Refugee Review Tribunal

RRT RESEARCH RESPONSE

Research Response Number: MYS33843 Country: Date: 15 October 2008

Keywords: Malaysia - Recruiting practices - Tamil - “Shoot to kill” policy – Treatment - Ethnic Indians

This response was prepared by the Research & Information Services Section of the Refugee Review Tribunal (RRT) after researching publicly accessible information currently available to the RRT within time constraints. This response is not, and does not purport to be, conclusive as to the merit of any particular claim to refugee status or asylum. This research response may not, under any circumstance, be cited in a decision or any other document. Anyone wishing to use this information may only cite the primary source material contained herein.

Questions

1. Please provide information on the current recruiting practices of Tamil Tigers in Malaysia for money and personnel. 2. Do the authorities have a “Shoot to kill” policy that results in average fortnightly deaths? 3. Does the government target ethnic Indian ?

RESPONSE

1. Please provide information on the current recruiting practices of Tamil Tigers in Malaysia for money and personnel.

No definitive information has been located on the current recruiting practices of Tamil Tigers in Malaysia for money and personnel. However, sources indicate that the LTTE has used Malaysia for its campaign for the establishment of a separate homeland in and found a fertile land for its cause among the Tamil diasporas long frustrated over the Malaysian government’s policy for preferential treatment of the native Malays.

The Terrorism Portal comments that:

The LTTE has been proscribed, designated or banned as a terrorist group by a number of governments - , Malaysia, USA, Canada, UK, Australia - countries where the LTTE has significant terrorist infrastructure for disseminating propaganda, raising funds, procuring and shipping supplies to support their terrorist campaign in Sri Lanka (‘Liberation Tigers of Tamil (LTTE)’ (undated), satp website http://www.satp.org/satporgtp/countries/shrilanka/terroristoutfits/LTTE.HTM - Accessed 9 October 2008 – Attachment 1).

Reporting on an interview by the Sri Lankan foreign minister, The Lanka Newspaper states that:

Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera suspects Malaysia and may be `clearing houses` for funds raised around the world by the LTTE to finance its struggle for a separate homeland in Sri Lanka (‘Malaysia, Singapore `clearing houses` for LTTE? - Mangala Samaraweera’ 2006, The Lanka Newspaper, 1 June http://www.lankanewspapers.com/news/2006/5/7138.html - Accessed 9 October 2008 – Attachment 2).

In November 2005, Natasha Robinson of The Australian commented that:

Melbourne TAFE lecturer Thillai Jeyakumar sparked the interest of ASIO officers when he ordered hang-gliders from a NSW business and then shipped them to Malaysia.

Mr Jeyakumar, also known as Jay Jeyakumar, is a member of the Melbourne-based charity the Tamil Co-ordinating Committee, whose members were raided by Australian Federal Police last week.

An annual statement that the TCC provided to Consumer Affairs Victoria and obtained by The Australian shows that in 2003 more than half of the donations forwarded by the charity were sent to a fund in Malaysia described by security sources as "the leading Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) front organisation in Malaysia".

The annual statement said TCC's total income in the year to June 2003 was $269,838. Of that, $183,290 was sent directly to orphanages and hospitals in LTTE-controlled northeast Sri Lanka but most of that amount - $95,000 - went to the World Tamil Relief Fund in Malaysia (Robinson, Natasha 2005, ‘Tamil-link lecturer in ASIO probe’, The Australian, 30 November http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,17410944-2702,00.html - Accessed 9 October 2008 – Attachment 3).

Referring to the suspicion held by the governments of Malaysia and Sri Lanka on the activities of the LTTE in Malaysia, lankanewspapers.com comments that:

Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama met his Malaysian counterpart Dr. Rayes Yatim for bilateral talks at the Asia-Middle East Ministerial Summit, held here over the weekend, where he reminded him of Sri Lanka’s request.

`We have reason to believe that the LTTE are raising and channeling these funds to procure arms through Malaysia's banking system. In the UK we found that the LTTE had been extorting money from the to the tune of five million sterling pounds a month while in France it amounted to seven million sterling pounds. In addition to this, the outfit’s narcotics, human trafficking and smuggling operations generated up to US $ 300 million` Bogollagama said (‘Sri Lanka reminds Malaysia of its request on LTTE’ 2008, lankanewspapers.com website, 9 April http://www.lankanewspapers.com/news/2008/4/26579.html - Accessed 9 October 2008 – Attachment 4).

