By Baradan Kuppusamy
KUALA LUMPUR, June 29, 2010 (IPS) - As Rajoo, 27, makes tea at a rundown shed in Brickfields, a depressed suburb of the capital inhabited by hundreds of Tamil immigrants from Sri Lanka, he evinces no sign of anxiety and a deep yearning for something.
He dreams of returning to his village in war-ravaged Sri Lanka except that it had been razed to the ground by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) – an armed group that had waged a decades-long bloody insurgency against the government on the country’s north-eastern coast, home to its largest ethnic minority.
The LTTE was finally defeated by military troops in May 2009.
Despite the war’s end, Rajoo says he is scared of returning to his home country. "My village is gone and my relatives are either dead or in camps," he says. "At the height of the battle, I left my wife and son with an uncle and fled to South India by sea and flew to Malaysia."
Rajoo is one of an estimated 100,000 refugees currently living in Malaysia and who risk arrest by the highly feared People’s Volunteer Corps (RELA), a paramilitary group which has the power to apprehend refugees and undocumented migrant workers and have them jailed or deported.
Rajoo, who declines to give his real name for fear of arrest by members of RELA, says he has an identification card issued by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), "but authorities don’t give it much respect," he tells IPS.
The UNCHR card entitles refugees like him to basic rights such as freedom of movement within the host country in line with the international agreements on refugees.
Resettling former Sri Lankan refugees like Rajoo in their homeland is an uphill struggle even if the war has ended, says opposition lawmaker and human rights activist Kulasegaran Murugesan, who is of Tamil descent and is campaigning in the Malaysian parliament to improve the Tamil refugee conditions in Malaysia.
Refugees are not allowed to work under Malaysian law, but most do anyway to supplement the UNHCR monthly assistance of 300 Malaysian ringgit (around 93 U.S. dollars) that they are getting, says Murugesan.
Malaysia has not acceded to the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and its 1967 Protocol.
The Convention is an international agreement that defines who is a refugee and establishes their rights and the legal obligations of the states parties.
Although the government has agreed to cooperate with the UNHCR in addressing refugee issues on humanitarian grounds, Malaysian authorities often do not differentiate between refugees and economic migrants, says Murugesan. Such migrants comprise around three million documented and undocumented individuals from poor countries who are trying to make a living in this South-east Asian country
"Malaysia is a dangerous place for refugees who are often abused, arrested and treated like criminals," Ragunath Kesavan, president of the Malaysian Bar Council, tells IPS.
"Refugees and asylum seekers, particularly women and children, are often at risk of arrest, prosecution, detention and deportation. In some cases, they are trafficked upon deportation."
These observations confirm the findings of international human rights group Amnesty International (AI). Instead of finding comfort and protection, the refugees in Malaysia end up "abused, exploited, arrested and locked up," said the AI in its report released this month.
"The abusive way we treat refugees and our refusal to sign the U.N.’s refugee protocols is a shame," says prominent lawyer and rights activist Surendran Nagalingam. "Our human rights record is deplorable among the family of nations in the region."
Murugesan believes Malaysia refuses to sign the Convention and the Protocol for fear it would be swamped by migrants who can easily claim to be refugees such as what happened when Indonesians from Aceh province flocked to Malaysia at the height of the conflict in this northern Indonesian province.
But the Aceh conflict in neighbouring Indonesia is effectively over, he says. "There is no fear of being swamped now," he adds.
"We must sign these protocols and play our part as responsible citizens of the world," he says. Otherwise, "we forfeit our right to decry abuse in other places like the Middle East."
Refugees seeking safety in Malaysia also come from war-torn Somalia, Iraq and Afghanistan. The majority are natives of military-ruled Burma, who fled their country only to be subjected to a litany of abuses upon reaching Malaysia, since the government does not recognise their status.
The refugees’ lack of legal status for refugees in Malaysia means they can be punished with imprisonment of up to five years and whipping for illegally entering the country, says the AI.
To deflect mounting criticism of its alleged violations of the rights of refugees under international treaties, Malaysia has announced that it is considering certain measures to improve the plight of refugees within its borders such as allowing refugees to work while awaiting resettlement abroad.
But a senior home ministry official, who spoke to IPS on condition of anonymity, says these measures are still at a planning stage. "The government has not given the green light to implement (them)," he says.
