By Lauren Gumbs
Indonesia has neither the capacity nor political will to
take responsibility for a situation that sees 85% of asylum seekers transiting
through the archipelago on their way to Australia.
Indonesia sees the problem as the target country’s but feels
any solution must be a regional one.
In the current system or lack thereof, Indonesia does not
accord asylum seekers a unique migration status, asylum seekers and refugees
who enter Indonesia are regarded as unlawful migrants.
Asylum seekers and people smuggling has come to dominate the
Australia Indonesia relationship under both Howard and Gillard, no less an
issue for Kevin Rudd as he seeks to build diplomacy with Indonesia and win the
election in two months’ time.
Indonesia has stated in the past that it wants Australia to
increase its acceptance of refugees coming from Indonesia, however one of
Australia’s main goals is to find a way to prevent people coming in on boats
from Indonesia and to encourage Indonesia to improve detention facilities and
border control.
There is no easy solution particularly when Indonesia has no
international treaty obligations or clearly defined roles when it comes to
responsibility for handling asylum seekers at sea, for example the international
Safety of Life at Sea and Search and Rescue Conventions.
Instead Australia and Indonesia employ limited bilateral
agreements such as the 2004 Arrangement for Coordination of Search and Rescue
Services.
These agreements are easily undermined and complicated when
they become subject to the cooperation of Indonesian officials.
In 2009 asylum seekers rescued in Indonesian waters and put
on board the Australian vessel Oceanic Viking were subsequently denied port
access at consecutive ports in Merak and Riau Islands despite the operation of
the search and rescue arrangement and an agreement between Kevin Rudd and
Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to allow the Australian ship to dock.
Indonesia has not advertised itself as a transit point; its
facilities and a lack of frameworks and guarantees should stand as forceful
deterrents, yet after a decade of doing little except increasing border
security, asylum seekers still come in droves, exploiting the weak immigration
system. In order to launch a risky boat journey.
The United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) said
that without refugee legislation and procedures in Indonesia, it alone is
responsible for protecting and assisting refugees and asylum seekers, in addition
to conducting registrations.
The UNHCR is advocating for Indonesia's accession to the
1951 Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol, yet it is highly unlikely that
Indonesia will sign on anytime soon if ever.
Indonesia has not signed onto or ratified several other
international human rights instruments as well as progressive regional
conventions like the South East Asian Framework on Tobacco Control.
Not only is Indonesia disinclined to lock itself into such
agreements, it has focused on other priorities such as managing internally
displaced and excommunicated people through frequent natural disasters and
civil ethno-religious conflicts.
Researcher Adrienne Millbank believes the asylum system is
broken and the convention is no longer appropriate to today’s refugee flows
from countries largely experiencing transitory civil wars.
Paul Murray stated in a West Australian report on Millbank’s
argument, “it has at its core a principle of non-return, not an obligation to
protect refugees and then help them go home as soon as possible.”
Even without signing the Refugee Convention, Indonesia could
still look toward improving detention and possibly building detention and processing
facilities. As Ross Taylor from the Indonesia Institute suggests, Australia is
prepared to fund such a detention facility and East Nusa Tenggara is a good
spot to start.
The problem is that Indonesia lacks the political will to do
so as well as an effective judicial system that can adequately prosecute people
smugglers and deal humanely with detainees.
Convincing Yudhoyono is also not the biggest obstacle. It is
government officials and regional heads who will oppose transforming Indonesia
from unwelcoming transit point into a link in the larger chain of Australia’s
immigration system.
Australian citizens who did not agree to the Malaysia deal
due to a lack of protections for asylum seekers will be even less inclined to
support Australian funded detention centres in Indonesia.
Currently transiting refugees are detained in immigration
detention centres in squalid conditions for indeterminate periods without
rights or recognition as asylum seekers and new reports from Human Rights Watch
say many suffer physical abuse from guards and police.
Huge amounts of money and resources are being spent on
border protection and keeping asylum seekers out. This money would be better
spent creating access to apply for refugee status and resettling the most
disadvantaged trapped in refugee camps without funds to make a trip to
Indonesia, bribe immigration officials, and pay people smugglers.
But if it can’t, safe and humane processing centres in
countries that are used as transit points provide reasonable options to
dismantling people smuggling and housing asylum seekers offshore.
It will take more than a bilateral relationship between
Australia and Indonesia to find a solution and without regional cooperation and
support the issues will continue to be divisive for Australia Indonesia
relations and a humanitarian failure for those seeking asylum.
Kevin Rudd’s visit was an opportunity to create a less
polarising discourse and to adopt a more regionally minded approach in
discussions of asylum seekers rather than to keep cornering Indonesia on an
issue it does not look at in equal importance as does Australia.
The UN High Commissioner for refugees said 9226
asylum-seekers and refugees were in Indonesia at the end of February, however
the real figures could be much higher as many asylum seekers enter Indonesia
legally and vanish once they arrive.
As it stands now, asylum seekers have virtually no rights in
Indonesia and are guaranteed a lengthy purgatory in detention. As a transit
point, Indonesia is a necessary perdition where taking a boat ride is
inevitable.
Whereas ten years ago Indonesia may not have had the means
or motivation to do something about asylum seekers, it now has both by way of a
fast growing economy and greater ASEAN and international leadership responsibilities.
And ten years ago Australia was engaged in unhelpful
megaphone diplomacy that distanced Indonesia from building a relationship of
mutual trust and perspective.
It does not seem likely that Indonesia will sign onto
international refugee protocols anytime soon, yet expanding the issue into
regional discourse and making provisions for processing centres may change
Indonesia’s attitude toward remaining a hostile transit point.
Lauren Gumbs is a journalist based in Surabaya, East Jave, Indonesia
July 2013.
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