Diaspora dilemmas: Australia and the Sri Lanka conflict
Repost This Article“Australia should add its voice to this call and put real pressure on the Sri Lankan Government to accept an international monitoring body. The conflict can only be resolved through dialogue, but peace talks won’t happen until there is effective and continued pressure applied by Australia and the international community to stop the human rights violations committed by all sides.”
Sam de Silva’s article Diaspora dilemmas: Australia and the Sri Lanka conflict, first published by the Nautlius Institute at RMIT in Australia, sketches the background of the conflict in Sri Lanka and the Australian government’s increasing concerns. The Tamil diaspora in Australia, de Silva argues,
“faces three main options: continue to promote their claim that the men were raising funds for humanitarian work and not the LTTE’s war machine; distance themselves from the arrests and remain silent; or to affirm the LTTE’s fight as a liberation struggle and argue that it is valid for Tamils in Australia to support that cause.”
Read the article in full here. Sam’s contributions to Groundviews can be found here and a review of his film on Sri Lanka, Circles of Violence, here.
Sam, not sure if this is relevant to the scope of your article.
This case is actually going to be important not just for the Sri Lankans, but for australians with respect to laws pertaining to the prevention of terrorism act introduced in the country.
Also the defence lawyers were quoted in the media as being concerned about the police making press statements before the hearing in the magistrate’s court; similar to the arrests in the muslim community, where the media were present during the arrests. I have heard accusations in the Australian community itself, that these arrests are being made use of for political gain. Especially with the forthcoming election. Eg. John Howard might be able to use these arrests to prove that the government is not just targetting the muslim community.
Anyway, have to wait and see what happens. The legal aspects of this case are very interersting.