Vietnamese migrants
\ndetained on Galang<\/p>\n
Reuters
\nJakarta\/Canberra<\/p>\n
Thirty-one Vietnamese migrants bound for Australia have been
\ntaken into custody after their unseaworthy boat was found beached
\non a small Indonesian island, a migration agency said on
\nThursday.<\/p>\n
The boat was found on Galang Island just south of Singapore
\nwith a broken-down motor, said Steve Cook, chief of mission for
\nthe International Organization for Migration in Jakarta.<\/p>\n
"The motor had conked out so they removed it and the locals
\nwere trying to help them fix it," Cook told Reuters, adding all
\non board the boat, including women and children, were healthy.<\/p>\n
"Only 10 of these people say they want to return to Vietnam,
\nwhile 21 want to claim asylum," he said.<\/p>\n
Galang Island, with few inhabitants and dotted with scrub-
\ncovered hills, held more than 10,000 boatpeople at a refugee camp
\nin the early 1990s.<\/p>\n
Indonesia, with porous borders and a lack of laws on people
\nsmuggling, has in recent years become a springboard for asylum
\nseekers heading for Australia. The issue has strained ties
\nbetween Canberra and Jakarta in recent years.<\/p>\n
Cook said the whereabouts of another boat carrying 42
\nVietnamese migrants found near Indonesia's Borneo island last
\nweek was unknown.<\/p>\n
Their rickety boat was found stranded with no fuel and
\nauthorities, after checking if any of the passengers were
\nsuffering from the deadly Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, re-
\nsupplied it with fuel, food and water and sent it on its way.<\/p>\n
Australia, while criticizing Indonesia for not taking the
\nmigrants ashore, has already warned the Vietnamese would not be
\nallowed to land on Australian soil if they made it that far.<\/p>\n
Conservative Prime Minister John Howard said his hardline
\npolicy, adopted in 2001, of blocking access to all boatpeople
\nstill stood and the vessels would be turned back or diverted to a
\ncamp for asylum seekers on the nearby Pacific island of Nauru.<\/p>\n
"We will, of course, continue to follow the thing very
\ncarefully and we'll act in a humane fashion, as we always have,
\nbut we don't intend to change the policy that we've adopted,"
\nHoward told an Australian radio station on Thursday.<\/p>\n
Jakarta deflected the criticism, saying it was unfair to put
\nthe onus on one country. Indonesia has said the issue would not
\nharm relations with its neighbor but it could set a negative tone
\nat a regional people-smuggling summit on the Indonesian resort
\nisland of Bali next week.<\/p>",
"url": "https:\/\/jawawa.id\/newsitem\/vietnamese-migrants-1447893297",
"image": ""
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"sponsor": "Okusi Associates",
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