Commenting on the Tamil rebels’ heavy reliance on contributions from expatriate living in North America and Europe, and the role played by Malaysia as an conduit for the funds, The Lanka Academic reported in 2006 that:

… Tamil rebels funnel contributions through Malaysia and Singapore to buy weapons in and Cambodia … Mangala Pinsiri Samaraweera told The New Straits Times in that his government has asked for help from those countries to curb fundraising and weapons purchases by the separatist rebels. The rebels are believed to rely heavily on contributions from expatriate Tamils living in North America and Europe. “The process of channelling funds raised in European Union nations and the United States to Malaysia and Singapore is rather complicated. That is why we are seeking the cooperation of countries like Malaysia,” Samaraweera said in an interview with the Times (‘Report: Tamil Tigers use Malaysia, Singapore to channel rebel funds, Sri Lankan FM says’ 2006, The Lanka Academic, 1 June http://www.ipcs.org/Jun_06_SAsrilanka.pdf – Accessed 7 October 2008 – Attachment 5).

In the wake of the November 2007 demonstration organized by Rights Action Force (HINDRAF) in Kuala Lumpur, Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi ordered the arrest of five leaders linking them, among other things, to Sri Lanka's Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) ('Detained ethnic Indians a threat to Malaysia's security' 2008, Times of India, 3 April – Attachment 6) although no definitive information has been located to link them to the LTTE.

However, a 2007 article quotes P. Ramasamy, former professor of history at University Kebangsaan Malaysia who was appointed by the LTTE on its Constitutional Affairs Committee in 2003, as saying that Tamils in Malaysia are active contributors to the Tamil Eelam cause (Vembu, Venkatesan 2007, ‘Malaysian Indians look at LTTE’, Daily News & Analysis, 29 November http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?newsid=1136140&pageid=0 - Accessed 14 October 2008 – Attachment 7).

It continues further that:

Angry ethnic Indians who marched in Kuala Lumpur on Sunday [25 November 2007] to protest race-based in Malaysia carried portraits of Mahatma Gandhi as a symbol of their non-violent struggle.

“But if their genuine grievances continue to be ignored, (Sri Lankan Tamil Tigers leader) Velupillai Prabakaran could soon replace Gandhi as their inspiration,” warns P. Ramasamy...

In an interview to DNA from Singapore, Ramasamy …connected the dots that link the Tamil diaspora in Malaysia (which accounts for most of the Indian population there) to the Tamil Eelam movement in Sri Lanka (Vembu, Venkatesan 2007, ‘Malaysian Indians look at LTTE’, Daily News & Analysis, 29 November http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?newsid=1136140&pageid=0 - Accessed 14 October 2008 – Attachment 7).

In contrast to the dearth of recent information on the LTTE’s activities in Malaysia, a 2001 RRT Research Response lists several earlier reports covering the period up to 1996 (RRT Country Research 2001, Research Response MYS14552, 7 March – Attachment 8).

For a recent investigation into the LTTE’s fund raising activities in Canada, see Bell, Stewart 2008, ‘Toronto non-profit raised millions for Tamil Tigers’, National Post, 18 August http://www.nationalpost.com/story.html?id=732309 - Accessed 8 October 2008 – Attachment 9).

2. Do the authorities have a “Shoot to kill” policy that results in average fortnightly deaths? 3. Does the government target ethnic Indian Malays?

No information has been found to indicate that the authorities have a “Shoot to kill” policy that results in average fortnightly deaths or target ethnic Indian Malays. However, the government’s preferential programs designed to boost the position of bumiputras have resulted in minorities lacking opportunities in higher education, government employment, business permits and licenses, and ownership of land. As a result, they perceive that they are discriminated against and marginalized.

In his 2000 article, ‘Decades of official discrimination have turned Malaysia's ethnic Indians into a disgruntled underclass’, Anthony Spaeth describes the Indian Malays’ view as: follows:

... Race is the big divide in Malaysia, as it has been ever since the watershed race riots of 1969. In his 20 years in power, Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad has tried to uplift the Malays, who make up 55% of the 22 million population, and guarantee them a large percentage of available business opportunities. The second-largest group, the Chinese, were supposed to lose their disproportionate grip on the country's economy. But it may be the Indians who were the real losers. Most were imported a century ago to work the rubber plantations and tin mines, and they still dominate the bottom rungs of the social ladder. "Indians have neither the political nor the economic leverage to break out of their vicious cycle of poverty," says Selvakumaran Ramachandran, an Indian-Malaysian academic who works for the United Nations Development Program. "If their problems are not arrested and reversed, it is almost certain they will emerge as an underclass."

Already, Indians have the lowest share of the nation's corporate wealth: 1.5%, compared to 19.4% for the Malays and 38.5% for the Chinese. Not surprisingly, Indians claim the highest rate of suicide of any community. Violent crime is becoming Indian turf. In 1994, 128 of the 377 murders committed in Malaysia were by Indians. Some 15% of the Indians in the capital are squatters. "I have a feeling," says P. Ramasamy, a political science professor at the National University, "that if something is not done soon, something is going to really blow."

