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Receiving Afghanistan's Asylum Seekers FMR 13 19 Receiving Afghanistan’s asylum seekers: Australia, the Tampa ‘Crisis’ and refugee protection by William Maley n 22 January 2002, the announced that the government of the National Party, which made up the Chairman of the government- tiny Pacific nation of Nauru, a state country’s ruling coalition, and the O appointed Council for not party to the 1951 Convention, had opposition Australian Labor Party – Multicultural Australia, Neville Roach, agreed to the processing of asylum and it was left to minor parties, such resigned his position. In a newspaper claims on its soil. Nauru’s agreement as the Australian Democrats and the article three days later, this prominent was secured with a large aid package, Greens, to proffer a more nuanced and highly-respected businessman including payment of the unpaid account of the factors underpinning explained why he had taken such a Australian hospital bills of certain forced migration to Australia. dramatic step, which made headlines Nauruan citizens. Nonetheless, there are a number of right around the country. "If an advis- implications of these events which er", he wrote, "is faced with a Buoyed by the outcome of the Tampa government that has locked itself into Affair and trumpeting the merits of Logo of refugee infor- a position that is completely inflexi- its ‘Pacific solution’ to the problem of mation organisation ble, the opportunity to add value uninvited asylum seekers, the Howard reminding all non- disappears". The asylum seeker con- government was returned to office in indigenous troversy, he went on, "has a general election in November 2001. Australians that they unquestionably done serious damage The government’s nationalistic too are boat people. to Australia’s multicultural fabric". election campaign was dominated by He appeared particularly distressed at denunciations of ‘people smuggling’, the perverse operation of Australia’s assertions that it alone would deter- new ‘Temporary Protection Visa’ mine who could enter Australia, regime for refugees who had arrived uncorroborated insinuations that ‘ter- without documentation, and argued rorists’ might be seeking to enter that "compassion seems to have been Australia by boat in the guise of thrown out the door". refugees, and ministerial allegations (grudgingly retracted after the elec- The context of this blast was the tion) that certain ‘boat people’ had furore which resulted from the so- sought to throw their children into called ‘Tampa Affair’, an episode the sea as a way of engaging deserve to be highlighted as part of which exposed a range of important Australia’s protection obligations the ongoing debates over refugee pro- tensions in the international refugee under international law. Seeking to tection, durable solutions to refugee protection regime. In August 2001 the link itself to the US ‘War on problems and the nature and content Norwegian freighter MV Tampa res- Terrorism’ in the wake of the 11 of state sovereignty. cued a large group of refugees, the September attacks, the government bulk of them of Afghan Hazara origin, even committed Australian ground Domestic politics from a sinking vessel in the waters troops to support the campaign in between Indonesia and Australia. With Afghanistan against Osama Bin One danger is that developed coun- an eye to the opinion polls, the Laden’s al-Qa’ida and the Taliban. tries may seek to use refugee Australian government under Prime The irony of its joining an attack on resettlement as a means of evading Minister John Howard had sought to the Taliban while anathematising their specific refugee protection deny the Tampa permission to enter refugees fleeing from Taliban-domi- responsibilities. Australia ratified the Australian territorial waters, a move nated territories was largely lost on 1951 Convention in 1954 and its 1967 hauntingly reminiscent of the June the Australian public, although not Protocol in 1973. The key obligations 1939 rejection by Cuba of Jewish on all observers. under these instruments relate to refugees on the St Louis, a vessel sub- refugees who arrive in the territory of sequently forced to return to Europe – The difficulties of the situation in a party to the Convention, irrespective the so-called ‘Voyage of the Damned’. Afghanistan and the dire circum- of their means of arrival. The resettle- Fearing for the well-being of the 434 stances which may have prompted ment of refugees from other rescued persons aboard, the Tampa’s asylum seekers to have recourse to territories is a voluntary measure captain sailed into Australian waters the services offered by people smug- which states may undertake but is around Christmas Island only to have glers received scant attention from not an obligation of parties to the his vessel boarded by Australian com- Australia’s mainstream political Convention itself. Yet the Australian mandos. After a standoff, it was parties – the Liberal Party and the government repeatedly sought to 20 Receiving Afghanistan’s asylum seekers: Australia, the Tampa crisis and refugee protection FMR 13 justify its actions by describing those