Until such measures are in place, Rajoo and other refugees like him will live in constant fear of arrest.
(END)
The Star
Tuesday June 29, 2010
Fallout from Khalid’s ouster
COMMENT
By BARADAN KUPPUSAMY
By handing over the Selangor PKR leader’s post to Azmin, Anwar has set a bad precedent and has prolonged internal feuding, not end it.
NEWLY-appointed Selangor PKR chief Azmin Ali has won, for now, in an unvarnished power struggle against the gentlemanly Selangor Mentri Besar Tan Sri Khalid Ibrahim, but he has exposed his unbridled ambitions and earned the image of the “ugly, bad man” of Pakatan Rakyat politics.
It is no secret that Azmin, a dynamic and focused politician, covets the Selangor Mentri Besar’s post, which went to Khalid after Pakatan seized power in Selangor during the 2008 general election.
Azmin could have been a dynamic Mentri Besar in the way DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng is in Penang, his supporters say, but PKR leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim wanted to reward Khalid, who had bankrolled the incipient PKR and enjoyed an image as a corporate captain and elder statesman.
Besides, the DAP and PAS were wary of Azmin, seeing him as too ambitious, ex-Umno and difficult to compromise, unlike Khalid who is amenable and by nature not cunning or manipulative and willing to hear and share.
Khalid might not be decisive but he was popular among the public and the DAP and PAS in his own plodding way.
Besides, the DAP and PAS between them controlled more seats in the Selangor state assembly than the PKR with the DAP having 13, PKR 14 and PAS eight seats.
Any move to remove Khalid and put Azmin in his place would upset the power balance in the state assembly and lead to turmoil.
This is a major consideration for Anwar, what with the next general election imminent and every political party eager to show their best to the voters.
Anwar wants to present a united, strong PKR working hard for the people but this would not be possible by switching Mentris Besar midway.
While Anwar as the PKR leader can replace Khalid with Azmin, the reality of power distribution in the Selangor state assembly requires him to get the DAP and PAS to endorse the move and they would not agree to Azmin as a replacement.
Many in the Selangor PKR too who are popular in the Pakatan coalition and the general public like executive council members Elizabeth Wong and Dr Xavier Jeyakumar, party strategist Tian Chua, party treasurer William Leong and deputy president Dr Syed Husin Ali are with Khalid.
“They are unlikely to accept Azmin as a replacement for Khalid,” PKR sources said. “There would be a rebellion if Anwar insists on it.”
“The last thing he wanted was to switch Khalid with Azmin and see the Pakatan Rakyat coalition plunge into turmoil,” said a PKR insider.
“We all think Azmin over-played his hand.”
Even though Azmin has the support of Anwar and a majority of PKR MPs, he could not swing the people who really matter to achieve his ambitions to be Mentri Besar – a combination of DAP, PAS and PKR state assemblymen.
But what Azmin wants he gets, maybe not immediately but later.
Anwar has rewarded his ambitious acolyte Azmin with the state PKR chief’s post, which is his to give or take as the PKR’s undisputed leader.
But by doing that – taking from Khalid and giving it to Azmin, Anwar has set a bad precedent and has prolonged the feud, not ended it.
With his new found position as state PKR chief, Azmin would easily rival Khalid and be another rival centre of political power in Selangor.
He would have a big say in who in Selangor PKR gets selected for posts like directors of GLCs, councillors and even candidates in the next general election.
That’s a lot of influence and clout for Azmin who is likely to use his influence to promote his supporters and relegate his detractors – opening the way for more internal feud in the PKR.
The potential negative toll of the feud on the PKR’s public image can only be guessed coming as it does in the wake of PKR MPs defecting and the constant criticism against “Little Napoleons” who allegedly run the party to the detriment of democratic practices.
While Anwar has for now ended the feud by making Azmin state PKR chief, the fallout of the “Azmin” episode on legions of believers is not difficult to gauge.
They are angry, upset and disenchanted that among the three Pakatan political parties, the PKR, which is the glue holding the DAP and PAS together, still has not got its act together but has been visited by one turmoil after another.
Worse, most of it is of its own making and hardly the type that promotes public confidence in the PKR.
More than the DAP or PAS, the PKR was the big winner of 2008 and achieved on the back of widespread public support – support that can easily be turned to scorn by the endless petty squabbles.
