Australian delegation lauds Govt’s development programs

by Manjula Fernando

Senator Steve Hutchings	Don Randall

A four-member Australian parliamentary delegation, members of the Australia Sri Lanka Parliamentary Friendship Group, were here last week on a fact finding mission.

The first such visit in over six years, their mission was to see for themselves exactly what the climate was in Sri Lanka especially since their Parliament and media were bombarded by allegations of human rights violations against Sri Lanka.

They wanted to find as to whether their tax payers money was being spent usefully and if the claims of the boat people of Sri Lankan origin were true and that they are fleeing genocide.

The team met President Mahinda Rajapaksa, External Affairs Minister Prof.G.L. Peiris, Rehabilitation Deputy Minister Vinayagamoorthy Muralidharan, Opposition Leader Ranil Wickremesinghe, and other members of the Opposition.

They met Government Agents in Vavuniya and Jaffna and had an opportunity to speak to IDPs remaining in Menik Farm of their concerns. Their five-day tour in the country also included visits to Elephant Pass and Galle which included inspection tours of Australian funded projects in those areas.

The Sunday Observer had an opportunity to interview the members at the tail-end of their tour.

Excerpts of the interview:

Senator Stephen Hutchins, NSW, Chair, Parliamentary Joint Committee on Law Enforcement

Senator Catrina Bilyk	Dr. Sharman Stone

We took up an invitation from the Sri Lankan High Commission to visit Sri Lanka to see the developments taking place two years after the end of the conflict.

We had the chance to look at the North on Wednesday. Previously we went to see Galle and a new emergency wing at Karapitiya hospital donated by the Victoria state government

In the North we visited two areas. A hospital built by AusAid and demining operations in Elephant Pass. On the last occasion when we were here, six years ago we did not have a chance to go to North because it was not safe for travel.

We met with the government Agent. She told us about the number of projects the Government had initiated in relation to reconstruction.

The country now has an opportunity to rebuild, it’s going to take a bit of time. It would appear whether willingly or unwillingly the population in that region supported the LTTE. All people need to understand that normalcy has been established and that it’s time to get on with life and re-construct.

We had the opportunity of visiting the Menik Farm camp and talk to people there and ask them how they have been treated. They said they were treated well but they definitely did not want to be in a camp. They do want to return home.

When we talked to the Government they explained the difficulties they were in. There are still areas that needed to be de-mined. The Government knows where they laid mines but there is no one around to tell where the LTTE had laid mines.

It’s been a long process. There had been some 300,000 IDPs now it is down to some 17,000. When we went to Palai, we saw young children there, obviously they had not been to school for at least two years but were very eager to learn.

Q: Illegal immigrants or the boat people is a major issue for Australia. Some media reports attempt to describe Sri Lanka as a place not suitable for Tamils to live, that there is this sense of fear and that is the reason they were fleeiing. Did you take this up when you talked to the people in the North?

I did not or I don’t think any of my colleagues felt so, although we could have asked this question if we wanted to.

I did not ask people in the camp whether there were concerns (of security) because there clearly were not. If there were, they could not have raised the issue of resettlement with us. One woman told me about her inability to have her son join her in the camp, she was not afraid to bring this matter up. So I raised this issue with the authorities. The son is under rehabilitation, because of his links with the LTTE.

When we did have a look at the streets in Vavuniya, we saw a number of people on the streets. Clearly it is time to deal with under-employment and unemployment but the people on the street did not strike me as being intimidated or different to any other street from Colombo to Sydney. In Jaffna people were walking freely in the streets. They did not strike me as being concerned about safety or as being intimidated by the presence of the security.

The Government Agent in Jaffna is of Tamil origin. She had been the Agent prior to the cessation of hostilities. Her daughter is studying medicine at the University of Jaffna. I did not see any evidence of the people being worried about their personal or physical safety.

Don Radall MP, Member for Canning

I think what we found is that the Tamil diaspora is very well organised and has a very good PR mission. This is one of the reasons why we came to Sri Lanka to find out for ourselves exactly what the climate was within Sri Lanka.

