[LINK] "Ottawa blasts Rae's ‘absurd' deportation"

[rfmcdonald]

Former Ontario NDP premier and current prominent Liberal federal parliamentarian Bob Rae was expelled from Sri Lanka on arrival at Colombo airport, this act surprisingly triggering an all-party protest, even an official one by the government.

“It is absurd to suggest that Mr. Rae represents a threat to Sri Lankan national security, or is a supporter of the [Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam],” Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Emma Welford said in an e-mail. “We have registered to the Sri Lankan government our dismay and displeasure concerning this unacceptable treatment of a Canadian parliamentarian.”

Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon gave Canada’s high commissioner in Colombo, Angela Bogdan, instructions to demand answers about why Mr. Rae and [Tory MP Deepak Obhrai] were refused entry, an aide said.

Mr. Obhrai, parliamentary secretary to Mr. Cannon, said Sri Lanka last week refused to grant him a visa to visit camps that house about 280,000 displaced people. The Sri Lankan government has resisted efforts by foreign governments and journalists to monitor the treatment of the Tamil minority during and after a government offensive that recently ended a decades-long civil war. Mr. Rae did have a visa issued by Sri Lanka’s High Commission in Ottawa, but when he arrived at the Colombo airport on Tuesday night, he was briefly detained on grounds he was a security threat – and shipped out yesterday on a plane to London.

“We got information from the intelligence services that his visit to the country was not suitable,” Sri Lankan Immigration Commissioner P.B. Abeykoon said.

Mr. Rae was clearly unimpressed. “It’s ridiculous. Come on. It’s a ridiculous statement for them to make,” he said yesterday from London. “It also shows that there’s clearly a disagreement in the government between the people who understand the importance of engagement and those who take a different view.

“Everybody’s been saying the same thing. All called for a humanitarian ceasefire. We all called for a way to get the civilians out. It does not make you unfriendly to the people of Sri Lanka or to the security of Sri Lanka to take those positions [in a push for peace]. I’m no more a risk to the security of Sri Lanka than [UN Secretary-General] Ban Ki-moon. … If they’re afraid of people like me visiting the country, then I worry a lot about the future of human rights and freedom inside Sri Lanka.”

Mr. Rae has criticized Sri Lanka’s military offensive, and called on the Canadian government to be more active in pushing the country to engage in reconciliation efforts with the Tamils. But he has also criticized the Tigers for suicide bombings and recruiting child soldiers.

The Liberal MP, who was involved in 2002-03 peace talks between the Sri Lankan government and the Tamil Tigers, said earlier that he spent 12 hours in the airport seeking an explanation for his expulsion. Sri Lanka’s Foreign Office indicated they had no objection to his visit, but the army and Defence Secretary labelled him a supporter of the Tigers and a “security risk.”

Mr. Rae said he was given a paper to sign agreeing that he made statements about the Sri Lankan situation without full knowledge of the facts, but wasn’t told which statements it referred to. “I refused to sign such an Orwellian document,” he said.