Australian ship takes boat people on board

Australian ship takes boat people on board

CHRISTMAS ISLAND, Australia (Reuters): An Australian navy
troop carrier transferred 433 unwanted asylum seekers from a
Norwegian freighter on Monday, prior to ferrying them to Papua
New Guinea -- the next stage of their odyssey.

But the completion of the transfer, off Australia's Christmas
Island, did not mean that the asylum crisis was over.

The Federal Court, sitting in Melbourne, still has to rule in
a case that may yet force the government of Prime Minister John
Howard to accept the mostly Afghan boat people it has so far
steadfastly refused to allow onto Australian soil.

"All the refugees are off the boat," Hans Christian Bangsmoen,
spokesman for the freighter's owners Wallenius Wilhelmsen, told
Reuters in Oslo. He said there were no reports of injuries during
disembarkation.

He said Australian authorities would check the vessel for any
stowaways and complete other formalities. The Norwegian Foreign
Ministry said there were 34 Australian soldiers aboard the ship.

From Papua New Guinea, the asylum seekers will be flown to New
Zealand or the tiny Pacific island of Nauru, who have agreed to
take them while their asylum requests are processed.

It was not clear when the HMAS Manoora, the troop carrier,
would leave for Papua New Guinea, a voyage lasting about a week.
A team of translators would board the Manoora on Tuesday morning,
Australian Associated Press reported.

The transfer from the Norwegian freighter Tampa took place in
Flying Fish Cove, about one nautical mile off the island's
northern coast. The refugees were moved in groups of about 30,
wearing new red lifejackets.

The Manoora was further out to sea and obscured by the much
larger Tampa, which was acting as a windbreak while the
Australian troops ferried the refugees between the ships on high-
speed Zodiac inflatable boats as southwesterly winds gusted up to
20 knots and created choppy seas.

Prime Minister Howard said earlier that the Manoora would sail
for the Papua New Guinea capital of Port Moresby later on Monday,
as soon as the transfer was complete.

Stranded

The asylum seekers, plucked by the Tampa from a sinking
Indonesian ferry on Aug. 26, have been stranded off Christmas
Island for eight days.

A court agreement between Australia and civil liberties
lawyers stipulates that the boat people cannot be forced to leave
the Manoora until the court decides whether Australia's rejection
of the asylum seekers was lawful.

Under the Federal Court agreement, the government also said it
would bring the boat people back to Australia if it loses the
case and the Federal Court in Melbourne orders their return.

But with the government expected to lodge immediate appeals if
it loses the case, the immediate fate of the asylum seekers and
their final destination remains uncertain.

Federal Court judge Tony North said he hoped to make his
ruling before the Manoora reached Port Moresby in six to 10 days.
The case was adjourned until 10:15 a.m. (7:15 a.m. in Jakarta) on
Tuesday, with a ruling not expected until Wednesday.

Australia has steadfastly refused to accept the asylum
seekers, saying they were Indonesia's responsibility because they
had sailed from there. Jakarta has also refused to take them.

On Sunday, Australia announced a South Pacific solution with
Nauru agreeing to take 283 and New Zealand 150. Australia will
bear the cost of Nauru processing the boat people.

Australian officials have arrived in Nauru, a 21-sq-km island
with some 12,000 people, to prepare for the asylum seekers who
are expected to be housed in tents.

Nauru said it could take three months to process the boat
people's refugee claims. Legitimate refugees can then apply for
settlement in another country, including Australia. New Zealand
will house their intake in an Auckland refugee center.

Hundreds of thousands of Afghans have fled conflict and the
purist Islamic rule of Afghanistan's Taliban. Many live in
crowded refugee camps in Pakistan, where they wait for refugee
applications to be processed.

The asylum seekers have lived in cramped conditions with
makeshift facilities on board the Tampa. The Manoora, an
amphibious transport ship, is designed to carry 450 troops, 180
crew, vehicles, landing craft and four Black Hawk helicopters
over long distances.

Internationally, Australia has been widely criticized for not
accepting the asylum seekers and for using troops to seize
control of the Tampa once it entered territorial waters around
Christmas Island, 340 km south of Indonesia and 1,500 km
northwest of the Australian mainland.

Australia has rejected accusations that it was treating the
asylum seekers inhumanely. "The solution we have worked out is
fair and humane," Howard told Sydney radio 2UE.

United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan said the plan to
ship the asylum seekers to New Zealand and Nauru was acceptable.

The stand-off in the Indian Ocean has already cost an
estimated A$20 million (US$10.6 million), more than it would have
cost to detain the boat people for more than a year.

New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark said on Monday that the
refugee crisis off Australia's Christmas Island might cause ships
to ignore vessels in distress in future.

"That is the worry -- that if they cannot discharge their
human cargo somewhere then sea captains might turn a blind eye to
boats in distress in the future," Clark told reporters after her
weekly cabinet meeting.