Tamil vote in Australia on pressing case for homeland

Australian Tamils are to vote in a referendum this weekend on the creation of an independent Tamil homeland.

The Tamil Congress of Australia said more than 10,000 Tamils had registered to vote in the referendum, which follows similar votes in Canada, Englandand Europe that backed the establishment of a Tamil homeland in Sri Lanka.

A spokesman for the Tamil Referendum Council of Australia, Bobby Sundaralingam, said polling booths had been set up in Victoria, New South Walesand the ACT and there was provision for postal votes.

Organisers hoped the results of the referendums would pressure the Sri Lankan government to allow a Tamil state.

But not all Tamil organisations in Australiasupport the move. The Melbourne-based Justice and Freedom for Ceylon Tamils refuge and humanitarian action group has instead sent a petition to Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, Immigration Minister Chris Evans and Foreign Minister Stephen Smith calling for the 215 special humanitarian visa for Sri Lankans to be restored.

Its chairman, Ramalingam Wickramasingham, said this would stop the boatloads of Tamil refugees coming to Australia. He said Tamil refugees “never came by boat” until 2000, when the Coalition government suspended the visa.

“There is no other official legal avenue in Sri Lanka for asylum seekers to apply to come toAustralia, such as other countries have,” he said.

Dr Sundaralingham said that since the end of the war, about 100,000 Tamils were held in internment camps and some had been tortured and abducted.

“Tamils in Sri Lanka are voiceless and in a state of despair,” he said. “It is the duty of the diaspora to be their voice and express what the Tamil people want.” - (The Age, Australia)