Colombo, Human Rights, Human Security, IDPs and Refugees, Peace and Conflict

Diaspora dilemmas: Australia and the Sri Lanka conflict

“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.