ASIO: in a world of its own

However ASIO and the AFP are caught up in the hysteria of the war on terror; their budgets and staffing levels have grown in relation to the political millage to be gained from government maintaining the fear - we are easier to control if we are in the corral.

One might speculate or argue that there is a construct between the security services and government to keep a constant level of threat before the public in order to advantage government. More likely the security services are reading the government and providing them with what they need, with the trade off that they have been able expand and continue to expand thereby increasing their influence and power within and over government.

ASIO continues to refuse to grant security clearances to over 50 men who have been granted refugee status. They continue to be held in detention and will remain there because ASIO does not wish to lose face or admit to flawed practice.

Let me speak on behalf of the Sri Lankan Tamils found to be refugees but still detained as a threat to security. These men were on the losing side in a civil war. They are soldiers of a military force which resorted to acts of terror in order to try and maximise their advantage. Nothing unusual in that, Australians would have done the same thing if the Japanese had gained a foothold in 1942 and as the emerging state of Israel did in 1946/7.

As mentioned the Australian security services have finite resources. It is unlikely that they have an in country capacity to independently assess who are LTTE terrorists. For this they must rely on the agencies of the Sri Lankan government, the victors in the civil war. Even during the time of my diplomatic posting to Sri Lanka, it struck me as nonsense, to the point that I felt requests seeking security clearances from the Sri Lankan Police for Tamils in Australia seeking asylum would compromise the security of their families in Sri Lanka.

The only source of information available to ASIO to maintain its intransigence with respect to these poor benighted Tamils is the Sri Lankan government. It is unconscionable that the Australian Government allows one of its agencies to be beholden to the Sri Lankan government in this way, a government, which in its embrace of corruption has shown its infinite capacity for cruelty toward the Tamil minority.

As eventually, with the South African Embassy, the Sri Lankan High Commission must be cut adrift. They are not assisting in the war on terror, they are merely fingering political opponents and ASIO is complying. In the mistaken belief that it was engaged on another front in the so called war on terror, the Australian Government, through its agencies, has allowed itself to be sucked into the slime of a corrupt regimes civil war, all because of its inability to share power.

The Australian government must over-ride its agencies and release these victims of a malevolent regime before such harm is done that by the time they are eventually released, for surely they will be, the government will be forced to pay millions in compensation on the basis of the stupidity and wilfulness of ASIO.

The head of ASIO, David Irvine, has unfettered authority in this matter. He has made a poor call, courage and compassion are lacking. The dictates of a cruel and vindictive regime, which continues to persecute and murder Tamils, appear to have held sway. Others in his position might well act differently. He should resign or be stood down.