Remember when Tamil Tigers were world leaders in suicide terrorism?
The parents of the Tamil family seeking to stay in Australia claim they cannot return to Sri Lanka due to a reported association with the Tamil Tigers. Those rallying to support the family should remember exactly what that terrorist organisation has done, writes Piers Akerman.
Opinion
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Even tiny two-year-old Tamil Tharunicaa might be wondering how her father can still claim to be a refugee when the record shows he has visited Sri Lanka, the country in which he believes he faces persecution, while living on a temporary protection visa in Australia.
The persecution her father Nadesalingam “Nades” Murugappan and her mother, Kokilapathmapriya “Priya” Nadarasa, say they fear in their home nation is due to a reported association with the Tamil Tigers terrorist organisation. They were both rejected as refugees when they came to Australia on boats in 2012 and 2013 respectively.
The Tamil Tigers aren’t exactly rollover-and-tickle-my-tummy pussy cats as some of their neighbours from rural Biloela, where this Tamil family has been living, may like to think.
While the Tamil Tigers didn’t “invent” the horrific practice of suicide bombing, they are universally credited with developing the murderous tactic as a terrorist weapon so effectively that it has been emulated by terrorist groups in Syria, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Indonesia and other countries.
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Velupillai Prabhakaran, the Tigers’ founder and leader, boasted of creating a culture that glorified martyrdom and encouraged suicide bombings as an act of “giving yourself” rather than killing.
How that would play among the Biloela mothers who are supporting “Priya”, or at the meatworks where “Nades” has been working is unclear.
One would think any association, real or concocted, with such a monstrous group would trigger immediate alarm bells with the Sri Lankan authorities that this family would be at pains to avoid, but apparently not so.
Despite their bid for asylum based on their claimed association with the Tigers, who were the world leaders in suicide terrorism from 1980 to 2003, they didn’t fear the Sri Lankan government sufficiently to the point they would avoid visiting.
Federal Court Judge Mordecai Bromberg on Friday extended an injunction preventing the government removing Tharunicaa from the country until a further hearing on September 18 after they had been scheduled to leave on a chartered flight.
Border control minister Peter Dutton has — rightly — ruled out any special treatment.
Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese has pathetically been attempting to convince supporters and sympathisers that the Sri Lankan case is similar to previous cases in which a few young girls illegally worked as au pairs and were given some clemency.
Memo to the ALP: the Tigers took young children and strapped suicide vests on them before sending them to their deaths. The au pairs tied bibs around the necks of toddlers and fed them mush before changing their nappies and placing them in their cots.
Labor, when last in office, totally reneged on the promises of strong border protection Kevin Rudd made during the 2007 campaign. His backflip on policy led to at least 1200 deaths at sea, men, women and children, and more than 50,000 unlawful boat arrivals.
Christmas Island’s detention centre, closed last year by the Coalition, was reopened before this year’s election because the government correctly feared that Labor’s backtracking on tough border laws would reopen the people smuggler trade.
And so it has. At least five boats have been intercepted by Australian or Sri Lankan naval authorities since May, movements that Mr Dutton says have been more recently encouraged by the current legal battle over Tharunicaa’s family’s status and that the case has handed Sri Lankan people-smugglers a handy new selling proposition for fresh boat movements.
“There is misrepresentation of this case that somehow this family will settle permanently in Australia. Others are trying to get people on boats now,” he said on Friday.
The law — as decided by every Australian jurisdiction right up to the High Court — has previously found against this family. They haven’t just exercised their right to have their day in court, they have had hours, days, weeks, months and years, and they have lost.
The argument on the side about whether they would have a special immediate right of return should they again lose and finally be sent home is a distraction.
The question before the court is whether two-year-old Tharunicaa has a new and previously undiscovered and untested right to asylum such that it will act as cover for her parents and sister to remain in Australia.
Sri Lanka is not the worst nation in the world, ask this family. They visited it more recently than me.