The Indians' main problem is numerical. With only 8% of the country's population, they don't have enough clout to alter pro-Malay business or employment policies, or even stand up to Malay chauvinism of the sort exhibited at the museum…

One area in which Indians have prospered is the professions, particularly medicine and law, and Indian names stud the rolls of professional societies. Many of this group hail from white-collar families who worked in Malaysia when it was a British colony. Yet even with that background, an Indian Malaysian can find it difficult to become a doctor or lawyer. Local university seats and scholarships to study overseas are all awarded by a racial quota system. Even when someone gets a degree, discrimination is frequent. Indian doctors, for instance, complain that they are increasingly excluded from the lists of approved doctors whom civil servants or company employees can use. "I wish you Americans would invade—just for a while," a small- town Indian doctor tells a visitor. "Then I would have a fairer chance of working in this country of ours."

So far, Indians have resigned themselves to their plight. But some rumbles are being heard. Last October, five Malaysian men were attacked and killed one night in the town of Kampar, 150 km north of Kuala Lumpur. Their charred remains were found in a torched pickup truck. The police arrested 13 cattle ranchers of Indian descent. The ranchers had complained for two years of people poaching their cows, but apparently the local police had done nothing to help. The 13 ranchers have yet to be tried, and poaching has reportedly ceased in that area. The defendants are quietly regarded as heroes among the Indian community. "Malaysia cannot afford to have about 8% of its population feel alienated," warns R.V. Navaratnam, a prominent businessman. "Malaysian unity can be as strong only as its weakest link—which is the Malaysian Indian community." (Spaeth, Anthony 2000, ‘Decades of official discrimination have turned Malaysia's ethnic Indians into a disgruntled underclass’, Time Asia, 21 August http://www.time.com/time/asia/features/ontheroad/malaysia.dilemma.html - Accessed 14 October 2008 – Attachment 10).

A group of articles compiled by tamilnation.org under the heading of ‘Tamils in Malaysia Protest against Discrimination by Malaysian Government’ include one reporting on how frustrated Tamils are in Malaysia. It quotes the MDMK (Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazahagam or Marumalarchi Dravida Progressive Federation – a political party in India) general secretary as saying "More than 90 per cent of ethnic Indians in Malaysia are Tamils. They have contributed to bring economic prosperity in Malaysia, shedding their sweat of labour all these years. But they have been discriminated in education, jobs and business opportunities by Malaysian authorities" (‘Protect ethnic Indians in Malaysia: Vaiko’ 2007, The Times of India, 27 November http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Protect_ethnic_Indians_in_Malaysia_Vaiko/articleshow/2 575764.cms - Accessed 14 October 2008 – Attachment 11).

Another article mentioned above refers to the frustration felt by ethnic Indians that erupted in the November 2007 demonstration and the connection between the ethnic Indians in Malaysia and the LTTE (Vembu, Venkatesan 2007, ‘Malaysian Indians look at LTTE’, Daily News & Analysis, 29 November http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?newsid=1136140&pageid=0 - Accessed 14 October 2008 – Attachment 7).

Referring to the treatment of the ethnic Indians in Malaysia, the US Department of State comments that:

... In February SUARAM listed 57 books banned by the government. Among the banned books is a Tamil-language book, March 8, which discussed the 2001 Kampung Medah racial clashes between Malays and Indians…

On November 25 [2007], the Hindu Rights Action Force (HINDRAF), a small activist NGO, organized a demonstration in Kuala Lumpur with the intent to present the British High Commission with a memorandum asking for Queen Elizabeth II's intervention on their behalf. HINDRAF's leaders intended to highlight the marginalization of the country's Indian minority. Approximately 20,000 demonstrators gathered at multiple points around the city in defiance of warnings from government officials and the police. Police actively dispersed the crowds of demonstrators over a period of six hours, repeatedly using tear gas and water cannons. During and after the rally, the police arrested approximately 400 persons. The police released the majority of those detained, but the attorney general charged 31 demonstrators with, among other things, the attempted murder of a police officer, illegal assembly, and destruction of property. Human rights activists, opposition leaders, and other civil society leaders condemned the attempted murder charges as politically motivated and meant to intimidate others from participating in future demonstrations. The attorney general dropped the attempted murder charge in December…

In January Revathi Masoosai, a 29-year-old ethnic Indian woman whose parents converted to , was arrested after she went to the Shari'a court to change her Muslim name and religion on her identity card to reflect her religion as . Revathi married her husband in 2004 according to Hindu rites, and both were practicing Hindus. Revathi said her grandmother raised her as a Hindu and that she would continue to practice the religion. The court gave Revathi's Muslim parents custody of their two-year-old daughter. The State Shari'a Court ordered Revathi sent to the Islamic Rehabilitation Centre for 180 days' rehabilitation to help her "return to Islam." She was released in July into the custody of her parents. The authorities ruled she could not convert out of Islam and that her marriage was void. The court also ordered her to attend weekly religious classes and banned her from seeing her husband. At year's end Revathi's parents retained custody of the child …

The law and government policy provide for extensive preferential programs designed to boost the economic position of bumiputras. Such programs limited opportunities for nonbumiputras in higher education, government employment, business permits and licenses, and ownership of land. According to the government, these programs were necessary to ensure ethnic harmony and political stability. Ethnic Indian citizens, who did not receive such privileges, remained among the country's poorest groups (US Department of State 2008, Country Reports on Human Rights Practices: Malaysia, 11 March – Attachment 12).

