Indonesia, Malaysia are essential to the solution

Editorial The Age June 12, 2013 Once again the editors of The Age courageously hold up the values and the rights of asylum seekers. Where are the churches? One statement in a blue moon is not enough. And all this happening with Refugee Week this Sunday.

To know there are bodies of asylum seekers floating in the Indian Ocean is almost too much to bear, as is the realisation that those who tried but failed to reach our shores last week were so close to a place where they might seek refuge from whatever persecution they feared, and yet so far away from safety.

That yet another boat carrying asylum seekers capsized en route to Australia, with the loss of up to 55 lives, is one more reason to despair at the cynical games being played by our major political parties. The misery that is the boat-borne trade of thousands continues unabated, undeterred by any of the Gillard government's pitiful and meaningless campaigns, such as ‘no advantage’ and its commensurate threat of having refugees' claims deferred for years.

The trade persists because the home governments of many asylum seekers are unable or unwilling to protect their own citizens, and anyone who is desperate enough will flee such countries - irrespective of what is going on in Australia. Many asylum seekers hail from failed or persecutory states, from nations that are mired in moral bankruptcy, or from regimes that lack fair and robust systems of justice to ensure their citizens are afforded protection from persecution.

That hundreds of people have lost their lives trying to reach Australia in the past year is cause for every one of us to stop and consider what we want the government of this nation to do. The answer is not - and never has been - as simple as turning the boats around, as the Coalition parrots. This is a potentially dangerous strategy, as the Howard government found 11 years ago when it directed the navy to tow asylum seeker boats to Indonesian waters: some boats were sabotaged at sea.

The Houston report recommended a regional approach via closer co-operation with Indonesia and Malaysia, two neighbours that have become passive conduits for asylum seekers on their way to Australia. Former defence chief Angus Houston is now Australia's special envoy on asylum seekers, with the job of engaging in ‘quiet diplomacy’. The regional strategy was taken up in the Bali Process, a forum of 40 countries and agencies such as the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. While talks drag on, however, there seems to be very little action.

How many more must die? We urge every parliamentarian to shed the politics and to act in concert, with your heads clear and your hearts open, to alleviate the appalling loss of life that is happening in waters off Australia's coast. Above all, the Indonesian and Malaysian governments must be put under real and effective pressure to take up their responsibilities. They must be urged to commit to the UN Convention on Refugees, and to carry their weight. Because aside from a few well-publicised arrests of people smugglers, Indonesia in particular has proved ineffective in dealing with any aspect of this. It seems all too content to ignore the masses of people packing themselves onto fishing boats in the dead of night, and too ready to shrug off responsibility.

Read more http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/editorial/indonesia-malaysia-are-essential-to-the-solution-20130611-2o23q.html#ixzz2Vwe761SQ