Domestic political considerations can The second observation is that the who arrived with the help of smug- all too easily overwhelm international claim that the ability to control popu- glers as ‘queue jumpers’ who by their obligations when the two appear to lation movements is an essential, actions had compromised Australia’s conflict sharply, and the prospects of sovereign state capacity is ahistorical, ability to help the ‘neediest’ refugees. short-term gains are likely to prove especially if one traces the origins of The claim was spurious on three alluring, even when long-term costs the modern state system to the Peace grounds. may be considerable. The UN High of Westphalia of 1648. Passports and Commissioner for Refugees, Ruud visas are markedly more recent in First, the government was able to Lubbers, warned against this: "Asylum provenance and cannot claim the commit itself to making available the seekers have become a campaign sanctification of use since time same number of notional places to issue in various recent and upcoming immemorial. Just as visa controls UNHCR for refugee resettlement, election battles, with governments were used in the 1930s in an attempt namely 4,000, as in previous years; and opposition parties vying to to block movements of European Jews cuts in the numbers of humanitarian appear toughest on the ‘bogus’ asy- from Germany and other states resettlement visas – cuts driven by lum seekers ‘flooding’ into their threatened by Nazism, so visa con- budgetary priorities but ultimately of countries ... Genuine refugees should trols in more recent years have been a discretionary character – were not not become victims yet again. Surely, used to block Afghans from making made in refugee places. This was there are other ways to win elections." asylum applications in Western coun- scant comfort to Afghans, since an Discussing Australia’s attempts to tries, forcing them to use the services ordinary Afghan’s chance of even exclude ‘boat people’, he pointedly of people smugglers. securing an interview with one of observed that we need to "go for the UNHCR’s overworked protection offi- law and not the law of the jungle". Furthermore, paranoia over ‘people cers in Pakistan was extremely slim, smuggling’, whether at mass or élite but it showed that the claim that ‘boat Sovereignty and paranoia level, can prompt countermeasures people’ were hurting ‘needier’ people which are arguably more degrading was hollow. Cuts came in the so-called Claims of sovereignty can all too easi- for a liberal democracy than any steps Special Humanitarian Programme, for ly be used as a rhetorical device to which smugglers might take. They which applicants require sponsors in minimise the force of international also involve a high degree of Australia but need not be Convention obligations. Here, there are two broad hypocrisy for, as Sir Michael Dummett refugees. observations which are of some has recently argued, the "combination pertinence. of harsh laws to restrict immigration Second, because the Hazaras (a Shiite and the drastic measures to prevent minority which had long experienced Committing one’s state to observe refugees from arriving frequently discrimination and was viciously per- certain norms of international law is means that people fleeing terrifying secuted by the Taliban) were itself a manifestation of sovereign or intolerable conditions have no under-represented in Australia’s capacity. For this reason, Australia’s other way of escaping: the blame for Afghan community, they were particu- responsibilities under the 1951 the existence of these reviled traffick- larly poorly placed to secure Convention (and indeed those of any ers in human beings lies largely with sponsorships and were thus effective- state under any treaty or convention the governments that have erected the ly denied access to the Special which it voluntarily accepts) are not a barriers the traffickers are helping Humanitarian Programme. It is no limitation of its sovereign capacities frightened people to circumvent." wonder that they made up the majori- but rather a reflection of sovereign Australia’s policy of mandatory deten- ty of Afghan boat arrivals and that capacity in action. Nor is it a valid tion for undocumented arrivals has the vast majority were found to be claim that the Convention is not seen refugees from Afghanistan held ‘Convention’ refugees. working in stressful conditions in remote camps (such as the notorious the resettlement programme offered not "a place as it was intended Woomera detention centre, in which in a queue but a ticket in a lottery" in 1951; most Afghans are held) where the the claim temperatures of the surrounding which this desert match the explosive power of argument masks is actually that more the mood of despair which dehumani- Finally, Australia’s ‘offshore’ resettle- people now fall within the definition sation and uncertainty can produce. ment programme was skewed to of refugee in the 1951 Convention match Australia’s interests rather than expected by those states which To deter other refugees from than those of needy refugees (even drafted it.
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