A few RRT Research Responses discuss the treatment of Indian Tamils in Malaysia. Two of them are attached - the most recent one, Research Response MYS33749 on the discrimination against Hindu minority (Response to Q 2 of RRT Country Research 2008, Research Response MYS33749, 7 October – Attachment 13); and another dealing with discrimination from the perspective of the requirements for Muslim participation in business registration (Response to Q 1 of RRT Country Research 2008, Research Response MYS33129, 31 March – Attachment 14).

List of Sources Consulted

Internet Sources: Government Information & Reports Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada http://www.irb-cisr.gc.ca/cgi- bin/foliocgi.exe/refinfo_e US Department of State http://www.state.gov/ CIA Factbook https://www.cia.gov/ United Nations (UN) UNHCR http://www.unhcr.ch/cgi-bin/texis/vtx/home Non-Government Organisations Amnesty International http://www.amnesty.org/ Human Rights Watch http://www.hrw.org/ International News & Politics BBC News http://news.bbc.co.uk Pacific Regional Rights Resources Team http://www.rrrt.org Freedom House http://freedomhouse.org CBC News http://www.cbc.ca The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life http://pewforum.org/ Search Engines Google http://www.google.com.au/ Copernic http://www.copernic.com/ Searchmash http://www.searchmash.com/

Databases: Public FACTIVA Reuters Business Briefing DIAC BACIS Country Information CISINFO DIAC Research Responses CISLIB CIS Library Catalogue REFINFO IRBDC Research Responses (Canada) UNHCR REFWORLD UNHCR Refugee Information CD-ROM MRT-RRT ISYS RRT Country Research database, including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, U.S. Department of State Country Reports on Human Rights Practices. MRT-RRT Library Catalogue

List of Attachments

1. ‘Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE)’ (undated), satp website http://www.satp.org/satporgtp/countries/shrilanka/terroristoutfits/LTTE.HTM - Accessed 9 October 2008.

2. ‘Malaysia, Singapore `clearing houses` for LTTE? - Mangala Samaraweera’ 2006, The Lanka Newspaper, 1 June http://www.lankanewspapers.com/news/2006/5/7138.html - Accessed 9 October 2008.

3. Robinson, Natasha 2005, ‘Tamil-link lecturer in ASIO probe’, The Australian, 30 November http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,17410944- 2702,00.html - Accessed 9 October 2008.

4. ‘Sri Lanka reminds Malaysia of its request on LTTE’ 2008, lankanewspapers.com website, 9 April http://www.lankanewspapers.com/news/2008/4/26579.html - Accessed 9 October 2008.

5. ‘Report: Tamil Tigers use Malaysia, Singapore to channel rebel funds, Sri Lankan FM says’ 2006, The Lanka Academic, 1 June http://www.ipcs.org/Jun_06_SAsrilanka.pdf – Accessed 7 October 2008.

6. 'Detained ethnic Indians a threat to Malaysia's security' 2008, Times of India, 3 April. (CISNET Malaysia CX197127)

7. Vembu, Venkatesan 2007, ‘Malaysian Indians look at LTTE’, Daily News & Analysis, 29 November http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?newsid=1136140&pageid=0 - Accessed 14 October 2008.

8. RRT Country Research 2001, Research Response MYS14552, 7 March.

9. Bell, Stewart 2008, ‘Toronto non-profit raised millions for Tamil Tigers’, National Post, 18 August http://www.nationalpost.com/story.html?id=732309 - Accessed 8 October 2008.

10. Spaeth, Anthony 2000, ‘Decades of official discrimination have turned Malaysia's ethnic Indians into a disgruntled underclass’, Time Asia, 21 August http://www.time.com/time/asia/features/ontheroad/malaysia.dilemma.html - Accessed 14 October 2008.

11. ‘Protect ethnic Indians in Malaysia: Vaiko’ 2007, The Times of India, 27 November http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Protect_ethnic_Indians_in_Malaysia_Vaiko/article show/2575764.cms - Accessed 14 October 2008.

12. US Department of State 2008, Country Reports on Human Rights Practices: Malaysia, 11 March.

13. RRT Country Research 2008, Research Response MYS33749, 7 October.

14. RRT Country Research 2008, Research Response MYS33129, 31 March.