There are allegations in the Australian Parliament and in the Australian media that people still flee Sri Lanka because of Human Rights abuses. What we have been able to find out since we have been here supports what Senator Hutchins says that people are actually interested in resettling and returning home rather than going overseas.

But people who were actually getting on boats, have gone to places like Malaysia and Indonesia about two years ago and had been waiting there to be transported by smugglers or by the funding of the LTTE diaspora in Australia. Obviously somebody has been financing these people to pay US $ 20,000 per person to these smugglers and get on the boats.

What I am trying to get at is that the people getting on these boats are not coming directly from Sri Lanka but from a third country. So allegations of human rights abuses are always there. But the government and the local authorities are more concerned in resettlement and harmonisation. They want to move on rather than continue old hostilities.

What is the intensity of the LTTE presence in Australia?

We don’t know if Tamil groups in Australia are actually the LTTE. What we do know is they have sympathies for some of the issues in Sri Lanka and they are very well financed. They continue to have an influence on local diaspora in terms of funding.

They make rather strong allegations of people’s safety and opportunities for ethnic Tamils. This trip made an opportunity for us to see for ourselves at firsthand whether it is safe or not.

Dr.Charman Stone MP, Federal Member for Murray

I think it is the case with any diaspora, whether they are people from Albania or Bosnia or from Sri Lanka. They have arrived a number of years earlier. They lose touch with reality of their countries today. That’s a natural thing and this is what happens with migrant groups world over.

What we are concerned about is whether the aid amounting to Australian 60 million dollars last year and a little less this year, raised from the tax payer is used effectively. We were very pleased to see those schools in the North which Australia helped build.

The children are so eager to learn even though all of them had not shoes. The teachers were teaching under open shelters with just some thatching, obviously not water proof. Teachers were very committed to teach under these conditions.

The good news is that a new school is being built next to thet shelter and it’s coming up very fast. What we understand is that after 30 years of conflict, obviously, Sri Lanka has an enormous amount of reconstruction to do. And officials have been telling us this and we agree that it’s so important that the North and the South don’t continue to have this disparity in advantage or opportunity. So there is an enormous need for the country to make sure unemployment is addressed, agriculture is re-developed and infrastructure re-built.

It’s not just de-mining, we saw new roads being built, new hospitals. We have been able to help build a new accident and emergency facility at the Karapitiya hospital. That is important.

We felt privileged to see Australian money being put to good use. We are doing some demining at Elephant Pass. Australians are very good at helping with demining. We have done demining work and training elsewhere.

My impression was that the country as a whole needs to put the conflict behind. There is no doubt that there is a lot of sadness, disadvantage and distress. It was really dry in the North, being the dry season but in the camps women were worried about asthma, the children suffered from because of the dust blowing. There were no school teachers in the camps.

They have been resettled. We saw some children being taken to town to attend a pre-school. The issues of widows and how they were going to survive. These are all the challenges of this government.

It is very important that we as members of Parliament in Australia can take the message back that our dollars are being carefully spent and that there is a long hard road ahead but there is goodwill on the part of the Government to go down that path.

Catryna Pilyk- Senator for Tasmania

We are fairly impressed with the amount of rebuilding. There’s potential for tourism. I would be going back and saying Sri Lanka is a place you should be thinking of visiting.

We understand after 30 years of conflict issues cannot be resolved overnight. But we are very impressed with what we have seen.

Change needs to take place and we know that from our experience. Investment in infrastructure is important for development. Sri Lanka once used to compete with Singapore as the Hub of maritime transport. With the development being proposed with ports and roads I certainly believe there will be an increase in prosperity.

There is a move by sections of the international community to undermine the development effort and put Sri Lanka on the dock for war crimes charges?

I think that is up to Sri Lanka and the UN to deal with. I don’t think the other countries should be commenting on that.

It is between the UN and Sri Lanka. I am sure the government would work through those issues.

The government has to deal with the past in an open and transparent and honest manner. We had been hearing that this is what the Government wishes to do. There are always difficult times after a conflict.

Senator Hutchins

Australia has had its own United Nations reports which we have dismissed. It is not usual for countries [to do that].