KUALA LUMPUR, June 29, 2010 (IPS) - As Rajoo, 27, makes tea at a rundown shed in Brickfields, a depressed suburb of the capital inhabited by hundreds of Tamil immigrants from Sri Lanka, he evinces no sign of anxiety and a deep yearning for something.
He dreams of returning to his village in war-ravaged Sri Lanka except that it had been razed to the ground by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) – an armed group that had waged a decades-long bloody insurgency against the government on the country’s north-eastern coast, home to its largest ethnic minority.
The LTTE was finally defeated by military troops in May 2009.
Despite the war’s end, Rajoo says he is scared of returning to his home country. "My village is gone and my relatives are either dead or in camps," he says. "At the height of the battle, I left my wife and son with an uncle and fled to South India by sea and flew to Malaysia."
Rajoo is one of an estimated 100,000 refugees currently living in Malaysia and who risk arrest by the highly feared People’s Volunteer Corps (RELA), a paramilitary group which has the power to apprehend refugees and undocumented migrant workers and have them jailed or deported.
Rajoo, who declines to give his real name for fear of arrest by members of RELA, says he has an identification card issued by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), "but authorities don’t give it much respect," he tells IPS.
The UNCHR card entitles refugees like him to basic rights such as freedom of movement within the host country in line with the international agreements on refugees.
Resettling former Sri Lankan refugees like Rajoo in their homeland is an uphill struggle even if the war has ended, says opposition lawmaker and human rights activist Kulasegaran Murugesan, who is of Tamil descent and is campaigning in the Malaysian parliament to improve the Tamil refugee conditions in Malaysia.
Refugees are not allowed to work under Malaysian law, but most do anyway to supplement the UNHCR monthly assistance of 300 Malaysian ringgit (around 93 U.S. dollars) that they are getting, says Murugesan.
Malaysia has not acceded to the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and its 1967 Protocol.
The Convention is an international agreement that defines who is a refugee and establishes their rights and the legal obligations of the states parties.
Although the government has agreed to cooperate with the UNHCR in addressing refugee issues on humanitarian grounds, Malaysian authorities often do not differentiate between refugees and economic migrants, says Murugesan. Such migrants comprise around three million documented and undocumented individuals from poor countries who are trying to make a living in this South-east Asian country
"Malaysia is a dangerous place for refugees who are often abused, arrested and treated like criminals," Ragunath Kesavan, president of the Malaysian Bar Council, tells IPS.
"Refugees and asylum seekers, particularly women and children, are often at risk of arrest, prosecution, detention and deportation. In some cases, they are trafficked upon deportation."
These observations confirm the findings of international human rights group Amnesty International (AI). Instead of finding comfort and protection, the refugees in Malaysia end up "abused, exploited, arrested and locked up," said the AI in its report released this month.
"The abusive way we treat refugees and our refusal to sign the U.N.’s refugee protocols is a shame," says prominent lawyer and rights activist Surendran Nagalingam. "Our human rights record is deplorable among the family of nations in the region."
Murugesan believes Malaysia refuses to sign the Convention and the Protocol for fear it would be swamped by migrants who can easily claim to be refugees such as what happened when Indonesians from Aceh province flocked to Malaysia at the height of the conflict in this northern Indonesian province.
But the Aceh conflict in neighbouring Indonesia is effectively over, he says. "There is no fear of being swamped now," he adds.
"We must sign these protocols and play our part as responsible citizens of the world," he says. Otherwise, "we forfeit our right to decry abuse in other places like the Middle East."
Refugees seeking safety in Malaysia also come from war-torn Somalia, Iraq and Afghanistan. The majority are natives of military-ruled Burma, who fled their country only to be subjected to a litany of abuses upon reaching Malaysia, since the government does not recognise their status.
The refugees’ lack of legal status for refugees in Malaysia means they can be punished with imprisonment of up to five years and whipping for illegally entering the country, says the AI.
To deflect mounting criticism of its alleged violations of the rights of refugees under international treaties, Malaysia has announced that it is considering certain measures to improve the plight of refugees within its borders such as allowing refugees to work while awaiting resettlement abroad.
But a senior home ministry official, who spoke to IPS on condition of anonymity, says these measures are still at a planning stage. "The government has not given the green light to implement (them)," he says.
