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'Sovereign Borders' not helping: Analysts
Jakarta Globe - February 14, 2014
He criticized the policy as denying rescue and protection of asylum seekers. "Instead of saving and protecting the asylum seekers and then process them together with the UNHCR, the Australian government just pushed back the refugees to Indonesian waters," he said at a press conference in Jakarta.
Marty also said that Australia's insistence on pushing through this hard-line asylum policy had stalled the next step of a road map by the two countries for a code of conduct on future relations.
The six-step road map was proposed late last year by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to fix bilateral relations following Indonesia's decision to recall its ambassador from Canberra in the wake of revelations that Australia intelligence services had eavesdropped on him, his wife and other senior Indonesian government officials.
In an indication that it was amenable to the road map, Australia sent its foreign minister, Julie Bishop, to Jakarta to hold talks on fixing the relationship.
"This [handling of the asylum-seeker issue] is not helping at all in creating a situation conducive for a discussion of the code of conduct between Indonesia and Australia," Marty said. He added that relations could still be fixed if there was more trust between the two governments.
Analysts from both countries have echoed Jakarta's doubts about the effectiveness of "Operation Sovereign Borders," saying it is unlikely to stop people from trying to make the risky journey to Australia by boat in the long term.
"I think it might be effective for short-term purposes, but how long is Australia going to use this method?" said Professor Aleksius Jemadu, dean of Pelita Harapan University's School of Social and Political Sciences.
Antje Missbach, from the University of Melbourne, agreed that the Conservative government's strategy would not succeed past the immediate future.
"I guess it won't last very long," said Missbach, a McKenzie post-doctoral fellow at Melbourne Law School's Asian Law Center, who has studied the experiences of transit migrants in Indonesia.
She likened "Operation Sovereign Borders" to the harsh measures the European Union adopted to reduce asylum seeker numbers in the early 2000s.
Despite an initial period of success, asylum application numbers in the EU have risen consistently since 2005, and asylum seekers are increasingly dependent on people-smuggling syndicates to gain entry into the region.
"No fence is high enough, no trench is deep enough, that asylum seekers won't find a way around as they are fighting for their lives," Missbach said. Australia's immigration policy must take broader perspectives into account if it wants to work with Indonesia to stop people smuggling, she said.
"If you don't understand how a transit country reacts and treats these groups of people, it's going to be very difficult to come up with strategies to collaborate with those countries," she said.
Aleksius said Australia's cooperation with the Asia-Pacific region was essential to combatting people smuggling.
"It is the nature of transnational crime like this that it requires a comprehensive solution at the bilateral level, if not regional level with Asean," he said. "It would be far better if Australia could go the extra mile to invite Indonesia's full engagement in resolving the issue."
Erica Feller, the former assistant high commissioner for protection at the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, called for a global solution to people smuggling in an essay published late last year.
"The boat problem is a shared problem, it has a very important international dimension, which is too often under appreciated or downplayed in national policy responses," she said. Instead of spending money on punitive measures, Feller advised governments to work together to collaboratively manage this multidimensional problem.
Paul Power, chief executive of the Refugee Council of Australia, agreed that cooperation between countries was the best way to combat people smuggling. He also favored improving refugee protection in Asia over policies that deterred people from seeking asylum.
The council's 10-point plan reflects this; it calls for action to address the situation of asylum seekers in countries like Indonesia, who are denied access to the UNHCR and domestic asylum systems. Aleksius agreed that Australia's failure to engage in bilateral cooperation was not helpful for the global problem, or for its own interests.
"If Australia continues to push back these boats into Indonesian territory, it will end up with even more enemies," he said. "It is going to damage Australia's credibility as a nation that has a tradition of respecting human rights, not to mention the fact that Australia is a party to the UN convention on refugees."
Missbach said that returning asylum seekers to places that were not safe for them would have a significant impact on Australia's relations with its neighbors.
"Australia has managed to ruin its international reputation by repeatedly breaking international law," she said. "Neighboring countries especially see Australia's recent political moves as a form of hypocrisy, talking about [respecting] human rights but putting vulnerable people at risk at sea."
Aleksius said Australia's attempts to engage other countries in seeking a solution to the problem of people smuggling was a mitigating factor. "Australia's initiative to establish wider international cooperation in dealing with this issue can at least be used as a disclaimer that will minimize the damage to its credibility," he said.
But he said he could not see a simple solution to the problem on the horizon. "The comprehensive solution might not be easy," Aleksius said. "But a mechanism to make a distinction between refugees and non-refugees should be there so that Australia can defend its standing as a committed party to the UN convention."
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