I fear my homeland: Ocean Lady claimant tells IRB

More than two years after the smuggling ship MV Ocean Lady arrived off the West Coast carrying 76 Sri Lankan asylum seekers, the first public hearing to determine whether to accept them as refugees took place on Monday.

 

“My life is in danger in my country,” an ethnic Tamil man told the Immigration and Refugee Board, which ordered that his name could not be published to protect his safety. “I fear the army, police and the pro-government Tamil militias in Sri Lanka.”

 

Refugee claims are generally held behind closed doors, but the National Post applied to attend the proceedings and was granted access to the Toronto hearing, which offered a rare view into the dozens of Ocean Lady cases that are about to unfold.

 

Stopping human smuggling ships became a government priority after the arrivals of the Ocean Lady and the MV Sun Sea, which reached Canada in 10 months carrying 492 Sri Lankans. A Conservative anti-human smuggling act is now before Parliament.

 

While the bill has not yet become law, federal lawyers appear to be paying close attention to the Ocean Lady hearings. The Canada Border Services Agency has filed notice that it intends to intervene in each of the 76 cases.

 

“Obviously, these will be assessed on a case-by-case basis on the merits by adjudicators at the independent IRB, and we respect the integrity of that process,” Citizenship and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney said in an interview on Sunday. “But I would underscore that people who transit through multiple countries have had other opportunities to seek protection.”

 

He said none of those on board the Ocean Lady had come directly from Sri Lanka. “Some passed through two or three countries, and one principle of asylum law is that you seek protection at the first available opportunity. You don’t asylum shop.

 

Organized by a Bangkok-based human smuggling ring, the Ocean Lady sailed from Indonesia and made stops in Thailand and the Philippines before it was intercepted by the Canadian Navy and RCMP off Vancouver Island on Oct. 17, 2009.

 

All those on board made refugee claims. They were later released and most moved to Toronto, home to a large ethnic Tamil Sri Lankan population.

 

The four suspected operators of the ship were arrested in Toronto last June on human smuggling charges.

 

At Monday’s hearing, the Tamil man said he had been repeatedly forced to move because of fighting between Sri Lankan forces and the Tamil Tigers rebels. He said his family was harassed by both sides in the lengthy civil war.

 

After his father disappeared in 2000, he said he was “relentlessly” sought by rebel recruiters but his mother fended them off by giving them money, some of which was sent by his uncle in Canada. He said he had never joined the rebels.

 

In June 2009, a month after the civil war ended, he said two men, at least one in an army uniform, came to his home and abducted him in a white van. He said he was never harmed or questioned and was freed three days later after his mother paid a ransom.

 

Fearing for his life, he decided to flee the country, he said. He met an agent who brought him to the capital Colombo by train and arranged for him to fly to Thailand, where he lived for a month before boarding the Ocean Lady, he said.

 

But under questioning, he was asked to explain why he had given several notably different versions of his story. For example, while he wrote in his refugee claim he was “relentlessly” recruited by the rebels, he told an immigration official upon arriving in Canada they had only asked him to join once, while he testified Monday it happened just “two or three” times.

 

He also contradicted himself on matters such as whether his siblings had been targeted by recruiters, whether one or two uniformed men had abducted him and on details of how he was released after his abduction. Credibility is often a key issue in refugee hearings.

 

He said he did not remember some details. He later said that at the time he was questioned by immigration officials in Vancouver, his hands were cuffed, his legs were chained and he had spent 45 days on a ship. He also said he had trouble understanding his Vancouver translator. “I was so nervous and confused.”

 

He argued that he could not be sent back to Sri Lanka because media coverage of the Ocean Lady’s arrival had linked the ship and some of its passengers to the Tamil Tigers. Although his name was not published, he said the Sri Lankan authorities would find out he was on board and question him if he were deported.

 

Two CBSA representatives questioned the man’s experience in Sri Lanka and his voyage to Canada, but they did not allege he had been a member of the Tamil Tigers.

 

Kumar Sriskanda, the man’s lawyer, said the government could not be faulted for investigating alleged links between the ship and the rebels, but he said genuine refugees were being tarnished in the process. “In a subtle way, they are damaging innocent claims also.”

 

A decision is not expected until at least next month.

 

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime last year called on countries to take measures to stop human smuggling ships. “While smuggling by sea accounts only for a small portion of overall migrant smuggling around the world, the particular dangers of irregular travel at sea make it a priority for response; though more migrant smuggling occurs by air, more deaths occur by sea,” the agency said in a report, the National Post reports.