Word: sri
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...last month, Australia has been grappling with a rising number of asylum seekers making their way to its shores via Indonesia. Around the time that the Tamils were being transferred to the Ocean Viking , another wooden boat carrying 255 Australia-bound Sri Lankan Tamils was intercepted by the Indonesian navy. The ship is now docked in the Indonesian port of Merak, and for three weeks its passengers have refused to disembark. On Nov. 2, another boat capsized near the Cocos Islands, a tiny set of Australian-owned atolls in the Indian Ocean. By the end of the day, 19 male...
...encouraging more refugees to head Down Under through human-smuggling rings in Indonesia. They point to the fact that Rudd sped up the processing for protection-visa applications, and has guaranteed permanent residency to the successful applicants; Rudd has countered that outside 'push factors,' including regional conflicts in Sri Lanka and Afghanistan, are responsible for the surge...
...many Sri Lankans, Lieut. General Sarath Fonseka is a bit of a hero. Now the equivalent of the U.S. military's Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Fonseka was the former army commander who helped strategize and lead the campaign that put a decisive end to the quarter-century-long separatist war of the Tamil Tigers. The intensity of the onslaught raised criticism around the world, including a 68-page State Department report to the U.S. Congress that took to task the conduct of both government forces and the Tigers. Now, what appears to be an attempt...
According to Fonseka and other Sri Lankan officials, the DHS contacted the general on Oct. 28 during his trip to the U.S. to visit his daughters, who live in Oklahoma. Fonseka, who holds a U.S. green card permanent-residency certificate, was asked to show up for an interview on Nov. 4. According to Sri Lankan Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama, Fonseka had been told by the DHS official that the objective of the interview was to "use him as a source against Defense Secretary Gottabaya Rajapaksa." Apart from being a co-author of the successful campaign against the Tigers, Gottabaya Rajapaksa...
Responding to previous international criticism, the Sri Lankan government declared that it would not subject any of its military commanders or civilian officials who led the war to any kind of international investigation or war-crimes tribunal. The apparent request from American officials led to a similar dismissal. In the U.S., the DHS's office of Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE), which reportedly made the Fonseka request, refused to confirm or deny the allegation. ICE spokesman Brandon Alvarez-Montgomery said: "If there was an investigation, there's nothing we can provide. Especially in cases that are very sensitive under human...