RI PROVIDES SOLUTION TO AUSTRALIA'S ASYLUM SEEKER PROBLEM by Fardah

      Jakarta, Oct. 21, 2009 (ANTARA) - Indonesia during the past few days did a few favors to Australia regarding Sri Lankan asylum seekers intending to go to Australia. 

       First, it was on October 11, when Indonesia's Navy intercepted a boat with about 255 Sri Lankans aboard and took them to Merak harbor, western Java, after a phone call from Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to Indonesia's President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono about the presence of the Tamils wanting to cross to Australia's Christmas Island.

        Second, it was when Indonesia agreed to take the latest group of 78 asylum seekers, also from Sri Lanka, from the vessel "Oceanic Viking" at an Australian Customs ship which had picked them on Sunday (Oct. 18) after sending out a distress signal in Indonesia's search and rescue zone. 

        The news of the deal came as Prime Minister Kevin Rudd met the Indonesia President in Jakarta on Tuesday evening (Oct. 20). Indonesia's solution might be good news and relief for Australian authorities, but it is another human tragedy for the asylum seekers who have spent up their fortune to escape the bloody conflict in Sri Lanka and try to find peace in Australia.

        The 255 Tamils, who included women and children, were determined not to leave their boat and have threatened self-harm if forced. They were earlier on a hunger strike for few days, insisting that they should be taken to Australia.

       "Today we will stop the hunger strike but we will remain on the boat and will not go ashore," Alek, a spokesman of the refugees, said to newsmen. He said they might face the death penalty if they return to Sri Lanka, but they did not want to live in Indonesia because "it already has many problems related to poverty and natural disasters." 

        The boat people are now waiting for officials from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to handle their case. Indonesia is not a signatory to the United Nations Refugee Convention, meaning asylum seekers there are processed by the UNHCR and the International Organisation for Migration and forced to wait - most of them for many years - to be resettled in a third country. 

       Boat people heading to Australia are often regarded by both Indonesia and Australia as illegal migrants or a people smuggling problem. The fact is that most of them are those trying to escape armed conflicts in their countries, especially Afghanistan, Sri Lanka and Pakistan.

       Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd was in Jakarta on Tuesday to attend the inauguration of Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono as president for a second term, and later in the evening they held a meeting. Australian Foreign Affairs Minister Stephen Smith said in Padang, West Sumatra, on Wednesday that Rudd and Yudhoyono at their meeting last Tuesday evening discussed efforts to deal with the people smuggling problem. 

       "We know this problem will continue to happen..... what is needed is a framework for cooperation between Indonesia and Australia not an ad hoc body set up every time a problem like this occurs," Dino Patti Djalal, a presidential spokesman, said after accompanying President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono at the meeting with Rudd at the palace. 

       He said officials concerned from the two countries would meet in the near future such as from the immigration office, the navy, the police and others to create guidelines for use in case of a people smuggling case. 

      "The results of the meeting will be reported to the two countries' heads of government on the sidelines of the APEC summit in Singapore in November," he said. 

      Dino said there had not been any decision so far with regard to the kinds of assistance Indonesia would need to help overcome boat people stranded in the country's waters on their way to Australia. So far, the two countries had used the Bali Process as a reference for settling such a problem, agreed on by countries in the region in 2003.

       "It would follow the Bali Process because the problem is not the affairs of one country only," he said. Dino said all sides had agreed that people smuggling was not the affair of one country alone or a bilateral affair but it was a regional affair so that cooperation between countries of origin, transit countries and destination countries was needed.

       The Australian government had so far been receiving at least 13,500 refugees per year. Over 30 boats have arrived in Australian waters this year and the Christmas Island detention centre is almost full. The same condition is also applied in the Indonesian immigration detention centers which are packed with asylum seekers particularly those from Afghanistan, including women and children, wanting to go to Australia, but eventually ending up in Indonesian jails. 

           Meanwhile, the federal opposition in Austalia has accused the government of trying to deal with the problem of asylum seekers in Indonesia by splashing money on a new strategy to keep people smugglers out of Australian waters, according to AAP, the Australian news service. Australia already gives Indonesia $20 million a year to deal with the asylum seekers' problem. 

         The Australian government reported there had been 66 separate interceptions resulting in the arrest of 1,642 illegal migrants bound for Australia in the past 12 months in Indonesia. That amount will be "massively expanded" under the new plan, the Weekend Australian reports said, accoring to AAP. 

        The extra money will fund detention centers, extra naval pursuits and the resettling of asylum seekers in Indonesia. And by doing so, Australia's hands look clean and it can say that "It's now the problem of Indonesia," - which is already over populated with around 225 million people.***3*** (f001/A/HAJM/B003) 2. 17:25.