the international community through the UN to attain a lasting political solution for Eelam Tamils that will allow them to feel safe in their own lands. Until this happens, Eelam Tamils will continue to flee the island for their own safety. But when peace and security prevail in their traditional homeland, many will return to their familiar surroundings.

The media and politicians play a major role in shaping opinions around important issues. The rhetoric and unsubstantiated allegations about the refugees, even before they arrived, from some of our politicians have not helped the debate. There is a distinction between immigrants and refugees here that is being blurred. Tamils cannot apply from within Sri Lanka as a refugee to come to Canada. Those who fled to nearby countries have been languishing in dismal camps for decades. There is no front door for them.

For many Tamil Canadians who fled Sri Lanka decades ago, this mass hysteria is déjà vu. Many of us left Sri Lanka to avoid this brand of politics. We applaud the many journalists and politicians who have played a very positive role in putting things into perspective. You are our hope for a better Canada, a country many of us freely chose to call home.