The Tamil boat mystery

(By Jane Armstrong and Colin Freeze,  Globe and Mail)

The Canadian navy plane circled above the mysterious cargo ship, a rusted, 100-metre-long vessel steaming at a steady 10 knots per hour toward Vancouver Island. Below, dozens of Tamil passengers who had been at sea for weeks changed into their best clothes and poured onto the upper deck.

One of them, a 39-year-old man who goes by the fictitious name of Selva, squinted skyward and, he now recalls, thought, “I've been saved.”

The tumultuous, confusing ordeal that followed left him thinking otherwise. Like his fellow 75 former passengers, he was detained in a British Columbia centre, deemed as a potential security threat.

Months later, the authorities let him go on bail, and he moved to Toronto with his compatriots, where he is free to walk its streets and collect welfare. But maybe not for long. The Canadian government is poised to stonewall some of the migrants' claims.

A federal government source said that Ottawa was merely being diligent by detaining them – pointing out that the ship was found to have traces of explosives residue.

And the source, who would not be named because the case is an ongoing investigation, suggested officials still have some serious cards left to play. “This is essentially an evidence-gathering period that we're in. … How many are really bad guys, and how many are normal people we don't have concrete fears about?”

In coming months, officials will intervene, blocking up to one-quarter of the asylum claims, the source said, by arguing those migrants are inadmissible because they might be tied to terrorism or smuggling networks.

Canadian authorities were concerned that the boat, Ocean Lady, belonged to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, the rebel group that had waged a three-decade battle for independence in Sri Lanka.

The country's army crushed the movement in the spring of 2009 in a bloody offensive that also sparked complaints of widespread human-rights abuses committed on both sides of the struggle. Some refugees, however, escaped this two-fronted terror.

Differentiating between Tamil refugees and terrorists has long been a tricky matter. Over the past three decades, hundreds of thousands of refugees have fled to Canada, where the vast majority live peacefully. Others have joined the Tiger diaspora, working to revive the movement.

When dozens of Tamil migrants were set to land on Canada's shores, authorities took the cautious approach and jailed them all. Initially, the tough stance appeared warranted. Police combing the cargo ship found trace amounts of explosives. Then came word that one of the migrants was wanted by Interpol for terrorism charges in Sri Lanka. And the ship's moniker, The Ocean Lady, turned out to be spray-painted on. Its real name was the Princess Easwary and there were allegations it was owned by the Tigers.

The migrants would be detained for another three months while their lawyers fought the terrorism accusations. For weeks last fall, the handcuffed and shackled men traipsed in and out of tiny hearing rooms at the Immigration and Refugee Board in Vancouver, asking for release. At one point, the government even launched a rarely used section of the Immigration Act in a bid to hold secret hearings to argue for the continued detention of 25 of the men.

Just after New Year's, the government dropped the matter. With no explanation, the migrants were freed, provided they reported to immigration officials while they began their refugee claims. Many were instructed not to associate with members of the LTTE.

One terrorism expert who was hired by the Canadian government during the Tamil crisis maintains that Canada was wrong to release all the men. Professor Rohan Gunaratna said at least two of the migrants – and possibly more – were Tamil Tigers.

Prof. Gunaratna, who heads a terrorism think-tank in Singapore, said Canada is a top destination spot for Sri Lanka's defeated Tigers, whose goal is to rebuild abroad. “I think there were people who participated in acts of terrorism and they should not have been released,” Prof. Gunaratna said in an interview.

Canada's refugee board will decide if the men are genuine refugees. In the meantime, police and border officials say they are continuing to investigate the ship's arrival, but no one has been charged.

One of the migrant's lawyers said the show of force was likely designed to dissuade other smugglers.

“The Conservative government felt there was a lot of concern about the boat and they wanted to prove to their political base they were acting sternly,” said Lorne Waldman in his Toronto office.

Mr. Waldman represents the migrant whose hopes soared when he spotted the Canadian patrol plane.

Today, the Tamil man who goes by “Selva” rents a room from his cousin, on the 10th floor of a Mississauga high-rise. He gets a $580-a-month welfare cheque and says $400 of it goes to rent.

Selva hopes to start English courses by the end of the month. In the interim, he listens to Tamil radio and watches Tamil TV. His local brethren – the largest such community outside of South Asia – have promised him odd jobs until he gets his work permit.

