Australia, Indonesia pledge to unite in fighting against people smuggling
Australia, Indonesia pledge to unite in fighting against people smuggling
Andrea Hopkins, Reuters, Canberra
Australia and Indonesia pledged on Wednesday to work together to tackle the people smuggling trade between the two nations, forging a fragile alliance if only to agree the issue was "an enormous problem".
Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said an inaugural meeting with his Indonesia counterpart Hassan Wirajuda marked a good first step in tackling the flow of mostly Middle Eastern, Asian and Afghan migrants via Indonesia to Australia.
"During the course of these talks today we've been able to consolidate the cooperation between our two countries in trying to address this issue," Downer told a joint news conference following the meeting in the Australian capital Canberra.
"I don't think one should ever underestimate how difficult this is. This is an enormous problem," he added.
The two nations agreed to campaign together to discourage Indonesian involvement in people smuggling, warning fishermen and boat crews of the criminal consequences in Australia if they are caught helping illegal migrants make the treacherous crossing.
The meeting was the first between Australia's conservative government, which was re-elected with an increased majority earlier in November, and a minister of Indonesian President Megawati Soekarnoputri's four-month-old government.
Historically dicey relations between Jakarta and Canberra were strained in August when Prime Minister John Howard asked Jakarta to accept a boatload of migrants rescued from international waters by the Norwegian freighter Tampa.
Jakarta refused, and Canberra began diverting unwanted boatpeople to neighboring Pacific nations for processing.
Hassan said Indonesia was struggling with its own domestic refugee problem but was committed to hosting an international conference on migration in February to tackle the global flow, saying bilateral talks alone could not solve the problem.
About 1.2 million internally displaced people fleeing communal clashes already crowd refugee camps in the archipelago -- dwarfing the estimated 10,000 illegal immigrants who have arrived in Australia over the past two years.
"We have practical cooperation (with Australia), as Mr Downer said, and we are planning to do more. But it is an issue, basically an international issue and the solution should be an international one," Hassan told the press conference.
He said he believed the flow of migrants may be diminishing as the political situation in Afghanistan improves, convincing thousands of refugees to reconsider their destination.
"We have positive hopes, perhaps with the hopefully good prospects of peace-building in Afghanistan, that these people have an option to go back rather than to continue their journey to Australia," Hassan said.
Last month, a wooden fishing boat carrying around 400 asylum seekers from the Middle East and Afghanistan sank off Indonesia with only 44 survivors, underscoring the risk the boat people must take to reach Australia's remote northern islands.
Despite international criticism of its hard line, Australia's conservative government has insisted asylum seekers arriving illegally by boat are queue jumpers and that accepting them would disadvantage thousands of refugees languishing in camps around the world awaiting resettlement.
Hassan is expected to meet Prime Minister John Howard in Sydney on Thursday, paving the way for a meeting between the Australian leader and Indonesian President Megawati in Jakarta early next year.