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.