Refugee Boat Timeline to May 4th

54 SRI LANKANS ARRESTED

4th May

Sri Lankan navy picks up 54 people heading by boat to Australia

This is the headline from ABC NEWS ONLINE datelined 3rd May.

It is a criminal act in Sri Lanka to attempt to save your life. To attempt to flee from oppression and tyranny.

54 people attempted to do just that. The report in “The NATION” published in Colombo on 2nd May is headed,

“Navy thwarts another migration effort; first after seven months “Sri Lanka Navy (SLN) intercepted 54 persons illegally bound for Australia in a multi-day trawler this morning. The trawler was intercepted by Sri Lanka Navy patrol craft attached to the Eastern Naval Command 20 nautical miles East of Mullaitivu.  The arrested persons; 30 men, 11 women and 13 children after bringing at the Trincomalee Harbur have been handed over to the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) for further investigations. SLN has been able to thwart people smuggling attempts through its effective surveillance and augmented patrolling. The last interception was made on October 04, 2013 and 70 persons were arrested in the deep seas off Galle while attempting to migrate to Australia illegally.

A little background is necessary here. This series is based on tony abbott’s initial election promise to “Stop the Boats” so that lives are no longer risked. Since the election of his Government weasel words have been used and we are now being proudly told that “No boats have arrived on Australian soil. That is majorly different from “Stopping the boats”. People are still risking their lives by getting onto boats to try to exchange impossible situations for Australia compassion. These 54 people, along with the 70 from last October will never appear in the Government’s statistics. Yet they exist and they want to live free. So they appear in the records of this series of posts as the 70 from last October are already recorded.

There is an interesting phrase used in the above article. “Augmented Patrolling”. Oh yes. Augmented by Australian Patrol Vessels. Gifted to Sri Lanka by our Australian Government. So that Tamils never leave the special Hell which has been created by the war criminals who now run the Sri Lankan Government.

SLN has been able to thwart people smuggling attempts through its effective surveillance and augmented patrolling. The last interception was made on October 04, 2013 and 70 persons were arrested in the deep seas off Galle while attempting to migrate to Australia illegally.

 

IS THE SRI LANKAN GOVERNMENT FOR REAL?

Some Sri Lankans are wondering. Here are some quotes from an article in the Sri Lankan Guardian from April 27th 2014. (Yes, I have extended my reading to include several Sri Lankan publications)

 

This is Our President   by Tisaranee Gunasekara

“If under aged girls are statutorily raped and the sexual act was however with consent, it may be good to have legislation that allows the perpetrator to marry the ‘victim’ with her consent.”

President Mahinda Rajapaksa

Either the President is psychologically challenged, incapable of unravelling reality from imagination; or he is a consummate liar.

Last November a soldier was arrested for sexually abusing an eight year old girl. 

The girl, the daughter of an ASP, was waiting in an anteroom in the CMC while her father was at a discussion about the Commonwealth Summit. The soldier was the bodyguard of a colonel who was at the same discussion. The girl revealed what was done to her by the ‘Army Uncle’ (“using words according to her knowledge”) only after she went home .

Any reasonable person would know why that child did not scream during the abuse, why she remained mute until she was safe at home. Her silence and inaction were functions of terror and ignorance. But if Lanka enacts the proposed Rape Marriage Law, the soldier might be able to argue that he abused the child with her consent. After all, she did not protest, did she? Or tell her father when he came in? And the President himself thinks that children can ‘consent’ to rape: “If under aged girls are statutorily raped and the sexual act was however with consent, it may be good to have legislation that allows the perpetrator to marry the ‘victim’ with her consent.”

A Lankan must be over 18 to vote, to drive, to smoke and to drink. Such limits are imposed globally because until a certain age is reached, a human being lacks the capacity to make mature and informed choices about important matters. Statutory rape provisions too belong in same category. Their main purpose is to prevent adults from exploiting the ignorance, the trust, the inexperience and the terror of children.

President Rajapaksa thinks otherwise. He says children can ‘consent’ to a sexual act. So when a male adult rapes a female child and claims that he did so with her consent and she is too confused or scared or shocked to prove otherwise, he can escape punishment, by promising to marry her when she is 18.

Currently statutory rape laws apply to children under 16. How old does the President think a female-child has to be, in order to ‘consent’ to a ‘sexual act’? Fourteen? Twelve? Younger?

The above-mentioned incident indicates, again, how vulnerable North-Eastern children must be, under de facto military occupation. It also proves that child abuse/rape is a problem for all Lankan parents and children. But what hope is there when the Presidential father thinks that children can ‘consent’ to rape, and that rapists should be allowed to marry their victims?

This is the nation to which we are condemning these attempted refugees. Yet one more abbott  Government effort which adds to my shame of being Australian.

 

 

WEATHER FORECASTS

Christmas Island; A trough lies to the southwest of the island with a developing low well to the south and continuing to move further away. A shower or two with the chance of a thunderstorm. Winds: East to northeasterly 5 to 10 knots, tending east to southeasterly in the afternoon. Seas: Below 1.0 metre. Swell: Southerly 1.5 to 2.0 metres. Max 30 Min 24 (BOM)

Flying Fish Cove 1st May
Courtesy of Arthur Floret
http://christmas.mondoblog.org/le-fil-du-temps/

 

Cocos Island;  A trough lies in the vicinity of the islands as a developing low well to the southeast continues to move further away from the islands. A shower or two with the chance of a thunderstorm. Winds: Variable around 5 knots. Seas: Up to 1.0 metre. Swell: South to southe asterly 1.5 to 2.0 metres. Max 30 Min 26 (BOM)

Cirabon; 31C, wind; 5-15 Kmh variable, fine.

The weekly figures I have collated.

This will be updated each week.

To find older information click here

(the dates are all “skewiff” so keep opening “new page” to find recent posts)