Long wait taking its toll for Sri Lankans in Indonesian port
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For three months a group of 240 Sri Lankan Tamils have been stranded on a boat in western Java, in Indonesia, caught short of reaching Australia where they planned to apply for asylum. The Tamils were taken back to the port of Merak but they are refusing to leave the boat and Indonesian officials have banned media and rights workers from getting close to the vessel. Refugee advocates who recently tried to visit the Sri Lankan asylum seekers say their living in terrible conditions.
Presenter: Sen Lam
Speaker: Sara Nathan, Australia-based Tamil community activist
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NATHAN: The boat is supposed to only have 50 passengers but of course the people smugglers loaded it with 254 people to make more money, and therefore it's very cramped, it's very crowded. There's only one toilet. It was meant for a couple of weeks and I'm really not sure how long it takes, but perhaps maximum a couple of weeks to get from Malaysia to Australia. But now they've been on the boat for 115 days. So one toilet and one shower for 250 people, so it's terrible there. They've got fungal infections because they actually only have one toilet I guess, and there's no treatment being provided for that. The food is really bad and there's lack of nutrition in that food. The same food is being provided twice a day and it's creating diarrhoea because it's extremely oily and very spicy.
LAM: Indeed as you say it is a wooden cargo boat after all, it's not meant to, like an ocean liner, take passengers. Despite the challenges of staying on the boat, living on the boat, did you see any signs of the Indonesian or local authorities trying to make the conditions a little bit more comfortable for the asylum seekers?
NATHAN: Not at all, in fact they're trying to make it a bit difficult so that these people will be forced to leave. For instance as I mentioned over 100 of them have fungal infections and they've asked why don't you provide anti-fungal cream? And in fact we purchased some tubes of anti-fungal cream and we sent it via the IOM but the immigration has held back and haven't provided that. There's a pregnant lady there, she was only four months pregnant when she got onboard, now she's seven months pregnant. There's no special diet being given to her at all. We purchased some iron and folate tablets and multi-vitamins, there's no dresses for her because she can no longer fit into the dress that she got on the boat with, but that was also taken away by the immigration apparently for checking, hasn't been delivered at all.
LAM: As far as you know though are any of these supplies getting through to the asylum seekers?
NATHAN: No they will stop any supplies we provided. IOM, the International Organisation for Migration, provides the food for them and that's provided twice a day and the same food as I mentioned, and we've asked them if it is at all possible to give a diet that is acceptable to those people and won't create diarrhoea, even that has not been done yet.
LAM: And as you say Sara the conditions on the wooden boat are very challenging and yet the Tamil asylum seekers are choosing to stay onboard. What exactly do they want?
NATHAN: They want to be resettled in a country where their status of refugees are recognised and they can start their living. Indonesia has not signed the refugee convention, the UN convention, and therefore does not recognise refugees. So if you end up in Indonesia or in Malaysia you'll be there in detention for up to 10 years. So that is not a good solution for somebody who's 40 to come out of detention, at 50 and settle in a new country. We are breeding mental cases if we do that. Also if you put a 10-year-old child in detention for 10 years, comes out at 20 with no education, the child has no future at all.
LAM: Yes and these are the situations that we don't really think about sometimes, but Sara as an activist what would you say would be a fair outcome, what do you think should happen?
NATHAN: This boat is only 140 nautical miles away from Australia. This boat had no intention of going to Indonesia. It had left Malaysia on its way to Australia. The Australian Prime Minister made a phone call and asked the Indonesian President to intercept the boat. That was done and the boat was taken to Indonesia. Now Australia's happily saying it's not our problem, it's Indonesian problem because the boat is in Indonesian waters. The fact is the Australian Prime Minister is obviously well aware that Indonesia does not treat refugees as normal citizens and will not give any rights to those refugees. But Australia signed the convention saying they'd let the refugees to come to their shores. So they stopped them from almost reaching the shores, now we need to take responsibility for these people. We can't say it's not our problem. It's not fair to burden Indonesia with these people.
LAM: And what can you tell us about the background of these people, these Tamil asylum seekers? There are some in Australia who say that they're potential queue jumpers. What would you say to that?
NATHAN: Well there has to be a queue in order to jump it first. In Sri Lanka internal camps there were 300,000 people held for six months. The UNHCR was not given access to them to register them, and therefore how could they join the queue? And even if they are in Malaysia and they had, they are recognised refugees, they'll be there for 10 years. It's not taken a first come first serve basis then get resettlement, it's not a first come first served basis, therefore there's no queue. They take on the worst cases, the worst cases that need resettlement, there's no queue as such. So that is the wrong terminology we use. Plus 109 of them onboard the ship are already recognised as refugees by the UNHCR. So we need to find some solution for these refugees, as well as all the refugees around the world. But this particular one Australia had a hand in pushing them into Indonesia, now Australia cannot say 'it's nothing to do with us.'
