When the Huddled Masses Stage a Sit-In

With the end of the civil war in Sri Lanka has come a new wave of boat people -- Tamil asylum seekers. Business is brisk for human smugglers willing take cash for transportation to Australia, often on less-than-seaworthy vessels. The problem is Australia doesn’t really want them.

Instead, Australian policy is to try to head off asylum claims by towing (or rescuing) literal boatloads of people to Indonesia, such that the potential asylum claimants never set foot on Australian soil. To sweeten the deal for Indonesia for its participation in this approach, Australia funds detention centers for asylum seekers in Indonesia, including one on the island of Bintan.

That center is where a group of Sri Lankan Tamils rescued in October by the Australian Customs Ship, Oceanic Viking, refused to go. A 78-person group would not disembark for over four weeks after arriving in Bintan, Indonesia, telling their rescuers they would not get off without assurances that their claims for asylum would be swiftly processed.  The Australian government eventually enticed them ashore with a deal that saw them rapidly resettled.

This poses a problem for the Australians. Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd is under a full-fire attack from political opponents to decrease the number of asylum seekers arriving by boat to Australia. Last July, Rudd’s government made the right decision to end the disastrous policy of detaining all asylum seekers in third countries while their claims were processed. But the ‘Indonesian Solution’ Rudd’s government put in place is not responsive to the human rights of those fleeing conflict.

The group on the Oceanic Viking may have gotten the idea to resist from the 255 Sri Lankan Tamils refusing to leave a wooden boat anchored off the Indonesian port of Merak for nearly six months. They want to go to Australia too and they are making it very difficult for the Australian government to ignore them, initially staging a hunger strike and threatening to blow up their own ship and now just hanging on for over 150 days in the hopes of a deal with Australia.

On the Oceanic Viking, some asylum seekers threatened suicide if forced to disembark in Indonesia. Indeed, it turns out that the group was coming from Indonesia, where the UN had registered some as refugees.

The stand-offs at Bintan and Merak islands are a sign of regional asylum policy that is failing to meet human rights standards. Internally displaced Tamils are being confined to appalling camps in Sri Lanka while the Australian government continues to detain and divert desperate people. Australia should let these boat people in, process their asylum claims and take the opportunity to reconsider its policy of heading off potential asylum seekers.

Photo credit: mikecogh