Gajalakshmi Paramasivam

03 October  2017

Who Killed Rajeev Rajendran of Manus Island?

The sad news of the death of a Tamil on Manus Island came last night. I was happy most of yesterday due to helping a needy person in Jaffna interpret the law and bring an issue within the folds of law. The news that Rajeev Rajendran had allegedly killed himself on Manus Island brought some sadness. Then this morning I received further news that the Australian Government was requiring $9,000 to fly the body to Sri Lanka. The news report said further:

[Rajeev Rajendran, a 32-year-old from the  Jaffna region in  Tamil  Eelam, had been held          on Manus Island since 2013, when       he fled  the country after being    threatened by the Sri Lankan military. Two months        ago, he            found out that   his father had cancer. That news, combined with  the uncertainty of his situation – being denied asylum in Australia despite his well-founded            fear of persecution back home and the constant fear of            deportation by  the Australian government – finally took its toll  this week.            Rajeev  appears            to have  taken  his own life. Now, the Australian            government is  trying to extract            money  from his family, who can’t afford such a    sum. “We have lost a son, a brother, a cousin   and a wonderful friend”, Rajeev’s cousin  Mathy said. “After all the trauma he was put through, the Australian         government now wants  to put his grieving family through more.]

According to the above report, Rajeev fled Tamil Eelam – a separate entity in the minds of many Tamils of Northern Sri Lankan origin. Jaffna Capital of official Northern Sri Lanka. Kilinochchi is the capital of Tamil Eelam – a De facto structure in many Tamils.

Around the same time as I received the news about Rajeev, I received also the information about the memorial services in honor of Dr. Rajasingham Narendran who passed away on 02 September. Having interacted directly with Dr. Rajasingham Narendran, my contribution towards his soul merging with Lord Shiva is to appreciate our commonness raised to the highest level possible. Likewise, we need to raise the contribution by Rajeev including through his death – to the highest level possible – so that he would carry the higher values into his next life.

We do not know whether Rajeev was part of the community to whom Tamil Eelam was already a Nation and therefore the Sri Lankan Army would have seemed like invaders. What we do know is that Rajeev was accused and found guilty of raping a school girl earlier this year. The Guardian reported as follows:

[ A 31-year-old asylum seeker held at the Manus Island detention centre has been charged with the alleged rape of a local woman. Rajeev Rajendran, originally from Sri Lanka, was charged in Lorengau court over the alleged assault which took place at a hotel on 17 January.

The acting provincial police commander, Senior Inspector David Yapu, said the man had met the woman at Lorengau market before taking her to a local hotel, where she was allegedly assaulted.

It is alleged she was raped three times there before she was able to reach a relative’s house. She was treated for injuries at Lorengau hospital.

“When she managed to escape she fainted on the riverside which is where she was rescued and taken to the hospital,” Yapu told Guardian Australia.

The woman, described by Yapu as an 18-year-old who is still in school, and her parents reported the alleged attack to police.]

Miss Vidya Sivaloganathan who was raped and murdered in Northern Sri Lanka, by a group led by a member of the Tamil Diaspora living in Switzerland, was also 18 years old when she was killed. The Jaffna Tamil community hailed the death sentence awarded to the alleged perpetrators as just. If majority Australian Tamils also identified with this punishment – then such punishment would reach all such perpetrators who are not protected by their own investment in the laws of the country that they consider to be ‘home’. As per the demonstrated values of Tamil Tiger LTTE leadership such conduct would be punishable by physical torture and death. Relative to that Australian laws, leave alone UN laws would have no place in the mind of  most refugees from Sri Lanka – especially Eelam Tamils who have embraced De Facto status under militant leadership.

If Rajeev’s difficulties were so severe that they led him to flee  Tamil Eelam due to Sri Lankan military and this is also reality in Sri Lanka – then Rajeev most likely would be carrying that militant leadership which would have led to him ignoring the laws of Papua New Guinea which was home to me for three years. Despite living alone with three young kids, I never felt threatened of being raped by Papua New Guineans. Theft yes. No more. That is the power of Truth. Once the place is Home to us – that place would mother us and even ask us to leave to protect our ‘home-values’.

It was on this basis that I left Thunaivi in Vaddukoddai district in Northern Sri Lanka, when I felt that respect for woman as a mother was weakened severely in that toddy-tapper village, once they behaved as if they were self-governing. There I did feel the heightened risk of rape. My departure was preceded by lessons shared by me with the community – showing  me as the victim, in a language they would understand. If Rajeev’s soul is to merge with his true ‘home’ – we must stop using his death to promote our own selfish agendas which Rajeev was yet to be bound by.  

It is the duty of Truth to support and protect those who have genuinely invested in a particular system. By performing the funeral service in Papua New Guinea – we would be contributing to cleansing that Nation of any dirt that we as a community added to that part of the world. If the Tamil Diaspora feel otherwise – then it is understandable that they would want Rajeev to be taken back home to Tamil Eelam. They then have the opportunity to contribute to the establishment of Tamil Eelam in more minds. If the Australian Government pays for those expenses to honor someone who believed in Tamil Eelam as his home – then the Australian Government loses the investment made by other Tamils to whom lawful community of Jaffna is home. Those are the ways of Truth.