Until such measures are in place, Rajoo and other refugees like him will live in constant fear of arrest.
(END)
The Star
Tuesday June 29, 2010
Fallout from Khalid’s ouster
COMMENT
By BARADAN KUPPUSAMY
By handing over the Selangor PKR leader’s post to Azmin, Anwar has set a bad precedent and has prolonged internal feuding, not end it.
NEWLY-appointed Selangor PKR chief Azmin Ali has won, for now, in an unvarnished power struggle against the gentlemanly Selangor Mentri Besar Tan Sri Khalid Ibrahim, but he has exposed his unbridled ambitions and earned the image of the “ugly, bad man” of Pakatan Rakyat politics.
It is no secret that Azmin, a dynamic and focused politician, covets the Selangor Mentri Besar’s post, which went to Khalid after Pakatan seized power in Selangor during the 2008 general election.
Azmin could have been a dynamic Mentri Besar in the way DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng is in Penang, his supporters say, but PKR leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim wanted to reward Khalid, who had bankrolled the incipient PKR and enjoyed an image as a corporate captain and elder statesman.
Besides, the DAP and PAS were wary of Azmin, seeing him as too ambitious, ex-Umno and difficult to compromise, unlike Khalid who is amenable and by nature not cunning or manipulative and willing to hear and share.
Khalid might not be decisive but he was popular among the public and the DAP and PAS in his own plodding way.
Besides, the DAP and PAS between them controlled more seats in the Selangor state assembly than the PKR with the DAP having 13, PKR 14 and PAS eight seats.
Any move to remove Khalid and put Azmin in his place would upset the power balance in the state assembly and lead to turmoil.
This is a major consideration for Anwar, what with the next general election imminent and every political party eager to show their best to the voters.
Anwar wants to present a united, strong PKR working hard for the people but this would not be possible by switching Mentris Besar midway.
While Anwar as the PKR leader can replace Khalid with Azmin, the reality of power distribution in the Selangor state assembly requires him to get the DAP and PAS to endorse the move and they would not agree to Azmin as a replacement.
Many in the Selangor PKR too who are popular in the Pakatan coalition and the general public like executive council members Elizabeth Wong and Dr Xavier Jeyakumar, party strategist Tian Chua, party treasurer William Leong and deputy president Dr Syed Husin Ali are with Khalid.
“They are unlikely to accept Azmin as a replacement for Khalid,” PKR sources said. “There would be a rebellion if Anwar insists on it.”
“The last thing he wanted was to switch Khalid with Azmin and see the Pakatan Rakyat coalition plunge into turmoil,” said a PKR insider.
“We all think Azmin over-played his hand.”
Even though Azmin has the support of Anwar and a majority of PKR MPs, he could not swing the people who really matter to achieve his ambitions to be Mentri Besar – a combination of DAP, PAS and PKR state assemblymen.
But what Azmin wants he gets, maybe not immediately but later.
Anwar has rewarded his ambitious acolyte Azmin with the state PKR chief’s post, which is his to give or take as the PKR’s undisputed leader.
But by doing that – taking from Khalid and giving it to Azmin, Anwar has set a bad precedent and has prolonged the feud, not ended it.
With his new found position as state PKR chief, Azmin would easily rival Khalid and be another rival centre of political power in Selangor.
He would have a big say in who in Selangor PKR gets selected for posts like directors of GLCs, councillors and even candidates in the next general election.
That’s a lot of influence and clout for Azmin who is likely to use his influence to promote his supporters and relegate his detractors – opening the way for more internal feud in the PKR.
The potential negative toll of the feud on the PKR’s public image can only be guessed coming as it does in the wake of PKR MPs defecting and the constant criticism against “Little Napoleons” who allegedly run the party to the detriment of democratic practices.
While Anwar has for now ended the feud by making Azmin state PKR chief, the fallout of the “Azmin” episode on legions of believers is not difficult to gauge.
They are angry, upset and disenchanted that among the three Pakatan political parties, the PKR, which is the glue holding the DAP and PAS together, still has not got its act together but has been visited by one turmoil after another.
Worse, most of it is of its own making and hardly the type that promotes public confidence in the PKR.
More than the DAP or PAS, the PKR was the big winner of 2008 and achieved on the back of widespread public support – support that can easily be turned to scorn by the endless petty squabbles.
No comments:
Post a Comment