Angela Dewan

Asylum seekers from Sri Lanka at a seaport in Cilegon, Banten. (EPA Photo)

Sri Lankan Asylum-Seekers on the Boat to Nowhere

Almost 250 Sri Lankan asylum seekers who were bound for Australia remain docked at Merak, West Sumatra, two months since their boat was intercepted.

Leading the Sri Lankans through this epic journey is the charismatic and articulate 27-year-old Sanjeev “Alex” Kuhendrarajah, a former Toronto gang member who was deported from Canada on a firearms conviction.

This week, another piece of Alex’s past has come to Indonesia. His mother.

Forty-six-year-old Sathia Rajaratnam flew in from Canada to try and convince Indonesian officials to offer the asylum seekers an incentive to get off the boat. Instead, she says she has been given the runaround, with one agency after another telling her the Sri Lankans are someone else’s problem.

She has been told she is not allowed on the vessel to see her son, although she has managed to sneak in some one-on-one time with him on the rocks by the boat this week.

Rajaratnam has not always had a stable relationship with her son, in fact, they were estranged for years after he ran away from home. Now married with a child, Kuhendrarajah looks back on his troubled past and thanks his mother, who is, yet again, by his side in a time of need.


Sathia’s story

I never wanted Alex to be a leader. I just want him to settle. Leaders have many challenges and don’t have a good lifestyle. He can lead a company or something, but leading something like this, no. I think his wife would say the same.

But I am proud of him. When Alex called me from the boat for the first time, he said, “I’m going to be in charge of this boat. Is that alright with you?”

I told him it was a big responsibility. I’m a Christian, and the great man Moses took people from Egypt to the promised land. So I told him that if he took the responsibility, he had to do it properly.

About two weeks ago, I started seeing a lot of news stories saying that Alex and the others were going to be deported. I knew I couldn’t do anything from Canada, so I thought I’d come here and try and talk to the UNHCR and try and get on the boat to see them.

I went to the human rights department and the Foreign Affairs Ministry. They both said that these people had to come off the boat. No one could help me see my son.

So last Sunday I thought I’d just go to Merak, and I managed to talk to Alex.

He’s scared. He’s got no guarantee of what will happen if they come off the boat, he doesn’t know where they’ll be taken and he knows they’ll take his phone, so he’ll lose contact with everyone — they are his main concerns.

I don’t want the Indonesian government to deport any of them. Maybe Indonesia doesn’t know what it’s like in Sri Lanka.

If they get off the boat, the government should give them shelter and they should get the same deal as those who were on the other boat.

In 2008, I went to see Alex and his family in India, where he was running a guesthouse. Their guesthouse was flooded that year. To fix that we would have had to spend a lot of money, so I suggested that he go back to Sri Lanka because things looked like they were settling down there. He was going to start up a business there.

As soon as he entered Sri Lanka, the police were after him. I don’t know why.

Sri Lanka was still not stable then. I thought my son could start something there. I feel really bad about telling him to go there, like I ruined his life. He was doing so well in India.

I had left Sri Lanka in 1983 and went to England. I thought I could start over again there, so I went as a student. We had a business in Colombo, but we lost everything in the 1983 riots. They came and tore down our house and burned our car and our factory.

I went to Canada in 1988. It was easy to get refugee status there at the time.

It was around 1992 when Alex started playing up. There were a few different groups of Tamil boys in Toronto. They had nothing to do with the Tamil Tigers. These boys would always get into fights.

My son was involved with a gang. He joined them when he was about 16 or 17, and he thought it was cool. I couldn’t tolerate it and I eventually moved to another state. He and I were estranged for a while; I couldn’t admit to myself what he was doing.

In 2000, I got a call from him. He was in jail. He said, “Mom, forgive me for everything. In this world, only you are there to save me. So please give me a chance and I’ll correct myself.” So I went back to Toronto and I tried to get him out of jail. We spent $50,000 on lawyers, but he was deported.

Now, every time he has a problem or an issue, he comes to me.

In this case, I don’t know if he’s going to listen. He’s a man now and he knows Indonesia better than I do.

At least now he’s on the boat. It’s worse in Sri Lanka. He’s actually better off in an Indonesian detention center than in Sri Lanka. They’re just waiting to slaughter him there.

I was so happy that I at least got to meet him. Although when I saw him, I saw how much weight he’d lost; it made me sad to see him in that state.

My son is a father now and he has a lot of responsibility. He’s changed his ways. I knew he would be a good man when I saw him in India, how he cared for his wife and ran his business. He likes to help people, just like me.


Alex’s story

I still don’t like to call myself a leader. I’m a servant to these people, and I’m doing what any other human being with my knowledge would do for these people.

It’s been very interesting, emotional life-changing experience. It’s made me stronger. It’s made me feel something different and it makes me feel like I can fight for a good cause. I want to use every chance I can to change life in a positive way.

It was nice to see my mom, because I have no family here at all. I’m so proud of her for coming all the way here from Canada. She’s here all alone and she’s going through a struggle with the Indonesian authorities.

I owe a lot to my mom. Growing up, there are lots of different cultures in Canada, and I wasn’t really aware of my roots. I was brought up in a free country, which gave me freedom of choice. I couldn’t obey the rules that my mother put on me.

Anyone that knows a Tamil knows our parents are very strict, but I was put in a school with blacks, Asians, Indians and everyone. I got caught up in peer pressure and ran away from home. I saw a freedom I never felt before. And except for a few months, I never really returned to my mom.

What I am realizing, as I grow up, is that everything my mom has taught me and everything she was trying to do for me as a kid, she had good reason. And as a parent, I now understand that. It’s a shame I didn’t understand it then, but some things you just have to go through.

When I was younger, I made allegations against my mom that she physically assaulted me. It’s common in Tamil homes for parents to smack their kids. I grew up around white people and knew about children’s rights, so I called the police on her. I can’t believe I put her through all that struggle. And I’m still putting her through a lot of struggle.

The other day when I saw her, she told me that she loved me, and that she’d go through anything for me. She has gone through a whole lot for me since I was young, and she’s still struggling for me.

My mom has always been there, from day one. She was there when I was in Children’s Aid, she was there when I ran away from home, she’s picked me up off the streets a couple of times, and she was there in Sri Lanka and in India in the floods, and she came to Sri Lanka when I was arrested.

She’s been there over and over and over. And she’s here now. And it just shows me that a mother will never stop loving her children.

I love my mom, but we have different opinions all the time. She wants us to get off the boat, but in my opinion, there’s nothing we can do. If we get off this ship, we will not see resettlement for a long time. We won’t get our basic rights as human beings. We’re not getting them now. We’re cavemen, like animals. We’re fishing for our food now, because the food we’re getting is bad for our health. And we’re lighting fires to cook the fish.

I do share her Christian faith. I have a strong Christian heart. We talk about God a lot. There are some Christians here, a lot of Hindus and a few Muslims as well.

I know my mom blames herself for telling me to go to Sri Lanka. She thought the war was almost over and there wouldn’t be any problems. We were a little naive about the whole situation and we had no idea it would be yet another life-changing experience.

I think that every candle makes a difference, and my mother is a very bright candle right now, and she’s the only foreigner here who is going around on our behalf trying to find something for us. Whether people think she’s a small or a big candle, and whether she is successful or not, her light will always shine in my heart and she has made a difference.

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