It is not up to ASIO to decide the fate of these people; that is the province of the Department of Immigration. ASIO's role is to investigate their claims. In the absence of definitive information, ASIO can do nothing more than inform the Department that they cannot confirm their status as refugees. You seem to imply that these detainees are ALL former Tamil Tigers; by that definition they are not classified by the United Nations as refugees. As former combatants, it is ultimately up to the government to decide what happens to them.

One might also question the reality of your perceptions; it was the Tamil Tigers who initiated the conflict and all too often the Tigers who were most responsible for excesses against the Tamil population for failure to support their movement. Suggesting that we should overlook their excesses is a bit like suggesting that we overlook the crimes of the Nazis or the Khmer Rouge; it is a long held principal of international law that war crimes are war crimes regardless of the circumstances. You seem to forget that in some conflicts, both sides are as bad as each other and it does not follow that because the Sinhalese were excessive in their conduct of the war and retribution that the Tamils were the 'good-guys'.

It is a sad state of affairs. The Department of Foreign Affairs should take as much of the blame as anyone. Its blind devotion to the Pacific Rim to the exclusion of almost all else has left it ill-equipped to properly deal with situations in the Indian Ocean. Australia should feel ashamed at its conduct throughout the civil war in Sri Lanka- a legacy not of ASIO or the Army or the Dept of Immigration but the Sino-centrism of the Dept of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

prevent hard core activists getting employment with the Federal Government.

But it's ok to employ hard core incompetents then is it ?

There is never going to be a satisfactory answer to all this. However compared to most internal intelligence gathering organisations ASIO in its current form appears fairly harmless.

Unless you want a Bradley Manning / Wikileaks kind of embarrassment you probably do want to keep hard core activists from getting employment with the Federal Government. However Australia has a deep civil society and there are many other employment opportunities.

I did not know that Muammur Gadaffi's bosom buddy, Nelson Mandela, had been awarded an AO.

Any chance of Gadaffi himself getting one posthumously?

A bit of history.

In the early 1990s the US built an air base in Botswana neighbouring South Africa. There was only one target worthy of attention by the USAF in the region and that was South Africa's nuclear facilities.

During that time the South African (Apartheid) Government accused the US of spying on Pelindaba, South Africa's uranium enrichment facility. Seems that every time the ambassador's private jet took off it flew low over Pelindaba. The South Africans thought, probably correctly, that it was taking photographs of Pelindaba and maybe deploying various sensors to try and figure out what was going on.

What scared the brown stuff out of the Americans was the mere thought of Muammur Gadaffi's ANC buddies getting their hands on nukes. They would have bombed Pelindaba to smithereens first.

In the event an amicable settlement appears to have been reached. Before the ANC took over the Apartheid government signed the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and agreed to a rigorous inspection regime, South Africa dismantled its nukes, certain members of the last Apartheid Government, notably F.W. de Klerk and defence minister Magnus Malan, suddenly became very wealthy and the ANC never got its fingers on the nuclear button.

I do remember how angry certain members of the ANC were about this. They honestly thought they were going to take over a nuclear state.

In the event they had to satisfy themselves with a few corrupt arms deals with Sweden.

And Gadaffi never got his nukes.

Would the ANC have passed on nukes or nuclear technology to Gadaffi?

I don't know but no one was prepared to take the chance.

The easiest way out when you have no explanation is to call it secret.

Bruce calls for members of our security services to be of the greatest integrity - "Those entrusted with these tasks must, perforce, be of the highest character and moral calibre." And, then criticises the head of ASIO for not demonstating "courage and compassion" in relation to the Tamil 'refugees'. An obvious contradiction here between the exercise of impartial and ethical judgement against a call for an emotional assessment. Give over, Bruce, you can't be serious.

The expansion of the security services in response to the now elevated global terrorism threat is totally logical, and operates, or should operate, to increase the power of the government - through the provision of improved intelligence information. Bruce's inference that the security services have somehow gained 'power' over government is patently ludicrous. Also, secrets would not be secret if the parliament and the populace were all fully informed of the detail - they are secret for a security purpose, a 'need to know' - so what's your point Bruce? If ordinary people are 'spied upon', that is the price of freedom and security - eternal vigilance.

"..the Sri Lankan High Commission must be cut adrift." - because the Sri Lankan government or its security services cannot be trusted? I would have thought that suspicion (or accusation) would warrant an increase in our diplomatic relations, rather than its abandonment.

If our Labor government had not dispensed with Temporary Protection Visas, could the problem with these Tamil 'refugees' have been more easily resolved? (At least for those not assessed as having terrorist tendencies.)

Ultimately Aus is yet again called upon to resolve all the internal conflicts at play around the globe, though the exercise of the most enlightened and skillful diplomacy imaginable. When did Aus become 'Merlin'? (Or, Gandalf the White?)