The Illegals' Drama Continues: "Break In" at Toronto Tamil HQ
Canadians have been asked to suspend critical brain function throughout the MV Sun Sea ordeal. Before it arrived with its cargo of 517 illegals, August 13:
We knew it was piloted by a Tamil Tiger sea captain and likely a Tiger operation,
We knew the UN High Commission for Refugees had designated Tamils "no longer in need of protection,"
We knew Tamil refugees already enjoying Canada's protection habitually holidayed in Sri Lanka,
We knew Tamil refugees living in India and elsewhere were voluntarily resettling in Sri Lanka,
We knew the Sun Sea passengers "fled" from the safety of Thailand, not Sri Lanka,
We knew that the passengers were permitted to "consult" with an ethnic advocacy group here while still devising the strategies they will present to the Immigration and Refugee Board. Wouldn't competent officials have been uneasy with such an arrangement?
None of this is sitting well with people fed to the teeth with being taken for long, expensive rides by self-professed "refugees." Just 16 days after arrival, taxpayers had already invested $45,000 in each Sun Sea passenger.
So this smuggling ship hasn't exactly followed the usual pattern of an effortless hoodwinking of the paying public. Nearly half of Canadians polled want the passengers deported regardless of the outcome of their refugee claims; 78% of readers of the extremely wet Toronto Star wanted the ship turned back before arrival.
We are now additionally expected to believe that (quelle horreur!) "someone" has broken into the offices of said ethnic advocacy group, the Canadian Tamil Congress, and, despite the fuss, flap and noise of kicking in a door, chose not to scoop up armfuls of computers and leave with their booty, but took their time to systematically browse through various programmes in various computers to find the one computer (the receptionist's!) holding the names of the passengers as well as the names of family members back in Sri Lanka.
Call us skeptics, but several benefits spring to the mind:
-- Suppose CSIS or the RCMP were preparing warrants for this information? Convenient for it to disappear in the most public way imaginable if there was official suspicion that the ethnic advocacy group was complicit in/behind any part of the operation.
-- Suppose those names are critical to shake down efforts to recover the agreed upon cost of passage? Does Ottawa get the connection between smuggled human flesh and indentured servitude at all? If it did, it would not permit entry of smuggling ships.
-- If there was a sense that there are widespread doubts about the veracity of these claims and depending who now gets blamed, the Sun Sea passengers may at last appear to genuinely be "people in need of protection." (Along with their extended families "back home." One comes is as a "refugee" and we soon get the whole village!)
-- Oh, and get this, the Globe and Mail (September 12, 2010 reports: "Officials also said they discovered destroyed and unclaimed identity documents on the MV Sun Sea, evidence, they say, the refugee claimants might be trying to conceal their identities." No, like the illegals might be, uh, fibbing to us? Whoa, so there is a possibility that the names on the CTC computer are not even the same names the illegals are submitting to dopey Canadian officials!
According to Tamil Congress mouthpiece, the break in is either a hate crime or a Sri Lankan government black op.
Seriously.
Does this country really need more ethnic-partisan paranoids?
Toronto Star, September 12, 2010
The Canadian Tamil Congress fears the names of hundreds of Tamil asylum-seekers who boarded the MV Sun Sea and their families back home have been stolen in what they allege is either a hate crime or an act of international espionage.
“We were targeted. We fully well know we were targeted because we were involved in this Sun Sea issue,” said David Poopalapillai, national spokesperson for the Tamil congress.
Toronto police are investigating the break-in, believed to have occurred late Saturday or in the early hours of Sunday, at the congress headquarters on Progress Ave. in Scarborough.
Poopalapillai said some rooms in the office were ransacked and computers and telephones were left on the floor. The computer at the main reception desk was the only thing taken, he said.
“Either it’s a hate crime or we have a strong feeling Sri Lankan intelligence may have a hand behind this,” he told the Star.
Poopalapillai added that the congress has received hate mail about the Sun Sea issue from those who believe the organization is “helping illegals.” He also said that some migrants aboard the boat had agreed to come forward and give information about war crimes allegedly committed by the Sri Lankan government during the country’s bitter 26-year civil war, which ended last year.
“If the Sri Lankan government has that information they can then go and intimidate the family members (still in Sri Lanka) to stop them from speaking out,” he said.
Poopalapillai said the identities of the 492 Sri Lankan asylum seekers who arrived in British Columbia last month may be on the stolen computer. As well, it may contain contact information for the migrants’ families still living in the fragile South Asian nation.
The names of the migrants who boarded the MV Sun Sea are subject to a publication ban ordered by Canada’s Immigration and Refugee board. The ban was ordered, in part, to protect their families in Sri Lanka from reprisal.
The congress has been collecting names and contacts because the organization has been trying to connect the asylum-seekers with family back home. Poopalapillai said he believes the break-in occurred sometime after 6:30 p.m. Saturday and 9:30 a.m. Sunday.
Police said there were signs of forced entry at the congress headquarters. The office does not have an alarm system.
According to Poopalapillai, Toronto police are taking the investigation “very seriously.” The congress will not know exactly what, if any, sensitive information was stolen until Monday.
“Our job now is to find these families and call them and let them know,” said Poopalapillai.
Canadian authorities boarded the MV Sun Sea on Aug. 13. One month on, nearly all adults are still being held in detention centres until their identities can be confirmed.
Public Safety minister Vic Toews fanned fears that Tamil Tiger “human smugglers and terrorists” were amongst those in the group. The Tamil Tigers are a banned terrorist organization in Canada. Ottawa has promised new legislation to deal with human smuggling.
A spokesperson from Toews’ office said they had no comment Sunday.
Canada’s Sri Lanka High Commission could not be reached for comment.
The Canadian Tamil Congress is a non-profit organization serving the voices of Tamil Canadians. Headquartered in Toronto, it has 11 chapters across the country.
