10-03-07, 9:46 am
The Australian Government has admitted to secretly deporting five West Papuan asylum seekers to Papua New Guinea from where they had set off in a banana boat. They were intercepted on August 21 by a border patrol near Saibai Island (a Torres Strait Island belonging to Australia), which lies just 4kms from Papua New Guinea.
The five men, who had sought asylum as refugees, were taken to a PNG refugee camp on September 18 after the Port Moresby government agreed to re-admit them under a 2003 asylum agreement between Australia and PNG.
The social justice group, A Just Australia, said it was unacceptable for Australia to breach its legal obligations to people in need of protection, 'particularly as it is not for border security but simply to appease a foreign government'.
'Without doubt, the removal of these asylum seekers is a breach of international law, and puts Australia at the bottom of the class in human rights terms', the group’s national coordinator Kate Gauthier said.
'This is an issue which raises humanitarian responsibilities that should be dealt with openly and fairly, not with secrecy and unjust laws', Australian Democrats Senator Andrew Bartlett said.
The Australian Government’s swift act of appeasement of Indonesian authorities is in sharp contract to an incident last year in which Jakarta ordered its Canberra ambassador home in protest
In January last year, Australia gave refugee visas to a group of 43 Papuans who arrived on Australia’s Cape York Peninsula. The Indonesian authorities erupted, claiming that Australia was giving support to the independence struggle of West Papuan secessionists and their claims of brutal oppression by Indonesian troops and police.
To defuse the row, Australia agreed to sign a security pact with Indonesia which supported Indonesia’s sovereignty over West Papua — which was occupied by Indonesia in 1962 and annexed after a fraudulent referendum in 1969.
The Australian Government constantly turns a blind eye to the heavy-handed methods use by Indonesia to put down the independence struggle and oppress the people of West Papua. Indonesian security forces have responded at times with excessive force, including extrajudicial executions, torture and arbitrary detentions. Members of local human rights organisations have been harassed and intimidated because of their work, and some have been forced to leave.
Following her visit to Indonesia in June, the UN’s Special Representative on Human Rights Defenders, Hina Jilani, stated that human rights defenders working in Papua province 'continue to face torture, arbitrary detention and harassment from the country’s police, military and security forces'.
A spokeswoman for Australia’s Immigration Minister Kevin Andrews said the latest group were ineligible for protection because of new laws barring refugee applications from people landing on Australian islands. Under these laws the islands are not deemed to be part of Australian territory for immigration purposes!
Greens Senator Kerry Nettle said the Papuans had sought refuge in Australia because they clearly did not feel adequately protected in Papua New Guinea.
From The Guardian
