“PEOPLE SMUGGLING” – by Des Kelly
It seems the Aussie-tool is struggling to stop the people smuggling, at the moment. Sri Lankan fishermen who are quite happy to remain on their stilts in Lanka, have found another tool, which is more effective than the Aussie tool, made by the damn fool
Pukay nool, athapung ballanda bolay nool. Now, my wish is for our esteemed Members of e’Lanka to keep reading on.
Desmond Kelly
(Editor-in-Chief) e’Lanka.
Sri Lankan fishermen say key Australian tool to combat people smuggling can be dodged
Fishing operators say the VMS system is not working to deter people smugglers.(ABC News: Som Patidar)
A key Australian government tool to combat people smuggling in Sri Lanka can be easily dodged by perpetrators and is forcing fishermen struggling in the country’s economic crisis to pay a monthly fee.
Key points:
- Australian government-issued trackers meant to deter people smuggling can be easily removed from trawlers, Sri Lankan fishermen say
- They say legal operators are being forced to pay monthly fees for the devices, pushing them closer to financial distress amid Sri Lanka’s economic crisis
- More than 1,000 Sri Lankans have tried to reach Australia by boat this year, many paying thousands of dollars to people smugglers
Official sources have also told the ABC they are investigating the brother of a Sri Lankan government MP over allegations of people smuggling to Australia.
The revelations paint a picture of the ineffective measures put forward by the Australian government to fix the issue, according to experts.
More than 1,000 Sri Lankan people have tried to get to Australia by boat this year, many paying thousands of dollars to people smugglers to make the weeks-long journey in rough seas on fishing trawlers.
June 2022 saw the highest number of illegal boat interceptions by Australian Border Force since 2013. All were from Sri Lanka.
The stark increase is in large part due to Sri Lanka’s economic crisis, which has cut off basic services to millions of people.
Following the ABC’s reporting on the new wave of Sri Lankan asylum seekers in June, Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil visited Colombo, donating resources to authorities in the country to “counter people smuggling”.
The Australian government gave 4,200 GPS trackers to the Sri Lankan government to surveil fishing trawlers, the boats used by people smugglers.
But fishermen have told the ABC the trackers, called vessel monitoring systems (VMS), can be removed.
Fishermen like Shashidharan are sceptical about the VMS preventing people smugglers from operating out of Sri Lanka.(ABC News: Som Patidar)
“This isn’t working. Most of the people when they are going to immigrate illegally, they will remove the fuse from the VMS system and they’re going,” said Nawaz Essa, fisherman and former head of the boat owners’ association.
“Most of the people are immigrating illegally to Australia. They want to get that good life in Australia.
“The economic crisis is going up in Sri Lanka, each and every day the prices [are] going up … so most of the people they want to save their family and their children.”
An Australian Border Force spokesman said the government’s policy was “steadfast”.
“People who illegally travel to Australia by boat will not settle here permanently,” he said in a statement.
Operation Sovereign Borders is about defeating people smugglers who manipulate vulnerable men, women and children to risk their lives at sea.
People smugglers are criminals and will use any means to earn a profit at the expense of others.
“Every Sri Lankan people smuggling boat that has entered Australian waters since October 2013 has been stopped, and all those on board returned safely to Sri Lanka,” he said.
“This was achieved through close, pragmatic cooperation between Australia and Sri Lanka.”
The Australian government has also donated $75 million to NGOs dealing with Sri Lanka’s economic crisis and launched a Fishing Monitoring Centre.
When announcing the measures in June, Ms O’Neil said the centre and VMS would be used for “combating transnational crime and people smuggling operations”.
Fishermen have also said they are being asked to pay a monthly cost in satellite fees for the Australian government trackers and some boat owners without the right software must pay an additional installation cost.
Receipts obtained by the ABC show the fishermen are paying the satellite fees to Sri Lanka’s Fisheries Department.
They were angry about the extra payments, saying they’re already struggling to make a living because Sri Lanka is facing a fuel shortage, which is affecting business.
“They did not say anything regarding the payment after the instalment, now they’ve asked for the money,” Mr Essa said.
“We don’t have any agreement to pay a monthly charge.
“We don’t want a VMS System, we are not illegal immigrants, we are just running our fishing business … remove [them] from our boats.”
Fisheries Operations Manager in the Batticaloa District, Vimalnathan Dharmenthira, is in charge of the rollout of the Australian government’s VMS trackers.
“Frankly, it’s been a controversy … by saying you’ll be monitored, [fishermen] get confused and [ask] why they need to be monitored,” he said.
“It can definitely stop illegal migration, when the vessels reach the border we can easily get the beep sound.”
Mr Dharmenthira said Sri Lankan Fisheries had not yet caught a people smuggler through the Australian government’s tracking service, adding “the VMS system is new here”.
Asher Hirsch, from the Australian Refugee Council, said combatting people smuggling this way did not go to the “heart of the problem”.
“Measures like interceptions or surveillance don’t actually get to the heart of the problem, the root of the problem,” he said.
“What we would like to see is really addressing why people flee in the first place, and why people resort to measures such as taking a boat.
“And that’s quite simply put, because people have no other option.”
