An ad by atat.ch church campaigning for the abolish of torture.
Something shocking happened in my country recently, something that made every decent Australian sick to the stomach.
Two boats, carrying a total of 203 Tamil asylum seekers from Sri Lanka, were intercepted by the Australia Navy in Australian waters, near Christmas Island. That is not the shocking part, up until recently, when the then-Labor government inhumanely slammed the door on asylum seekers, and the incoming Liberals put in place new policies with the same outcome, this was a fairly regular occurrence. Mr. Tony Abbott, and his government, gleefully point out that, obviously, its policies have been effective, because not a one single asylum seeker boat has landed in Australia for six months. Effective these policies have been; they have effectively shown the Australian people the sickening, inhumane levels their government is willing to sink to in an effort to ‘protect our borders’.
When the Australian Navy intercepted these two boats, the people were transferred from their unseaworthy, leaking vessels, into customs boats, and put through an “enhanced” (Abbott’s word, not mine) screening process. Under standard procedure, when as asylum seeker boat is intercepted, the people on board are asked 19 questions, the Tamils on board these boats were asked a grand total of 4: name, country of origin, why they had left, and where they planned to disembark. Then the customs boats were turned around and, in an undisclosed location in international waters, these people were handed back to the Sri Lankan navy, representatives of the very regime they had fled.
Of course, Mr. Abbott and his government have refused to confirm this, instead calling it “speculation”, but journalists from The Age, a paper owned by media entity Fairfax Media, were able to connect with the asylum seekers briefly, via satellite phone on the 28th of June. Mysteriously, the phone was cut off that day, and no further attempts to contact the asylum seekers were successful. Big surprise. And, while Tony Abbott and his government were still refusing to confirm that the boats full of Tamils even existed, the United Nations was expressing “profound concern”.
In 2009, a 26-year long civil war in Sri Lanka, between the majority Sinhalese, and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, in which atrocities on both sides were well documented, officially ended. Officially. So, if the civil war is over and, as Mr. Abbott claims, Sri Lanka is a peaceful country, why are boatloads of Tamils still fleeing internationally? Why are they telling tales of heinous tortures inflicted on innocent men, women and children, Tamil, all of them, but with no connection to the terrorist Tamil Tigers? Why did two Tamils on bridging visas in Victoria, who feared they would also be returned to their country of origin, attempt to immolate themselves - one successfully - rather than face the prospect of going ‘home’? What fate could be so terrible that you would rather burn yourself to death than face it?
Very few Australians could ever comprehend such a thing, and certainly not the ‘man’ at the head of their government. The UN has documented multiple human rights abuses against Tamils in Sri Lanka, and some of the refugees were able to tell their terrible stories to Fairfax Media before their communications were shut down. One man was forced to witness as Sri Lankan police stripped his friend naked, and inserted a PVC pipe through his anus; another was hung from the ceiling by his thumbs, and beaten with PVC pipes filled with sand, sometimes for up to six hours. Others were made to watch while their daughters, wives and sisters were brutally gang-raped, and a group of 35 Tamils, accused of being Tamil Tigers, were forced to sign confessions in Sinhala, a language they did not speak or understand.
On that note, while Tony Abbott claims Sri Lanka is a country “at peace”, Smart Traveller, a website run by the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, warns Australians to “exercise a high degree of caution” if they plan on going there. At peace are they, Mr. Abbott? Peaceful enough for their own people, but too dangerous for yours? Forgive me if I suggest you are engaging in racially based double-standards.
But, Australia has an agreement with Sri Lanka, or, as Immigration Minister Scott Morrison called it an “arrangement”. The long and short of this arrangement is that all boats carrying Sri Lankan nationals will be intercepted, and returned to Sri Lanka. Never mind that 90% of the people on board will be found to be genuine refugees, never mind that they will be facing jail, and torture, and the terrifying prospect of ‘disappearing’, every last Sri Lankan who attempts to enter Australia by boat will be sent back. Period.
The Abbott government claims the agreement is of international importance, and will help stop the “curse” of people smuggling. To this end, when Sri Lanka hosted the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in November 2013, Abbott gifted the country with two patrol boats, each worth about $2 billion Australian dollars (how about spending some of that money on your own people, Mr. Abbott?). Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper boycotted the event, to protest Sri Lanka’s failure to investigate war crimes committed by its troops during the final stages of its civil war, including the slaughter of as many as 40,000 civilians; while British Prime Minister David Cameron attended, but spoke on human rights issues. Two world leaders, both with close, international ties to Australia, were prepared to stand up, and show their people that they would not sit quietly while innocent people were being murdered and tortured. Australia’s leader, instead of taking a brave stance, handed the murderers $4 billion dollars worth of vessels with a specific purpose: war.
Of course, I’m sure Mr. Abbott wouldn’t put it that way. He would, no doubt, claim that the vessels were not war-time paraphernalia, but a genuine effort by Australia to help Sri Lanka tackle its next big issue, now that the civil war was over: people smuggling.
Mr. Abbott obviously needs a newsflash. People smugglers can only operate where there are people desperate enough to hand over everything they have, put their own lives, and the lives of their families, in the hands of people who don’t give a sh*t about them, and climb on board an over-crowded, leaking boat, then set off for shores unknown. Certainly, the people smugglers outright lie to them, claiming there are jobs, and houses, and all other sorts of luxuries waiting for them when they step ashore but, it Tony Abbott would really like to fight people smuggling, he needs to start lending a hand to the third world, and funding programs to give these people housing, clean water, enough food, and education. Then the people will be able to start rebuilding their countries, the people won’t want to leave, because they’ll have safety and purpose, and the people smugglers will be out of work.
That future is, I admit, so far in the distance that it seems unattainable, but, if Tony Abbott’s long term goal is to stop people smuggling, then this is the path he needs to tread. With Australia’s finances slightly out of shape at the moment, and the Federal Budget having already been delivered for the 2014-15 financial year, it will not be possible for Mr. Abbott and his government to start making changes immediately, but, it is certainly not too much to ask that they consider the foreign aid spend in future budgets, and what they might put it towards.
People smuggling is a heinous crime, but the way to stamp it out is not through inhumane refugee policies, or sending asylum seekers back to the very people they have fled from. The way to stop it is to help people in the countries where the people smugglers operate feel they have a purpose, and a reason to stay. If we educate both majority and minority groups about their responsibilities, to themselves and each other, and stand up in the face of human rights abuses and torture, I believe that, in the future, we can create a world free of people smuggling and, eventually, a world where no one need ever feel displaced. Idealistic? Maybe, but, if we work hard enough, it might just be possible.
