Page 10 - ARUBA TODAY

A10 WORLD NEWS
Thursday 19 July 2018

Australia succeeds in stopping migrants but many in limbo

By ROD McGUIRK policy in 2001.
Associated Press When Norwegian freighter
CANBERRA, Australia MV Tampa rescued 433 Af-
(AP) — When Aziz Abdul ghan asylum seekers from
reached Australia's Christ- a sinking Indonesian fish-
mas Island aboard a smug- ing boat and attempted to
gler's boat, he had no idea deliver them to the nearest
that weeks earlier in 2013, port, Christmas Island, Aus-
his fate as a refugee from tralia sent special forces
Sudan seeking a new life troops to stop the ship. The
in a new world had been Tampa with its human car-
sealed. go was sent to Nauru un-
Australia drew a line in the der Australia's new policy
sand on July 19, 2013, to of keeping asylum seekers
stem a rising tide of asylum from its coast that became
seekers brought by people known as the Pacific Solu-
smugglers on long and tion.
treacherous ocean voy- Conservative Prime Minis-
ages. No refugees who at- ter John Howard was re-
tempted to reach its shores elected weeks later in a
by boat from that date campaign that focused on
forward would ever be al- In this July 17, 2018 photo, the 25-year-old Sudanese refugee Abdul poses at the East Lorengau his tough stance on asylum
lowed to make Australia Refugee Transit Center on Manus Island, Papua New Guinea. seekers.
their home. Associated Press The boat arrivals slowed
Five years later, the polar- over the next few years as
izing policy — both lauded ald Trump has reluctantly for medical treatment and neighbor would become Australia-funded immigra-
as a template for other agreed to accept as part others to the United States a back door for the exiled tion detention camp popu-
countries and condemned of a deal struck between for resettlement. refugees to enter Australia. lations grew on Nauru and
as a cruel abrogation of the Australian govern- "With every anniversary, The island camps have Papua New Guinea. A few
Australia's international ment and former President with every birthday and been the scenes of riots, countries took some refu-
obligations — appears to Barack Obama's adminis- with every death, the sense murder, suicide and esca- gees off Australia's hands.
have succeeded as a de- tration. of hopelessness and sheer lating mental illness. In the end, Australia quietly
terrent. The rickety fishing "You send people to a exhaustion in these island The Australian government accepted the last several
boats that were arriving place and you want those prisons rises," Webb said this last year reached a settle- hundred refugees without
from Indonesian ports at a people to either die or go week. "Our government ment of around 90 million political protest.
rate of more than one a back to where they came can't just imprison them for- Australian dollars ($68 mil- A new center-left Labor
day have virtually stopped. from even if that place ever." lion) with more than 1,905 Party government closed
But the question of what will is very, very dangerous," Australia offers to pay thou- asylum seekers who sued the Nauru camp in Febru-
become of the hundreds Abdul said. There was a sands of dollars to asylum over their treatment in Pap- ary 2008, when the final 21
of asylum seekers banished growing sense of hopeless seekers who agree to go ua New Guinea. Sri Lankan refugees were
by Australia to sweltering and fear of hostile villagers home, and many have vThe asylum seekers were flown to Australia. Papua
immigration camps in the among the asylum seekers, taken up the offer over the seeking damages in an New Guinea had been
poor Pacific island nations some of whom no longer past five years rather than Australian court for alleged closed years earlier. Then-
of Papua New Guinea and speak because of their de- languish any longer in their physical and psychological Immigration Minister Chris
Nauru has become more spair, he said. island limbos. Australia also injuries they say they suf- Evans called the Pacific
pressing. Daniel Webb, director of struck a multi-million dollar fered. Solution policy "a cynical,
"The simplest way for me to Australia's Human Rights deal with Cambodia to ac- Australia blames the asy- costly and ultimately un-
describe it is it's just like hell," Law Center, told the U.N. cept refugees who agree lum seekers for their plights. successful exercise intro-
Abdul, 25, told The Associ- Human Rights Council last voluntarily to leave Nauru The government believes duced on the eve of a fed-
ated Press by phone from month that Nauru's refu- and Papua New Guinea, they remain in the islands eral election."
an immigration hostel in gee population included but few took up that offer. under the mistaken belief But when the boats start-
a Papua New Guinea vil- 134 children, 40 of whom New Zealand has offered that Australia will eventu- ed coming back, it was
lage. He now hopes to be had been born there. The to resettle 150, but suc- ally relent and let them in. a Labor government that
chosen among the 1,250 number had dropped to cessive Australian govern- That's what happened af- reopened the camps on
refugees barred by Austra- 124 by this week, with some ments have declined for ter Australia adopted a Nauru and Papua New
lia but who President Don- children sent to Australia fear that the wealthy near- forerunner to the current Guinea in 2012. q