Tamil migrants make risky deals to flee Sri Lanka

The hundreds of Tamil migrants who travelled across oceans on rickety boats to come to Canada faced danger at every turn.

They left their homeland, cut deals with dangerous people and put their lives at risk.

David Poopalapillai, the national spokesperson for the Canadian Tamil Congress, said his organization routinely hears from Tamils who have been burned trying to get out of Sri Lanka.

Recently he spoke with a woman who was calling from Malaysia. She had survived an episode at sea where a boat capsized and eight migrants died.

"Many times they are being fooled, many times they die," Poopalapillai told CTV.ca in a telephone interview from Vancouver.

Even those who arrived by boat in British Columbia last month were not guaranteed of their safety: A 37-year-old man died en route to Canada and his body was buried at sea.

Yet a recent report in the Globe and Mail reveals that dozens more Tamil migrants are stationed in hotel rooms in Thailand, waiting for their own chance to head for Canada.

These migrants are gambling that it is better to try to land in Canada than it is to end up in India and Malaysia -- or other countries that have not signed the United Nations 1951 Refugee Convention -- where the process can drag on for years.

Migrants who land in one of these countries can stay in limbo "for the rest of their lifetime," said Poopalapillai, with faint chance of their refugee cases being resolved.

Canada adheres to the refugee convention, which obliges Ottawa to take in the people who land on Canadian soil seeking asylum.

It also puts these refugees at the front of the line, which critics say leaves Canada's refugee system ripe for abuse -- including by human smugglers.

"Human smuggling is a despicable crime and any attempts to abuse Canada's generosity for financial gain are utterly unacceptable," Christopher McCluskey, a spokesperson for Public Safety Minister Vic Toews, told CTV.ca in a recent email.

"We will toughen our laws to ensure that we are able to maintain our borders and defeat human smuggling."

A different kind of travel agent

Some people would call them smugglers, but the Tamil migrants call them agents.

These "agents" can help spring a person from Sri Lanka by helping them to reach foreign soil through deception, bribery and other tactics.

Sometimes their clients stay in hotel rooms in Thailand, in other cases the migrants could be sitting in a jungle for days, while the smugglers wait for the perfect moment to make them disappear.

Poopalapillai said the migrants don't like to talk much about the agents, nor the methods they use to take them where they want to go.

Such agents arranged for the MV Sun Sea to arrive in B.C. last month, as well as for the Ocean Lady to land there the previous fall.

But a chance at a new life doesn't come cheap. Sun Sea passengers are reported to have paid up to $50,000 each to come to Canada. An Ocean Lady passenger told CTV British Columbia last month that he paid $44,000 for his own voyage.

Sanjeev Kuhendrarajah, a 28-year-old Tamil and former Canadian resident who had an opportunity to ride on the Sun Sea, told CTV.ca in a telephone interview that the cost can vary depending on the deal worked out with an agent.

But $50,000 would be the maximum that a migrant would pay.

"This is Asia, where money talks," said Kuhendrarajah, who rode on a similar boat that was headed for Australia last year.

But Kuhendrarajah, who is now hiding in a location he wants to keep private, insisted that the agents "won't just take anybody."

He said the people who made the trip to Canada paid a lump sum up front and will pay the rest later. The smugglers take the down-payment "so they can cover their costs," including a variety of bribes and operational expenses.

It's a process that is powered by "a bit of human nature and a bit of greed," which can net the smugglers some major money, Kuhendrarajah said.

Friends and family who live outside of Sri Lanka -- including in Canada, the United Kingdom, the United States -- will have vouched that the migrants are good for the money they have promised.

And that's where the money comes from: friends and family abroad who can afford to send funds back to Sri Lanka.

Poopalapillai said the million-plus Sri Lankan Tamils who live outside their former homeland are often asked for help from relatives who remain in the country.

They give back because they feel guilty about the good lives they are living away from the problems in Sri Lanka, he said.

"The people chip in, it's like a collection," Poopalapillai said.

Sri Lanka's High Commissioner to Canada, Chitranganee Wagiswara, points to the fact that the UN recently declared that conditions have "greatly improved" for Tamils in Sri Lanka since the end of the war.

But 16 months after the conflict's end, Wagiswara confirms that nearly 30,000 internally displaced persons are still living in camps, while they wait for the completion of demining, as well as the restoration of infrastructure and other facilities.

Destination unknown

When Tamil migrants pay the agents and a voyage is confirmed, there is still a lot of unpredictability ahead.

Kuhendrarajah, who spent much of his youth in Canada but was later deported back to Sri Lanka following a criminal conviction, said migrants don't necessarily know when they will be leaving or where they will end up.

In the case of the Sun Sea, for example, he "never knew the boat would actually make it to Canada" when he was offered a spot.

That contradicts the official story from Ottawa, which is that the Sun Sea set out on a very precise course for Canada from Day One.

As Toews told reporters in Halifax this week, the Sun Sea "was not simply a tramp steamer wandering around Southeast Asia and picked up 492 people. This was a very well organized and co-ordinated effort.

"Individuals were not picked up, for example, on the shores of Sri Lanka and then they wandered around Southeast Asia for a number of months," he added. "This was a boat…that was specifically outfitted for a long journey and the only destination of that particular ship was Canada. It was a very deliberate journey to Canada."

Then there is the business of how the Sun Sea became the Sun Sea.

The ship was previously known as the Harin Panich 19, which was owned by a Thai shipping company until the end of March.

That's when Harin Group -- the company that used to own the Harin Panich 19 -- used a third-party to sell the cargo ship to another company, which goes by the name of Sun & Rshiya. The Globe and Mail has reported Sun & Rshiya paid about $175,000 Canadian for the Sun Sea.

The ship's flag and nationality were changed the day after the sale. Four-and-a-half months later, the ship arrived in Canada packed with nearly 500 Tamil migrants.

"We have not been in contact with the new owner or the vessel itself after it was sold and only found out through the news that she was (used) by illegal immigrants to enter Canada illegally and we are deeply saddened by these (sic) news," the Harin Group told CTV.ca in an email.

Both the Canadian government and the Sri Lankan High Commissioner to Canada have warned that the Sun Sea may have carried members of the Tamil Tigers -- the banned terrorist group that the Sri Lankan government alleges was involved with arranging the Sun Sea's voyage.

Wagiswara said the Tamil migrants who boarded the Sun Sea were likely granted tourist visas to Thailand where they would have stayed before departing for Canada.

Asked if Thailand needs to do more to prevent the smuggling of Tamil migrants, Wagiswara said the key is having cooperation between governments.

"It's not an easy task and there needs to be a lot of international cooperation amongst many countries," said Wagiswara, noting that Sri Lanka maintains a dialogue with governments throughout Southeast Asia.

Watching the journeys of the Ocean Lady and the Sun Sea from afar, Kuhendrarajah said their passengers have landed in a good place.

"Canada is a good place for refugees," he said.

But the individual migrants who arrived in B.C. on the Ocean Lady and Sun Sea are still not guaranteed to stay, as that will depend on whether their refugee claims are approved. The Canadian government says they are being processed according to the terms of Canadian law.