SORRY, GOTTA RUSH - BIGGER PLACES AWAIT

 

   Just passing by – got a mo?

 

Last week’s visit to Jakarta by Foreign Minister Marise Payne and Defence Minister Peter Dutton (above, image Facebook) was flagged as an ‘exclusive’ in an AFR curtain-raiser implying a renaissance in relations between Australia and Indonesia. That expectation came to naught.

Ahead of the ministers’ arrival two Centre for Policy Development authors on this website and The Jakarta Post offered the passengers some well-meaning though politically unrealistic ideas: ‘The time is right to invest more into the relationship.’ Correct, but as in any successful marriage, the process has to be continuous.

 ‘The stakes are high’. Correct if referring to decaying understandings on either side of the Arafura Sea. But apart from the universal plague and ceaseless South China Sea disputes, P and D saw no pressing issues other than the usual STDs – security, trade and defence.  Proof came with their reports.

A few legally unenforceable MOUs were updated during the one full-day visit, but nothing substantial apart from Dutton flying a test balloon about RI troops training in Australia.  The idea could well pop when human rights supporters take aim. Many are alarmed at the military’s heavy suppression of separatists in West Papua, a province closed to Western journalists.

Whoever dropped the story to the AFR forgot to provide an agenda or add this was a rest-and-refuel while heading to New Delhi, Seoul, Washington and New York for the important stuff.  Instead, it gushed claims of a ‘warm personal relationship’ between Payne and her counterpart Retno Marsudi.

If the alleged link between the ladies is commonplace there’d be no need for any rah-rah about their meeting, or for Dutton to claim the bond is ‘first-rate’.   It’s not, as successive Lowy surveys disclose.

Almost 21 months have passed since the last Australian ministers were in Indonesia.  Then it was Payne with Dutton’s predecessor Linda Reynolds, and the location was Bali, not Smog City. Indonesians haven’t taken to Zoom – they need to eyeball and judge close-up.

The promotion masked the embarrassing reality behind the hi-and-goodbye: The Australian Government takes the people next door, the country with more Muslims than anywhere else and the world’s third-largest democracy for granted.

That’s not only insulting – particularly to the protocol-obsessed Javanese - it’s also foolish.  Whatever goodwill may be in the joint account, history shows it could all be withdrawn with one misjudged action or crass comment. 

Melbourne academics Tim Lindsey and Dave McRae have written: ‘There are no two neighbouring countries anywhere in the world that are more different than Indonesia and Australia. They differ hugely in religion, language, culture, history, geography, race, economics, worldview and population (Indonesia, 270 million, Australia less than 10 per cent of that).

‘In fact, Indonesia and Australia have almost nothing in common other than the accident of geographic proximity. This makes their relationship turbulent, volatile and often unpredictable.’

If anyone in Canberra had noted this gritty assessment there’d be so many regular get-togethers we’d know Indonesians almost as well as Americans.

For all the misgivings it would be wrong not to recognise the importance of the P and D visit.  The AFR ran comments from experts welcoming the ministers’ ‘overdue’ trip and noting a lack of confabs means ‘Australia risks declining strategic access, influence and relevance.’

The pandemic has been a useful excuse to keep ministers away from the Big Durian, but that hasn’t stopped VIPs visiting the US, Japan, the UK and other countries where Covid threatens as much as it does in the archipelago.

The CPD suggestion that Afghan refugees in RI should be accepted by Australia is morally right – though doomed for base domestic reasons. Australia has banned asylum seekers registered in Indonesia after July 2014 from ever resettling Down Under.

Reversing this ignoble policy would be politically risky; there’ll be an election next year and the 20^th anniversary of the Bali Bomb to remind voters of extremism in Indonesia.

 Indonesia isn’t party to the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees so leaves its 14,000 unwelcome guests to the UNHCR.  Integration of the Afghans would take a leader of courage, but President Joko Widodo is no Angela Merkel.  Nor is Scott Morrison.

In 2015 the German president defied doomsayers and pushed her country to keep its borders open.  The Republic now leads the European Union in taking applications for asylum seekers.

