CPA - The Guardian

The Rudd government’s treatment of 78 asylum seekers on the customs vessel Oceanic Viking has developed into a national disgrace. The ship rescued the asylum seekers on October 18, when their leaking boat threatened to capsise as they struggled to reach the Australian mainland. In an attempt to appease the redneck vote, the government rushed to arrange an ad hoc agreement with the Indonesian government to detain the asylum seekers at the Australian-funded Tanjung Pinang immigration centre, on the Indonesian island of Bintan.

The Oceanic Viking is now moored more than 20 kilometres off Tanjung Pinang, Indonesia.

However, the hasty arrangement almost immediately began to come unstuck. The ship was bound to return soon to an Australian port. The government’s lame excuse that the ship simply took the rescued group to the nearest port was rejected with great bitterness by the asylum seekers themselves, as a cynical attempt to unload them on someone else’s doorstep. The government of the Riau Islands, of which Bintan forms part, also pointed out angrily that the island’s people had never been consulted about hosting an ever-increasing number of prisoners for indefinitely long periods.

The asylum seekers, all Tamils, fled Sri Lanka in the aftermath of the Sri Lankan government’s war against the Tamil Tigers.

For its part, Indonesia is not a signatory to the UN convention on asylum seekers. The current detainees at the Tanjung Pinang centre, some of whom who have been incarcerated there for months, complain that they were assaulted by guards after an alleged escape attempt. Well aware that the “Indonesian solution” would result in incarceration for an indefinite period without civil rights and in appalling conditions, the Sri Lankan asylum seekers refused to disembark at Bintan.

Tough and inhumane

The Rudd government has trumpeted its immigration policies as “tough on people smugglers but humane for asylum seekers”. In fact its asylum seeker policies are now almost identical with the callous, vindictive tactics of the former Howard government.

The “Indonesian solution”, like its predecessor the “Pacific solution”, offers indefinite detention, but in even worse conditions, and 84 children are now being forcibly detained on Christmas Island, despite the Rudd government’s promise that this practice would cease.

Australia’s more remote islands are still legally excised, preventing asylum seekers detained there from obtaining legal rights enjoyed by asylum seekers who arrive in Australia by plane.

Last week former prime minister Malcolm Fraser, who campaigned against the Howard government’s immigration policies, fiercely criticised the Rudd government. The ACTU also denounced “the scapegoating of people”, and demanded that the government “make sure that we stand up for those people who are fleeing desperate situations”. (See in this Issue of The Guardian Time to show our humanity: allow asylum seekers to come to Australia.)

The head of the Australian Workers Union, Paul Howes, commented that the asylum seekers should have been taken straight to Australia. He declared angrily: “I didn’t join the Labor Party to discriminate against the most vulnerable people in the world”. He is from the Right of the ALP.

The real “illegals”

The Australian Press Council has twice ruled that the terms “illegal immigrants” (used frequently by Rudd) is factually incorrect, since there is no law against people arriving unannounced by sea.

Moreover, as the sasylum seeker support group A Just Australia recently pointed out: “the policies of temporary protection visas, mandatory detention and excision are breaches of Australia’s international human rights obligations under the Refugee Convention, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Convention on the Rights of the Child, according to the Australian Human Rights Commission. …

“Anyone who comes to Australia seeking our protection – regardless of whether they come on a boat or a plane – has a right under Australian and international law to apply for that protection. … It is up to us to fairly assess whether or not that person has a genuine need for protection. If not, we have every right to send them home”.

Given that those conventions were signed by Australia before the Howard government introduced excision and mandatory detention etc, it is the Howard and Rudd governments that have been the real law-breakers in this matter.

Time to about face

The Oceanic Viking is now moored more than 20 kilometres off Tanjung Pinang, with the asylum seekers refusing to move. The government has refused to transfer the group to Christmas Island or to take the really humane course of taking the group to the Australian mainland.

It is now possible that the government will request the Oceanic Viking’s crew to remove the asylum seekers by force. To attempt to do so would blacken Australia’s reputation – and may in fact be impossible if the asylum seekers stand their ground, as they have done to date.

Australia’s reputation as a humane and caring society is already being questioned by the international organisations Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. At the request of the Human Rights Law Resources Centre, Annand Grover, the UN’s special rapporteur on the right to health, is due to inspect detention centres in Brisbane and Villawood in Sydney. He will report to the UN on health in indigenous communities, the effect of mandatory detention on asylum seekers and mental health in our prisons.

The government should bear in mind that Australians have a tradition of supporting the underdog, and the courageous and determined attitude of the asylum seekers on board the Oceanic Viking is earning the admiration of many of our citizens.

It is time for the government to admit that it made a mistake, cease its discrimination against the 3.5 percent of asylum seekers who arrive by boat, and allow them to enjoy the same immigration rights as the 95 percent who arrive on the mainland by other means.

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