Switzerland, Netherlands and Denmark have already entered into refugee return pacts with Sri Lanka. Reports say following the work of the European Union’s (EU) High Level Working Group on Asylum and Migration last year, a process has been initiated to authorise the European Commission to conclude EU repatriation agreements with Sri Lanka and Morocco.
According to UNHCR, 12,640 Sri Lankans applied for asylum in Europe in 1999. Between 1989 and 1998, there were 205,872 applications worldwide from Sri Lankans and 56,405 (27.3%) were granted UN Convention refugee status and 18,144 (8.8%) were allowed to stay on humanitarian grounds.
Between 1980 and 1999 UK received 35,375 applications and only 339 (0.96%) were recognised as refugees. But 13,476 (38.1%) were granted humanitarian leave. UNHCR says 1,900 (57.9%) of 3,282 applicants have been granted humanitarian leave in Norway. Around 1,000 asylum applications are pending.
Norway began deporting rejected Sri Lankan asylum seekers two years before the March agreement. Following a meeting in March 1999 in Oslo, the British Refugee Council (BRC) sent a letter to the Norwegian Justice minister raising concerns over returns to Sri Lanka. The BRC pointed out UNHCR’s recommendation to Western nations to consider provisions of the UN Convention on Torture, before deportations. The BRC letter remains unanswered.
The BRC has time and again pointed out the unsafe conditions in Sri Lanka and the humiliating experiences of returning refugees. The BRC has insisted on proper procedures for refugee status determination and safety of returned asylum seekers. No effective procedure has been established for receiving, advising or monitoring repatriated refugees.
The Sri Lankan Foreign Ministry says that the Norwegian agreement is a recognition that the human rights situation in the island has improved. But British Foreign Office minister Peter Hain expressed concern in March over continuing human rights violations in Sri Lanka and failure to prosecute violators. The US State Department has recorded grave human rights abuses and in March 2000, the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture reported the torture of returned asylum seekers M Vanitha and T Kamalathasan.
Twenty Sri Lankans arrived in Sri Lanka on 16 March after being deported from Germany. Over 50,570 applications were made by Sri Lankan asylum seekers in Germany between 1989 and 1998 and 8,810 (17.4%) have been granted refugee status. Colombo’s German embassy says 5,500 rejected refugees face deportation.
Reports say that the travel documents of the 20 German deportees were confiscated. Immigration officers told Colombo MP R Yogarajan that the Defence Ministry has ordered them to confiscate travel documents of all asylum seekers deported to Sri Lanka. Two German deportees V Suthakaran and S Theivendran were detained and produced before the Negombo magistrate on 21 March. Despite police objections based on suspicion of LTTE links, the court granted them Rs 50,000 bail.
Another deportee V Varadarajah was arrested at the airport on 16 March and released on bail the following day. MP Joseph Pararajasingham says that Chilaw police refused to register Mr Varadakumar. German deportee V Paramasivam was released on bail by the court on 17 March. He was arrested again on the same day and detained for three more days. The Kollupitiya police refused to accept the court documents.
Thulasi Gnanakrishnan and her two children, deported from Canada, were arrested at Colombo airport on 28 February. She was released on bail the following day and ordered to appear in court on 30 May. The Canadian High Commission in Colombo told her lawyers that she was detained overnight at the police post in the airport to allow time for the police to ‘confirm their identity’ and that ‘she was free to go about her business in Sri Lanka’.
The lawyers say that her identity certificate had been issued by the Sri Lankan High Commission in Ottawa and in addition Ms Gnanakrishnan had an old Sri Lankan passport. They also say that Slave Island police in Colombo have denied her permission to stay in Colombo and without a permit she cannot go out of her residence. Sunday Leader columnist DBS Jeyaraj says the family was interrogated for over four hours and harshly treated.
While Tamil arrests continued in March, There is concern over increase in attacks on Tamils in Colombo and other southern areas, since Norway became involved in peace efforts. In a late March letter to President Chandrika, All Ceylon Hindu Council Chairman K Neelakandan highlighted a number of incidents and called on her to take immediate action to prevent the attacks. Colombo student Mahalingam Gobikrishnan, 18, was accused of LTTE links and severely beaten in a train on 22 March.