Stuck fast
The abusers of institutionalised children in the 1960s could
not have imagined a Royal Commission half a century later investigating their
evil deeds.
But in 2016 those responsible for keeping asylum seekers
away from our shores should be aware - and perhaps fearful - that in some more caring
and concerned future they may be called to account for harm done through their
actions.
Eye witnesses at this imagined inquiry will be hard to find,
for few independent observers have made it to the detention centres. Those who
have worked in the camps will need immunity before giving evidence; the
Australian Border Force Act prohibits government employees and contractors
revealing what’s going on.
Dr Antje Missbach suffers none of these restraints because
she’s been looking at the issue from Indonesia, the point of departure for more
than 25,000 asylum seekers since 2012.
The Monash University anthropologist has spent four years
researching the tragedy of what she calls ‘transit migrants’ – the Afghans,
Iraqis, Iranians, Burmese, Sri Lankans and now Somalis who expected to use Indonesia as a brief staging
post on their way to Australia.
But in 2013 the Australian Government’s Operation Sovereign Borders started pushing asylum-seeker boats
back to Indonesia. Another policy makes those registered in Jakarta with the UN
High Commissioner for Refugees after 1 July 2014 ineligible for resettlement in
Australia.
According to the Australian Government the tactics have
worked and no boats have made it to the mainland.
This has left more than 13,500 people in limbo, and the
number is increasing. They can’t work
and the kids don’t get schooling. The Indonesian government has shelter for one
in ten, the rest fend for themselves, their presence often causing conflict
with locals. Although many are Muslim,
those from Iraq and Iran tend to be Shia, while Indonesia is overwhelmingly
Sunni.
In 2013 a brawl left eight detainees dead. ‘Tension and deep
animosity had been building in the centre (in Sumatra) between the Burmese
Muslims and Buddhists, yet no precautions had been taken to prevent violence,’
reports Missbach. Australia helps fund
the centres.
Australia sees the transit migrants’ plight as Indonesia’s
problem caused by lax border controls allowing easy entry to the Republic, with
corrupt officials assisting their movements through the archipelago and onto
boats heading south.
Indonesia reckons this is Australia’s problem because that’s
where the asylum seekers were heading.
Impasse.
Missbach’s book has been published in Singapore as Troubled Transit by the Yusof Ishak
Institute. Other scholarly
investigations of immigrant movements have focussed on Europe and North
America.
This appears to be the first in-depth examination of how and
why the asylum seekers get to Indonesia, what pushes and pulls them, how they
are faring and what happens next.
Not much, although there’s been loose talk in Jakarta about setting
aside an island. There’s no apparent urgency,
though that could change in a flash if more serious conflict erupts between
reluctant guests and hostile hosts.
Just before the Christmas break Australia hosted the
so-called ‘2 + 2 Dialogue’ of Indonesian and Australian foreign and defence
ministers. The bland 33-point communiqué was a text-book of diplomatic clichés
- ‘welcoming’, ‘noting’ and
‘underlining’ but no mention of the stranded asylum seekers.
The nearest was a reference to a meeting of the
Bali Process on People Smuggling, Trafficking in Persons and Related
Transnational Crime, scheduled for March.
Although
Indonesia has long promised to sign the Refugee Convention this hasn’t
happened. Missbach believes the chance of ratification under President Joko
Widodo ‘remains minimal’.
Jakarta
fears acceptance could lead to the establishment of a domestic asylum
system. Missbach comments: ‘Australia could then designate Indonesia as a
safe first country and return people there, which Indonesia wants to avoid more
than anything else.’
Troubled Transit is a professional report thankfully
devoid of the usual polysyllabic jargon some academics seem to think necessary
to distinguish their work from journalism.
The
only impediments to smooth reading are in-text references. These are like speed bumps and should not be
used by publishers seeking wider readership.
Missbach’s
poignant stories of individuals remind that behind the acronyms and initialisms
are despairing human beings caught in a Kafkaesque nightmare.
Recounting
the personal without losing her objectivity must have been tough. Three boys she knew drowned trying to reach
Australia. Some authorities thought her
a spy. Why would a German researcher working with an Australian university be
in Indonesia?
Despite
the suspicions she got to state officials, jailed people smugglers and even
into detention centres– impossible in Nauru or Manus Island.
Missbach
interviewed those who’d learned some English or Indonesian to by-pass interpreters
and so avoid risking her informants’ privacy. Many were ‘severely distressed or
traumatised’.
Breaks
in Germany and Australia became essential ‘to distance myself from the field
and its psychological burdens.’
This
book is more than a primer for appreciating the issues. It could also be Exhibit
A when the Royal Commission into harm done by Asylum Seeker Policies is
eventually appointed.
(First published in New Mandala 3 February 2016: See http://asiapacific.anu.edu.au/newmandala/2016/02/03/stuck-fast-review-of-troubled-transit/
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