The idea of Canberra and Jakarta working to tackle the Myanmar coup is also meritorious but looking to next year’s Bali Process meeting for solutions is a mite optimistic. The informal, non-binding forum has a poor record, as the CPD’s CEO Travers McLeod knows well. After hundreds of asylum seekers drowned in 2015, he co-authored a paper on the tragedy focusing on the agency’s ineffectiveness.

 What might make the improvements the CPD seeks is to dilute the domestic anxieties which drive foreign policies.  Surveys in both countries reveal public ignorance, indifference and distrust as neither bothers to seriously tackle the negative perceptions and superficial media.

ABC Australia TV, which is supposed to be our showcase in Indonesia and elsewhere is an under-funded, uncoordinated and embarrassing mishmash of parochialism.  Al Jazeera is not threatened.

As widely reported our unis have just about abandoned teaching Indonesian language and studies.  This could be reversed if FM Payne pushed hard enough.

Sadly these serious concerns were not among her talking points.  If her 40-minute online speech reflected the closed-door meetings, it wasn’t worth the hype. The opportunities and urgency seen by others were invisible to the minister.

 The Senator reminded all of Australia’s help in combating Covid – we gave one million doses to a nation of 273 million - but found no time to address the CPD’s submission, substituting an obfuscation of clichés.  Playing fields – always level - got guernseys, but refugees were sidelined.

Indonesians wanting a road map to a real relationship will have to seek other ways. Useless waiting 21 months only to get another circular tour.

First published in Pearls and Irritations 13 September 2021: https://johnmenadue.com/our-two-ministers-just-passing-by-in-indonesia-got-a-mo/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

FLEEING INTO DETENTION

Lost in transit   
                                                           

Indonesia was once a short stop-over for Middle East asylum seekers queuing for ferries to Northern Australia.  Now it’s a terminal. The lines are getting longer.  So is the wait for a resolution.  Duncan Graham reports:

The grim posters feature a rickety craft on a rolling sea under a dirty sky. They are captioned:  NO WAY.  You will not make Australia home. The small print warns those registered with the UN High Commission for Refugees in Jakarta after 1 July 2014 will never reach their goal.

The government says its policy will ‘reduce the movement of asylum seekers to Indonesia and encourage them to seek settlement in countries of first asylum.’ 

A year ago there were around 13,800 known illegal migrants (the official Indonesian term) stranded in the Republic with about half from Afghanistan.  The number is now 14,475 according to Dicky Komar, the Director of Human Rights in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The increase is despite 1,236 refugees being resettled, mainly in Canada and the US in the same year.  This means almost 2,000 got into Indonesia in 2016 by-passing immigration.  Researchers say the usual route is to fly into Malaysia, take a boat across the Malacca Straits to Sumatra then public transport to Java.

Those who ignored the posters and didn’t drown in the Arafura Sea have been caught by Australian patrols and either turned back or sent to offshore detention camps now holding around 1,360. Most are young men; the majority are on Papua New Guinea’s Manus Island – the rest on Nauru.

Those who did heed the posters’ message and stayed in Indonesia are seeing their resettlement hopes dashed daily. Last year Australia took 347 (down from more than 800 three years earlier), the US 761.  These numbers will tumble.  President Donald Trump is cutting the intake and trying to ban people from six Muslim-majority nations.  Refugees from Iran, Somalia, Sudan, Yemen, Syria and Libya are in Indonesia.

Jakarta hasn’t signed the UN Refugee Convention so those trapped in the Archipelago can't legally study or work. Claims to be a refugee are determined by the UNHCR. The process can take years.

Indonesia is getting serious about trafficking. This month [Mar] a Rote Island court sentenced notorious people smuggler Abraham (Captain Bram) Louhenapessy to six years' jail.

He’s not the only one in cramped quarters.  Chairul Anwar of Indonesia’s Transnational Crimes Unit claims the 13 rudenin (detention centres) are full. So around 4,000 squat in community halls or rent rooms around Cisarua in West Java known for its cheap lodgings.

Anwar said it would take 14 years to clear all asylum seekers at the current rate of resettlement provided no new arrivals. He forecast conflict unless the process is accelerated.

