| A Boatload of Money |
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| Written by Terry Lacey | |
| Thursday, 22 October 2009 | |
 Sri Lankan refugees make an attractive political and economic cargo
The saga of the 255 Sri Lankans stuck on a boat in the Indonesian port of Merak last week involves at least five countries: Sri Lanka, where they came from; Australia, where they said they were going; and Indonesia, Singapore and Malaysia where the people-smugglers coordinated logistics so passengers could join the boat by air and road. These boat people did not sail from Sri Lanka, but reportedly from Malaysia and then island-hopped across Indonesia. It appears that when the boat's captain neared Krakatoa in the Sunda Strait, he knew that his own little volcano had already blown up in his face and it was time to call it a day. This is the stuff of modern international politics, that the poor, untidy, unwashed and sometimes frightened masses, aspiring to a way of life as advertised on television, refuse to just lie down and die in poverty, misery or oppression, but insist on getting into little boats to sail from West Africa to Spain, or from Sri Lanka to Australia. Was there any chance they were ever going to get to Christmas Island, only 500 kilometers south of Jakarta? Probably not, and it was problematical what would have become of them if they had. Former Australian Prime Minister John Howard mastered magic tricks and made Christmas Island disappear from Australia’s migration zone through a new law that prevented boat people arriving there from automatically applying for refugee status. That allowed the Royal Australian Navy to sail them away on an extended Pacific cruise to Papua New Guinea or Nauru, as part of what was called the Pacific Solution. Some of the reports by Amnesty International and NGOs on incidents related to the Pacific Solution and Australian detention center policies were damning, questioning the legality and inhumanity of this policy. So here are 255 of them, all from Sri Lanka, with one lavatory, cleaning their teeth and washing from little plastic bottles of water on this stinking little boat, and none of us knows what to call them. Are they illegal economic migrants, refugees or asylum seekers? So we call them boat people and wait to find out their status. This was all about it being better to travel hopefully than to arrive, and about making a great deal of money. It is said the passengers paid up to US$15,000 each. If that is true, the people smugglers could have made nearly US$4 million. They probably got a great deal less than that, but still a lot of money by local standards -- enough to get a boat and buy a crew that would dare jail in Indonesia, but not in Australia. Under the United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, a refugee is a person who, owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted on account of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion, is outside the country of his or her nationality, and is unable to or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail him/herself of the protection of that country. The concept of a refugee was expanded by the Convention's 1967 Protocol and by regional conventions to include persons who had fled war or other violence in their home country. However, the war in Sri Lanka is ended and such conventions may not apply to Sri Lanka. Moreover Indonesia is not a signatory to the UN Convention, although Australia is. Indonesia is already reported to be holding 2,000 would-be refugees while 1,600 have got to Australia this year. Others are trying from Afghanistan and Pakistan or could come from Asean conflict zones in Myanmar, southern Philippines and southern Thailand. Asean countries may become destinations or transit points and targets for people smuggling including Singapore, Malaysia, Brunei and some of the Greater Mekong countries including Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. Dino Patti Djalal, an Indonesian presidential spokesman, told reporters that this is best treated as a regional problem (with Asean, Australia and New Zealand). Anita Restu, an Indonesian spokesperson for UNHCR, said the agency is ready to help, “But we need the government's approval before we can take action.” When UNHCR establishes, in cooperation with national authorities, genuine claims to refugee and asylum status, for example reflecting conditions in the aftermath of civil war in Sri Lanka, then Indonesia and other countries involved should act considerately and quickly, and share the burden, including the richer neighbors in Australia and New Zealand. Asean cannot simply be used as a defensive wall against a fair share of such burden-sharing despite some racism or anti-foreigner sentiments in these richer Western countries. But when the hospitality of Asean is exploited by illegal economic migrants they should be sent back to their nation of origin, or perhaps offered the chance to help develop poorer areas of Indonesia (or other Asean countries) on the same terms as local people. Alex, a Sri Lankan on the boat quoted by The Jakarta Post, started with the best line of argument: “We will face the death penalty if we return to Sri Lanka.” But he immediately followed this up with a slight political slip: ”We don't want to live in Indonesia because it already has problems related to poverty and natural disasters.” What gives him the privilege to pick and chose destinations and insult the people who are now forced to help him? Why not give free airline tickets and jobs to poverty-stricken peasants from Bangladesh, or weary warriors from Waziristan? There should be no favors to queue jumpers who can try their luck at legal migration the same as everyone else. Nor the privilege or choosing superior destinations when local Asean people are working hard to get themselves out of poverty and underdevelopment. And all the countries concerned should hunt down the organized criminals involved before human trafficking of illegal migrants in ASEAN becomes more generalized and a greater threat to the maritime safety and security of the region, and to their hapless victims.
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