Asylum Now for Tamil Refugees!

On October 17 the Canadian navy, RCMP helicopter and marine units, and sundry U.S. agencies colluded to intercept the Ocean Lady off the B.C. coast. This rusty freighter carried 76 Tamil refugees who had fled Sri Lanka, where 130,000 Tamils remain in concentration camps following the bloody defeat of the Tamil Tigers last May. All but one of the refugees remain in custody in a Vancouver-area detention centre as the government and media smear them as terrorists.

An October 24 editorial in the Globe and Mail demands that “Canada should emulate Australia in being vigilant and trying to intercept such ships before they get close to shore.” This year alone, the Australian bourgeoisie has intercepted 33 boatloads of refugees, and 1,000 people, many of them Tamils, are jammed into the internment camp on Christmas Island. As part of our proletarian internationalist defense of immigrants and refugees, including Tamils fleeing the blood-soaked chauvinist regime in Sri Lanka, we demand: From Vancouver to Christmas Island, free the detainees! Asylum now for Tamil refugees!