Australia blamed for illegal migrants

Berni K. Moestafa, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Bowing to diplomatic pressure, Indonesia is helping prevent illegal migrants from coming to Australia and in doing so is helping the latter avoid its international obligation to accepting refugees, an Australian expert on migration said.

"Australia is more to blame for the current situation than Indonesia," Stephen Castles, the director of the Refugees Studies Centre at the University of Oxford in Britain, said recently.

The influx of refugees passing through Indonesian waters on their way to Australia has often been a thorn in the relationship between the two countries.

Australia's strict stance denying refugees entry at a time when Indonesia's Navy is ill equipped to guard its waters has sparked a number of diplomatic scuffles.

In 2001, tension escalated as both countries refused to accept some 500 refugees on board a Norwegian tanker, which had rescued the refugees from a sinking boat.

A few months later, over 350 illegal migrants died in the Java Sea when their overloaded boat sank on its way to Australia.

Most of the refugees had either come from Afghanistan or Iraq, and had paid huge sums of money to people smugglers who promised to deliver them to Australia or New Zealand.

Australia lashed out at Indonesia for allowing refugee-loaded vessels to pass through its waters and allowing people smugglers to operate in its territory.

"The real problem is that Australia is not meeting its international obligation," said Castles, referring to the United Nations convention on refugees.

"So that one can see that even a country that has signed the refugee convention; that has in the past been very willing to take refugees; is not doing so," he said.

Under the UN convention, he said, refugees from a country like Afghanistan can arrive in Australia and ask for asylum status if they are facing persecution at home.

The government must then follow up on these claims while allowing the refugees to stay in the country during the legal process.

"So what Australia is doing is not to allow people to enter Australia so they can't make that claim. It (Australia) really has an international obligation to allow those people to make a claim, and it's not doing it," Castles said.

Australia's calls on Indonesia to help stem the flow of migrants to its shores has led Jakarta to step up pressure on people smugglers here, even though it does not recognize them as criminals in the absence of a people smuggling law.

Castles said that Indonesia and Australia could cooperate to have the legal process for the refugees take place in Indonesia.

"But the issue really is that the refugees should have adequate protection. If it can be done in Indonesia that's fine, but of course Indonesia is not a rich country and it has a lot of problems in responding to those needs, whereas Australia could easily manage a large number of refugees," Castles said.

Speaking at a seminar on global migration issues at the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI), the expert said the immigration issue was also of political significance to the Australian government.

Critics have said that Australian Prime Minister John Howard used the refugee standoff on board the Norwegian tanker to bolster his position at home ahead of his end-of-year election, which were just three months away at the time.

Australia's handling of the standoff drew fire from UN Human Rights Commissioner Mary Robinson, who said the country should honor its international obligations.