December 28, 2009
''IT FEELS like freedom, now,'' says Sanmugam Sarpatheepan.
Around him are the markers of his new life; the modest home in Melbourne's west is well maintained but has few personal touches, except for a couple of unwashed teacups in the kitchen.
Mr Sarpatheepan, 25, and his intellectually impaired housemate, Kanapathippillai Thajaparan, 24, are no ordinary new arrivals: they are the only Sri Lankans off the customs ship Oceanic Viking to have been resettled in Australia after the October stand-off involving 78 asylum seekers.
The duo, who are distant relatives, landed at Melbourne Airport on December 20 from Jakarta, but their route here has been tumultuous.
It was reported during the impasse that each passenger had paid $US12,000 to a people smuggler, but these young men say they paid $US6000 each for passage on the ''no-good boat'' from Jakarta. When it started sinking after about four days, they were picked up by the Australian ship, but in Indonesia's search and rescue zone.
Although in Australia barely a week , Mr Sarpatheepan is alive to some of the nuances of the refugee debate that followed the boat's interception. He agreed to speak, he says, because he wants to show the desperation that drives Tamils to get on to ''bad boats'' to seek refuge in a far-off continent.
''Being born as a Tamil in Sri Lanka, you have no freedom … the ultimate choice is to flee the country,'' says Mr Sarpatheepan. His family home near Jaffna, in the north, was at the frontline of the bloody ethnic conflict between the Government and Tamil Tiger rebels.
The Tigers have now been defeated, but thousands of displaced civilian Tamils are fearful, he says.
Although he mostly speaks through an interpreter, he barely pauses to draw breath as he recalls neighbours and friends, all young men, who have ''got disappeared'' after an encounter with the Sri Lankan army. The interrogators, he alleges, would accuse every civilian of being a Tiger operative. Young women in his home town would regularly be sexually assaulted.
Mr Sarpatheepan remembers, most graphically, his friend, Danu, then 22. ''He got arrested one day, and he didn't come back,'' he says. Determined that their son avoid this fate, the salesman's parents raised the money to buy him an air ticket to Jakarta in 2006 that could eventually secure a sea passage to Australia.
But in Jakarta on a one-month tourist visa, he was jailed by police and then spent about 10 months in a detention centre in Makassar, South Sulawesi. When he was released, the International Organisation for Migration placed him on Lombok Island, near Bali, where he stayed in a hotel for two years.
Mr Sarpatheepan said it was in Lombok, where he had ''freedom of movement'', that he was able to make arrangements to cross to Australia. His cousins, many of whom had already resettled in Western countries, raised the money for the passage.
''Australia is a land of freedom,'' he said. ''There is no checkpoint, and I don't get stopped by the military.''
He smiles, but there is a touch of longing for things lost. ''You know, every Tamil would go back to Sri Lanka if there is no war.''
http://www.theage.com.au/national/land-without-checkpoints-feels-free-to-tamil-refugees-20091227-lg9a.html
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