Refugee priorities
The slow increase in the number of asylum seekers arriving by boat in Australian waters is creating a slowly increasing number of antagonistic public comments and complaints. Immigration Minister Chris Evans understandably points to the deteriorating position in parts of Afghanistan and Pakistan as a factor, as well as noting a “second supply chain” from Sri Lanka.
It is an unfortunate sign of how easily our priorities and perspective can be distorted. The arrival of a few hundred Sri Lankan asylum seekers is seen by some as a serious problem, even though those assessed as not being refugees are being returned.
Yet the Sri Lankan government continues to detain over a quarter of a million men, women and children in over-crowded, unsafe internment camps with barely a concern being voiced. This piece by Jeff Sparrow notes that the silence about this situation extends to most other western countries too. The piece also contains some descriptions from The Guardian and elsewhere about the awful conditions in the camps and other human rights breaches.
Human Rights Watch has done their usual thorough job of detailing the situation facing hundreds of thousands of displaced people.
Since March 2008, the Sri Lankan government has confined virtually everyone displaced by the war between the government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) to detention camps, depriving them of their liberty and freedom of movement in violation of international law. As of September 15, 2009, the government was holding 264,583 internally displaced persons in detention camps and hospitals, according to the UN, while fewer than 12,000 have been released or returned home.
Human Rights Watch also list specific problems such as:
- Arbitrary detention and enforced disappearance;
- Inability to trace missing relatives: The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), which often traces family members, has been barred from the main camps since mid-July);
- Lack of protection mechanisms in the camps: The military camp administration is preventing humanitarian organizations, including the UN and the ICRC, from undertaking effective monitoring and protection in the camps;
- Conditions in the camps and expected deterioration during the monsoon;
- Lack of access to proper medical care;
- Lack of transparency and information.
But it seems the prospect of a few hundred Sri Lankans arriving in Australia by boat, some of whom are undoubtedly fleeing this situation, is a much bigger problem than the human rights abuses being inflicted on as thousand times as many people in the place they have left.
As Jeff Sparrow said in noting the minimal concern being expressed internationally:
That’s why the situation in Sri Lanka matters so much. It’s not simply because there’s something fundamentally wrong about mass collective punishment. It’s because if the world doesn’t speak out, you can expect see the model put into action elsewhere.
ADDENDUM: Given my comment on the importance of not remaining silent, it is appropriate for me to note a debate in the House of Representatives on this topic back on 1 June 2009. The debate was to a motion moved by Labor Member for Fremantle, Melissa Parke. All of the 9 speakers from both Labor and Liberal provided balanced and non-partisan contributions, with the exception of Don Randall, the Liberal Member for Canning, who basically took the line that all atrocities were the fault of the LTTE, and there is no substance to any allegations of wrong doing by the Sri Lankan government.
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Great article, Andrew. There’s a lot of alarmist rhetoric out there about a “surge” in the number of boat arrivals this year, with all the usual water metaphors (tidal wave, tsunami, flood, swamped etc). The truth is that, even accounting for recent increased numbers, they represent a miniscule percentage of the world’s displaced people.
Of the 32.2 million people worldwide uprooted by conflict or persecution and listed by the UN High Commission for Refugees as “people of concern”, only about 1 in every 25,000 (0.004 percent) have chosen to arrive in Australia by boat in 2009. How does that constitute a “flood”?
The Australian government has been found to be in breach of international law – both the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Refugees. This includes the continuing practice of detaining asylum seekers.
Under Howard’s government, policies regarding refugees were stringent. Since Rudd’s abolishment of temporary protection visas, there has been significant improvement, but the fact is that asylum seekers (including children) are still being kept in detention camps. The political and public debates on this issue are often about a perceived threat to Australia’s security rather than the human rights of these people and the situations that are leading them to flee their homelands.
Despite lobbying by organizations such as Amnesty International and the Refugee Council of Australia, media coverage tends to portray refugees in a negative light by focusing on ‘people smugglers’ rather than the people exploited by them. Definitions used in the media also in effect de-humanise asylum seekers, for example by referring to them with terms like ‘boat people’ and ‘illegal immigrants’.
Chris Evans, Minister for the Dept of Immigration and Citizenship, mentions the ‘forgotten refugees’ and the commitment of Australia to accepting refugees from Africa and Middle East regions. There is no mention of the situation in Sri Lanka. This could be due to the lack of media reporting and of public campaigning. Evans has stated that “the size and composition of Australia’s humanitarian program is guided by the UNHCR’s world resettlement priorities and the views of the Australian community.”
If Australians are not receiving unbiased media reflecting the problems facing Sri Lanka then they are unlikely to bring this issue to the government’s attention. The consequence is a humanitarian program without significant assistance to Sri Lankan people, despite an urgent need for humanitarian aid. It should not be underestimated how essential public debate and activism is to political decision making regarding human rights issues.
Public debate about ‘illegal immigrants’ seem to be related to fear of the minority seeking entry to Australia who are criminals rather than concern for the majority who are genuine refugees suffering persecution.
The use of metaphors such as ‘swamped’, ‘flood’ etc is misleading. It’s interesting to note that these words seem to be used in place of actual statistics including the numbers of refugees in other countries in comparison to Australia. This makes it difficult for Australians to see our situation from its’ global context.
If news media provided more in-depth coverage on the current situations overseas then the public would be more informed of the horrific circumstances the people find themselves in and hopefully more sympathetic towards those seeking asylum.
The Australian-Tamil Rights Advocacy Council was established in Victoria in response to concerns that the new anti-terror legislations would lead to discrimination (such as racial profiling) in the Australian Tamil community. One of the Council’s objectives is to participate in law reform campaigns. In 2007 the council lodged a submission to the parliamentary joint committee on intelligence and security.
The Australasian Federation of Tamil Associations (AFTA) has spoken out regarding the ‘resettlement’ of IDPs (internationally displaced persons).They have called for the Australian and New Zealand media to make the public aware of the realities of their situation. The media is a powerful forum for advocates of human rights. Whose stories are being told and how they are told can make a considerable difference in public perception.
Those in the health and human services sectors see first-hand the effects on refugee communities. If more organisations in this field were to collaborate with refugee advocacy groups, it would strengthen the opportunities for social change and reform of policies that have proved to be discriminatory towards refugees.
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