Indonesia is confronting the issues but Australia is paying the bills.  This financial year it has budgeted US $1.7 million for the International Organization for Migration and US $43 million to fund ‘regional cooperation arrangements in Indonesia …to manage their asylum seeker populations’.

The social strife forecast by Anwar was downplayed by advocate Ian Rintoul of the Refugee Action Coalition in Sydney.  He said there are “large communities of Afghan families” who have been living in Cisarua for many years.

These domestic arrangements could sink soon. This year Indonesian President Joko Widodo signed a decree confirming refugees have three options – resettlement, repatriation or deportation, though countries like Iran refuse to accept returnees. Integration is not on the menu.

“Australia has created the bottle neck that leaves asylum seekers in limbo in Indonesia for years,” Rintoul said. “Australia effectively forces Indonesia to warehouse asylum seekers … while they wait hopelessly for resettlement.”

Australian academic Dr Antje Missbach was at a Jakarta briefing where the figures were released.  In her book Troubled Transit she wrote ‘most displaced people in need of protection do not have Indonesia in mind as the ultimate country of final settlement … (but) a way station and the final stepping stone on the journey to Australia.’

After the briefing she told Strategic Review:  “Indonesia is no longer so much a transit country but will become more of a containment country.”

Asylum seekers’ hopes of a life Down Under have collided with citizens’ fears of open floodgates, a popular metaphor in the debate with connotations of the ‘boundless plains’ of the national anthem being inundated. 

The major parties support the turn-back policy; polls show politicians inclined to a more humanitarian line could be thumped at the ballot box.

Although Indonesian officials complain about the foreigners the numbers in the archipelago are small when compared to neighbouring lands. There are now more than half a million asylum seekers in Southeast Asia. Most are Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar hunkered down in Malaysia and Thailand after escaping alleged persecution. 

Indonesia also has its own refugees.  According to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre there are at least 31,440 citizens ‘who remained internally displaced in Indonesia as a result of conflict, violence and human rights violations’.

The increase in asylum seekers is likely to be discussed in May by a working group of the Bali Process  on People Smuggling, Trafficking in Persons and Related Transnational Crime a talkfest first formed in 2002 and now involving more than 50 nations and agencies. It is co-chaired by Indonesia and Australia.

Rintoul was pessimistic about the outcome. “There will be no constructive results because Australia has used the Bali Process to enforce anti-people smuggling (i.e. anti-refugee) arrangements onto participating countries,” he said.

Commented Missbach: “So far the Bali Process has always been more concerned with protecting borders rather than people; if this is the prime goal they have been successful, but that is to the detriment to the people who need protection.”

Whatever the Bali Process decides, it will be tackling symptoms, and not the reasons people flee.

First published in Strategic Review 24 March 2017

MAKING THE BALI PROCESS WORK

Can we retrieve our moral values?                                Duncan Graham

Now here’s the rub.

Only those lacking compassion and the determination to discover alternatives would find the so-called Pacific Solution acceptable.

Nauru and Manus are poor locations for camps though probably not the ‘hell’ refugee supporters allege; over-egging claims do advocacy harm. We need a reasoned debate with practical proposals, not hyperbole.

Nonetheless prolonged detention and delayed claim resolution would break anyone’s spirit.  That’s immoral and inhumane.

The cramped accommodation sounds far from ideal though probably better than the Calais camp and detention centres in Southeast Asia.  Services include flying the seriously sick to Australia for treatment.  That doesn’t happen in Indonesia, where refugees squat where they can.

The Pacific Solution will be ranked in the future alongside the Stolen Generation and trusting churches to care for kids as policies of shame.

Nor is it acceptable that only those with enough money to pay smugglers and who pass through other safe nations to reach Australia should have priority over the poor already in refugee camps with proven fear of persecution.

We can’t be sure there have been no recent arrivals because our democratically elected leaders won’t share information with their voters.  That’s authoritarianism and it should outrage us all.

Fortunately for the government the media crisis means there are few journalists with enough resources to investigate, while the ALP has decided to play possum to its lasting dishonour.

No-one wants people risking their lives to get here. If the boats have stopped that’s something we might all agree is positive. Some points need to be acknowledged while deploring the overall policy, the demeaning of inmates and staff, and the cost.

