COLOMBO, Jan 21, Reuter: Sri Lankan Communist Viraj Mendis, deported from Britain as an illegal immigrant, arrived in Colombo on Saturday and accused the British government of being racist, Mendis, a 32 year old Sinhalese, was deported from Britain on Friday after his appeals to stay had been rejected. His arrest had outraged leftwing and civil liberties groups which accused the British government of sending him to his death.

The British Government is a Tacist government. I was deported. for racist reasons because I have been an activist,” Mendis, a 32 year old Sinhalese told reporters at the airport.

Mendis had said he faced prosecution in Sri Lanka and possible death at the hands of the Sinhalese radicals for his support of the Tamil Separatist movement on the island.

Sri Lankan Immigration Chief M.B. Ratnayake, who was at the airport, told reporters: “he is free to £0 anywhere in the country with or without a passport.”

Mendis, 32, had gone to Britain in 1973 as a student. He failed his examinations and continued to remain in Britain illegally after his visa expired.

Britain said he espoused the Tamil cause only as a means of making it more difficult to return him to Sri Lanka. The United Nations refused to recognize him as a refugee.

On arrival on board an air Lanka airliner from London, Mendis was met by his brother Suresh, whom he had not seen for the past 15 years, and by an Uncle Eugene Fernando,

Mendis climbed into his brother’s car and drove away saying they were going to a hotel in Colombo 30 km (20 miles) away.

Airport sources said Mendis was accompanied from London by a priest of the church at Manchester where he had taken sanctuary in the past two years evading arrest.

Police stormed the church last Wednesday and arrested Mendis after his appeals to the British courts to allow him to stay had been turned down.

British Home office sources said last-minute approaches by West Germany and Gibraltar either arrived too late or did not meet British demands that Mendis be offered immediate asylum.

Police Chief Ernest Perera had said earlier, “There is nothing against him as far as 1 am aware. He is a free citizen.

Mendis told reporters in Colombo he feared that he would be harmed by “certain extreme Sinhalese Chauvinist forces,” for his support of the Tamils in the fight for a separate state.

Asked whether he was referring to the People’s Liberation front composed of radical Sinhalese youth, he said “yes, among others.

”I have no idea what is going to happen to me,” he added.

Article extracted from this publication >>  January 27, 1989