The article below is slightly abridged from a joint statement released on November 5 by the Socialist Alliance (Australia); the Socialist Party (Australia); the Socialist Party of Malaysia (PSM); the Network of the Oppressed People (JERIT — Malaysia); CWI Malaysia; the Confederation Congress of Indonesian Union Alliance (KASBI); the Working Peoples Association (PRP — Indonesia); the National Liberation Party of Unity (PAPERNAS — Indonesia); the Indonesian National Front for Labor Struggle (FNPBI); Socialist Alternative (Australia); Socialist Worker New Zealand; Partido Lakas ng Masa, Philippines; Transform Asia; Labour Party Pakistan; Resistance (Australia); and Militan-Indonesia. To add your organisation's name, email
All respect for elementary human rights and dignity have been thrown overboard as the governments of Australia, Indonesia and Malaysia refuse to accept the latest wave of Tamil asylum seekers fleeing war and oppression in Sri Lanka. Instead, they treat them like criminals.
The Australian government is the only one of these three governments to have signed the 1951 UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees. But it is refusing to carry out its obligations to asylum seekers under the convention.
For weeks, more than 250 Tamil-speaking people, including children, remain in dire conditions on a boat in Merak, Indonesia. Another 78 Tamil asylum seekers, including children, remain on the Australian customs ship Oceanic Viking off Tanjung Pinang, Indonesia.
Both groups are refusing to leave their boats for fear that Indonesia will lock them up in detention centres with a reputation for brutality and/or send them back to an uncertain future in Sri Lanka.
Meanwhile, 207 Sri Lankan asylum seekers are being held at the Immigration Detention Centre at Kuala Lumpur International Airport and 108 Sri Lankan refugees are being detained at Pekan Nanas Immigration Detention Centre in Johor, Malaysia.
Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd claims his Labor government's policy is "humane" but "tough". It is neither. The Labor government is bribing the Indonesian government of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to intercept the boats of asylum seekers on their way to Australia.
This "Indonesian solution" outsources Australia's obligations to asylum seekers to Indonesia, just as its predecessor did to Nauru and Papua New Guinea in the name of a "Pacific solution".
Many of those seeking asylum in Australia come from Sri Lanka, where the Tamils have suffered from decades of brutal oppression at the hands of various Sinhala national-chauvinist governments. The government of Mahinda Rajapaksa unleashed an all-out terror campaign this year, killing some 20,000 Tamil people in the month of May.
Since the end of the military offensive, more than 300,000 Tamil people have been imprisoned in concentration camps and denied the right to return to their homes. It is estimated that 31,000 children are among those incarcerated, without proper access to shelter, food and medicine.
The Australian government, like many governments in the West and across Asia, supported the Rajapaksa regime throughout its final onslaught by maintaining trade links, including selling arms.
We condemn the Australian, Indonesian and Malaysian governments for their lack of commitment to the humanitarian problems faced by the refugees. We demand:
· That the governments of our countries withdraw financial and diplomatic support from the Sri Lankan government until it closes the concentration camps, and allows the Tamils trapped in camps to go back to their homes without fear of persecution;
· that no refugee fleeing war and persecution should be forced to return to the country they fled;
· that Australia, as a wealthy and developed country that has exploited its poorer neighbours, should immediately develop a program to settle tens of thousands of asylum seekers and take a leading role in helping reduce the misery of the world's millions of refugees, most of whom are trying to survive in desperate conditions in refugee camps in some of the world's poorest countries;
· that Australia allow the asylum seekers trapped in Indonesia to come to Australia to have their claims heard here. We condemn the Indonesian government for being a puppet for the Australian government in preventing refugees from going to Australia. This cooperation between these two governments is a threat not only to the Tamil refugees but to human rights in the region;
· that Australia must immediately close the Christmas Island refugee prison and allow those asylum seekers to live in freedom in Australia while their claims are processed;
· that the Indonesian, Malaysian and Australian governments respect the human rights of the refugees, give protection, humanitarian aid and accommodation to the refugees as long as they are in Indonesian territory and place no limitation for their rights to seek an asylum; and
· that the Malaysian and Indonesian governments sign the UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, release the asylum seekers they have in detention and allow them full access to UNHCR and human rights groups.
We appeal to all democratic and progressive people in Indonesia, Malaysia and Australia, trade unions, human rights organisations and women's rights organisations to understand the plight of the asylum seekers and to support our demands.