But an equally effective and more humane way than creating misery has to be found to halt human traffickers and deter people from trying to reach Australia by sea.

Fortunately we have a forum capable of finding a solution.  Unfortunately it has failed.

The Bali Process on People Smuggling, Trafficking in Persons and Related Transnational Crime, more succinctly labelled the Bali Process, started work in 2002.  It has almost 50 members and will meet again in Jakarta next month.

Its splendidly-titled job is to ‘enhance cooperation on border and visa systems to detect and prevent illegal movements; increase public awareness in order to discourage these activities and warn those susceptible, and …deter people smuggling and trafficking’. 

Here’s how to judge its effectiveness: According to Parliamentary Papers close to 45,000 have crossed the Arafura Sea since the Bali Processors first shook hands.  The largest number was just three years ago; 17,202.  Around 1,000 may have drowned.

A Queensland University review published before Australia’s unilateral action in turning back the boats found that ‘the Bali Process has only produced limited tangible outcomes and has had no immediate impact on the levels and patterns of migrant smuggling in the Asia Pacific region’.

Former Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono persistently called for a ‘regional solution’ without offering details. It’s been a regular chorus – this month former Indonesian foreign minister Dr Hassan Wirajuda​was was telling the Asia Dialogues on Forced Migration that the Bali Process needs to be ‘dramatically’ strengthened. 

Fairfax Media, in reporting the forum – a sort of warm-up to the Bali Process – said the meeting warned that unless forced migration is managed under a comprehensive regional plan, it will have "permanent and intensifying negative impacts on countries in our region".

Well, yes, but hasn’t that happened already?  Is everyone deaf or indifferent?

The push factors, like the plight of the Rohingya in Myanmar urgently need addressing but this world issue is too complex for swift local solutions. However we can fix the pulls.

Here are some measures that could help.  Those already in Indonesia need to be processed quickly by the UNHCR, which means allocating extra resources for the agency is mightily stressed. This is another area where Australia could assist.

Those found to be economic refugees can be repatriated (something Indonesia can do because it’s not a party to the Refugee Convention), the others moved to a camp awaiting third-country settlement – though not Australia.

We are prosperous and have boundless plains to share.  Not all refugees carry radical disruptive agendas – many would enrich our society and make fine citizens. Our quota could increase.  But all need to be deterred from risking their lives at sea.

There are about 13,500 asylum seekers stranded in Indonesia. That’s miniscule in a nation of 250 million, but Indonesia is not a migrant society and has some aversion to foreigners.

Those escaping Iran and Iraq are either Christian or Shia Muslim. Indonesia is overwhelmingly Sunni and intolerant of what it calls ‘deviant sects’.

There’s already been conflict – eight died in a 2013 brawl in a centre funded by Australia. There have been reports of brutality and fighting on Nauru and Manus, though nothing on this scale

According to Monash University anthropologist Dr Antje Missbach, whose book Troubled Transit looks at the situation in Indonesia, there’s little chance the country’s present administration will ratify the Refugee Convention.

 Missbach writes that Jakarta fears ‘Australia could then designate Indonesia as a safe first country and return people there, which Indonesia wants to avoid more than anything else.’  If correct then reassuring our neighbour that these concerns are groundless could shift another obstacle.

Indonesia’s concession could be to tighten border controls and vigorously pursue corrupt immigration officials and police who help the people smugglers. 

There’s been loose talk in Jakarta about using an island. In the 17 years from 1979 around 250,000 mainly Vietnamese refugees lived on Galang near Singapore until resettled. The Indonesian camp was run by the UNHCR. It is now empty.

Unfortunately the apparent deterrent success of the Pacific Solution has reduced the urgency to find a better way.  The moral pressures being applied by medical professionals, churches and others are commendable, but a spit in the wind of intolerant opposition.

Unless they propose real alternatives acceptable to most Australians, banner wavers do little more than encourage the idle human traffickers in Indonesia to think business might pick up soon. Better to lobby the Bali Processors to confront their responsibilities and find that elusive regional solution.

(First published in On Line Opinion 18 February 2016.  See: http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=18029

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