Vietnam Daily News

Australia urges regional solution after boat tragedy

Written by Dailynews.vn Tuesday, 20 December 2011 15:46

Australian police were drafted in Monday to help Indonesia investigate people-smugglers as Canberra urged a regional solution to the deadly scourge and its "callous disregard for human life". Home Affairs minister Jason Clare said police would be deployed at Jakarta's request after more than 200 asylum-seekers were feared dead in a weekend boat wreck off Java. "In addition to sending our military assets to help this morning, the Indonesians have also asked for our assistance with policing," Clare told ABC radio, without saying how many officers would be sent. "I think it is a recognition of the fact that this is a regional problem and it requires a regional solution.
Members of a search and rescue team continue to look for victims of the sunken boat near Watulimo, on December 19. Australian police were drafted in to help Indonesia to investigate people-smugglers whose "callous disregard for human life" saw more than 200 asylum-seekers feared dead in a boat wreck off Java. (AFP) "You've got people-smugglers that act with a callous disregard for human life. "The only way to tackle this effectively (is) if you've got police forces in Australia and in Indonesia, police forces across the region working very closely together." Canberra has already sent a navy patrol ship and a surveillance aircraft to help the search-and-rescue operation after the boat bound for Australia sank on Saturday off eastern Java in heavy rain and high waves. The fibreglass vessel, which was carrying passengers mostly from Afghanistan or Iran, had a capacity of 100 but was holding about 250 people. Reports in Australia, citing survivors, said the captain and crew put on life jackets and abandoned passengers when it started sinking. Only 33 survivors have been plucked from the shark-infested waters on a well-worn route from Java to Australia's remote Christmas Island, where nearly 50 would-be migrants are believed to have died during a shipwreck a year ago. Clare said there were many ways that Australia needed to work with Indonesia to tackle people-smuggling "and I suspect there will be a lot of discussion about this today and over the course of the next few days". The Australian newspaper said an associate of Afghan human trafficking kingpin, Sayed Abbas, was believed to be responsible for sending the boat on its ill-fated journey. It reported that Indonesian authorities were investigating Haji Ismail, also known as Sayed Azad or Sayed Jalal, as a prime suspect after his name was supplied to investigators by survivors. Thousands of asylum-seekers head to Southeast Asian countries every year to try to transit through to reach Australia and many link up with people-smugglers in Indonesia for the dangerous sea voyage. Canberra had intended to deter them by setting up offshore processing, sending up to 800 asylum-seekers arriving in Australia by boat to Malaysia, in return for accepting 4,000 of Kuala Lumpur's registered refugees. But the proposal was scotched in August by the High Court, which said Australia could not guarantee their safety with Malaysia a non-signatory to UN refugee conventions. It placed all offshore processing in doubt, and the conservative opposition has so far effectively blocked new legislation to allow it. Immigration minister Chris Bowen said he expected people making the perilous journey from Indonesia to increase further, with the numbers arriving in Australia ballooning since the court ruling. "There is nothing altruistic about people-smugglers. They are people making a profit out of misery and if they can make more profit by cramming more people on boats then they will," he said. "We expect people attempting to come here to increase unless we have offshore processing in place. That underlines why we have worked so hard to have offshore processing." -By Martin Parry

Source: www.intellasia.net/news/articles/society/111351444.shtml