Australia: Closer cooperation with Indonesia key to stemming tide of asylum-seekers
April 30, 2009
As two more boatloads of asylum seekers were detained this week by Border Protection Command and the federal Opposition called for an inquiry into the sinking of the SIEV 36 off Ashmore Island on April 16, the challenge for Australia in responding to the recent surge in asylum seekers may not be a new Pacific Solution but an Indonesian solution.
This requires an acceptance that Australian and Indonesian border security are intertwined on this particular issue. Even before the SIEV 36 incident the Rudd Government increasingly was seeing Indonesia as key to any longer-term solution to shutting down people-smuggling within the region.
Australia cannot deal with the cross-border movement of asylum seekers alone. People-smugglers do not operate within Australia but beyond our borders. Stopping their operations in Indonesia is crucial to disrupting the flow of boats. While people-smuggling is a crime under Australian law, because the activity occurs offshore prosecutions can succeed only if the perpetrators are extradited to Australia to face trial.
The Australian
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