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The Forum > Article Comments > Sri Lanka emerging from the darkness of war > Comments

Sri Lanka emerging from the darkness of war : Comments

By Julie Bishop, published 7/2/2013

One school we visited in the town of Kilinochchi had 36 students studying in a makeshift classroom at the end of the war, but today has over 2000 students enrolled.

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Fact finding missions by Australian MPs and Senators to Sri Lanka and other war impacted societies are very important as they can assist Australia to develop evidence based policies and targeted development assistance programs that help achieve better social, economic and political outcomes. Such visits also remind the host governments that the international community is actively monitoring the situation on the ground and is expecting big improvements across the board.

It is great to see that Sri Lanka is emerging from the darkness of war and is investing its scarce resources into nation building projects that will improve the lives of all citizens. Australia can assist the rapid transformation of Sri Lanka by sharing its systems, policies and experiences with democracy in a multicultural context.

The Hon Julie Bishop and her team are to be congratulated for their initiative.
Posted by Macedonian advocacy, Thursday, 7 February 2013 8:45:42 AM
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I certainly hope that Sri Lanka can fully emerge from the dark days of its civil war and that the nation can live in peace and harmony. However, as one anecdotal account of the problems that still lie ahead, I have been helping to try and get a ban lifted on an Australian citizen who was in Sri Lanka as an aid worker and would like to return to help in reconstruction. She is accused of harbouring a wanted terrorist. This man in fact was an elderly Australian citizen of Tamil origin who was visiting Sri Lanka on business and was staying overnight in the home of the aid worker and her husband as a house guest. He gave himself up voluntarily to the authorities and was eventaully allowed to return to Australia where he has since died. No action was taken against the aid worker or her husband at the time but when they tried to re-enter Sri Lanka after returning to Australia on holiday, they were barred at the airport. That was almost a decade ago and the ban remains in place.

As Ms Bishop says, there is an urgent need for trust to be rebuilt and for cases like this to be reviewed.
Posted by Graham Cooke, Thursday, 7 February 2013 11:54:05 AM
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Julie Bishop is lying, the Tamil MP she talked to has told us she lied and our own DIAC stats show she lies.

80% of tamils arriving here last year were granted protection from prosecution and persecution so it is not safe or free.

Now perhaps this idiot woman can visit the 59 other countries from where asylum seekers arrive and tell us all about it.

The tamils are not refugees because of the war, they are refugees because they are still being disappeared, hunted down, raped and killed.

Bishop is nothing but a menace.

And the ambassador here is the former head of navy who has been named as a war criminal.
Posted by Marilyn Shepherd, Thursday, 7 February 2013 3:12:58 PM
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Marilyn is delusional, again.

Says Marilyn: << 80% of tamils arriving here last year were granted protection from prosecution and persecution so it is not safe or free.>>

No.It means the other 20% didn’t learn their lines well enough. But rest assured in their second, third, fourth or fifth attempt --many ‘unsuccessful” asylum scammers keep coming back till they get a positive answer-- they are more likely to succeed.

And here’s a news flash you would not hear from the ABC:
“More than 1,200 Sri Lankan nationals living in India as refugees have returned to their country in 2012 with monetary support from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

Between January and December last year, a total of 1,260 Tamil refugees who were residing in special camps across Tamil Nadu had returned to their home country with the UN agency’s assistance, UNHCR said.

In 2011, more than 1,670 refugees returned to Sri Lanka as compared to 2,040 in the previous year in the aftermath of the end of the war in 2009.”
http://reliefweb.int/report/sri-lanka/over-1-200-refugees-returned-tn

So much for it being unsafe to return!
Posted by SPQR, Thursday, 7 February 2013 3:33:27 PM
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No SPQR, they were granted protection because they need our protection.
Posted by Marilyn Shepherd, Thursday, 7 February 2013 3:43:06 PM
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<< No SPQR, they were granted protection because they need our protection.>>

No Marilyn, if they had genuinely been seeking “protection” they could have obtained that in Tamil Nadu along with thousands of their compatriots.

The essential ingredient that was lacking in Tamil Nadu wasn’t protection -- but access to generous welfare and free education (with special reserved places for "refugees") and a ticket to got straight to the front of the housing commission queue.
Posted by SPQR, Thursday, 7 February 2013 4:21:56 PM
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