“Toronto gave a second birth to many Tamils,” says David Poopalapillai, who heads the Canadian Tamil Congress. After the Tamil migrants were arrested in B.C., he and others from Toronto raced to Vancouver, to help the detainees get lawyers and to put them in touch with Toronto relatives who could post bond and take them in.

“Tamil people dream of coming to Canada because they're free of persecution and in a land of opportunity,” Mr. Poopalapillai said.

But the opportunities don't arrive overnight. Selva says his bail conditions, while a welcome relief from the 95 days he spent jailed in B.C., have caveats.

He has a weekly check-in with border guards at the Canada Border Services Agency near Pearson Airport. While he says he'd like to make friends in Toronto, he says he's not going to go out of his way to do so – given that his bond restrictions stipulate he's not to associate with any alleged Tigers.

“How do I know, if I meet with someone, if he's an LTTE member?” Selva said, explaining he's going to be extra cautious.

As he waits to see his first maple leaf bud from the spring blossoms, his mind turns back to the life he left behind in the lush jungles of northern Sri Lanka.

In an interview at Mr. Waldman's office, he talked of the last terrifying months in Sri Lanka. Many of his observations about life for Tamils in Sri Lanka have been backed by other Tamil migrants interviewed.

When he fled Sri Lanka, he left his wife and little children behind, a move that haunts him. “It's been more than one year since I've seen my son,” he said, his dark brown eyes filling with tears.

His flight to Canada may have saved his life but it brought crushing worries.

Selva speaks no English and, while some of the migrants have already secured manual labour jobs, he relies on government handouts to get by.

He can't fathom how he will repay the debt his cousin paid to smuggle him out of the country.

In Sri Lanka, Selva says, he was a successful farmer who owned cows and a mill and employed 12 people.

He tried to stay out of politics, but by end of 2008, the artillery shells were landing too close to his farm fields, and the family fled. “My village was under the control of the army and I had no choice. They started killing people.”

The family lived on the run, sleeping under trees, moving from village to village. By the spring of 2009, there was no place to hide.

Government troops launched a final, decisive assault on the retreating Tigers, who forced thousands of civilians into labour or used them as human shields. When soldiers overran the north, they picked up civilians, including Selva's family, herding them into internment camps.

International human-rights groups have said nearly 300,000 civilians were held in these kinds of conditions as the war ended.

He said he and his four-year-old son were driven by bus to a camp that looked like an abandoned school, where about 4,000 men and boys were being held. He was questioned, he recalled, tied up and beaten. His interrogators wanted to know if he was a Tiger. “I didn't have anything to do with it,” he replied. “I'm a farmer. I didn't have time to think about politics.”

The Tamil made up his mind to escape. Some of the men in the camp were permitted to leave. Selva approached one and pressed a paper with his cousin's phone number in his hand.

He asked the man to contact and summon Selva's cousin. The ploy worked. His cousin appeared and paid off a prison official to secure Selva's release. Once out, his cousin arranged for him to be smuggled from Sri Lanka. Selva left his boy in the care of relatives.

On June 22, 2009, he flew to Thailand. He was met by another smuggler, who took him to a house where other Tamil men were waiting for passage. One day, the smuggler informed the men they were going to Canada, via Indonesia.

The men boarded yet another plane, for Indonesia and, once there, they were moved from house to house. Then one night, he was taken alone to the coast and put on a fishing boat.

“It was midnight. I didn't even see who the men were who were handling the ship,” he says. “All I wanted at the time was to escape from the Sri Lanka government. That was the only issue on my mind. I didn't even ask the agent, ‘Where am I going?'”

Once aboard, the ship sailed straight into a violent tropical storm. “We all thought we would be dead,” he said. The boat nearly capsized and the migrants were forced to pump water from the hull. Other migrants interviewed also talked of the “big storm” and many believed they would perish at sea.

Selva doesn't regret his decision to flee. Despite their fears of the future, the Tamil migrants were all relieved to have escaped their violent country.

“All we were talking about was the government and how they treated us back home, how lucky we were to be escaping the Sri Lankan government.”

He hopes Canada will permit him to stay here, so he can send for his family and start his life again. “Very soon, I want to bring my family and be reunited with them.”