BY SARAH STEPHEN
The UN High Commission for Refugees on January 8 expressed the view that a significant proportion of asylum seekers being housed on the tiny Pacific island of Nauru will be found to be refugees, and that Australia has a special responsibility to resettle them. Immigration minister Philip Ruddock was outraged at the statement.
Ruddock rejected the argument that Australia has any special responsibility for detainees in Nauru who are found to be refugees. The UNHCR will ask other countries to assist in resettling the refugees, but it is likely to face difficulties convincing other countries to take them.
Many of the 1334 asylum seekers on Nauru and Papua New Guinea's Manus Island are awaiting a decision on their applications for refugee status. The first successful cases will be jointly announced by the UNHCR and the Australian government in January or February.
Ireland is the only country that has agreed to take refugees from Nauru, but will only take 50 of those originally rescued by the MV Tampa. New Zealand has granted refugee status to all but seven of the 131 asylum seekers from the Tampa which it took for processing in September.
Margaret Reynolds, president of United Nations Association of Australia, told Green Left Weekly that Australia has a moral responsibility for asylum seekers sent to Nauru and found to be refugees, emphasising that "any doubts about their 'validity' as asylum seekers have been quashed by rigorous assessment". She added that "Australia is a country which has the resources to absorb this group".
Max Lane, chairperson of Action in Solidarity with Asia and the Pacific (ASAP), agreed. "Australia has the same responsibility towards refugees as all the rich countries of the world", he said. "These are the countries that use the IMF and World Bank to wreak havoc on Third World economies. They create the desperate situations from which people flee. Australia has a responsibility to give the absolute maximum help."
Chris Chapman, spokesperson on immigration for the Victorian Greens, told GLW: "These asylum seekers were removed from Australian territorial waters, and as such they became our responsibility as soon as Australian forces took custody of them. To abandon these asylum seekers once they've been proven to be genuine refugees is a disgrace, and should leave all Australians feeling ashamed and outraged."
Ruddock is adamant that Australia will not take more than its "fair share". But what is a fair share?
Reynolds told GLW, "In terms of wealth and opportunity, Australia could increase its present refugee intake".
Chapman said the Greens also subscribe to this position. "Australia should accept all genuine asylum seekers, including those intercepted in Australian territorial waters. Ruddock has a point that all developed nations need to be taking responsibility for the world's 22 million refugees. But we need to define our 'fair share'. Should it be simply our share per capita, which would be about 60,000 of these 22 million refugees? The Greens would argue that we have a duty as a high-income nation to take in more refugees per capita than low-income nations such as Pakistan. Instead, Australia is one of the least generous, least compassionate high-income nations."
Dr Anthony Burke, lecturer in International Relations at Adelaide University and author of In Fear of Security: Australia's Invasion Anxiety, told GLW: "A fair share is to credibly and fairly assess all those who have sought asylum here. I think there is a fair expectation we should take all those with legitimate claims in Nauru and PNG."
Ruddock has argued that asylum seekers who come to Australia are not fleeing persecution but making a "lifestyle decision", because they leave what he describes as the "safety and security" of transit countries such as Iran, Pakistan and Indonesia.
"Refugees flee economic collapse, dictatorship and war not to find a 'transit' station for the rest of their lives", countered Lane. "They flee to find a new home. Every human being has a right to seek a safe and secure home, not a place on a waiting list. Ruddock has decreed that they have no right to a real home."
Chapman thinks Ruddock's is a morally bankrupt argument. "Most of the transit countries are not signatories to the [refugee] convention, whereas Australia is. Asylum seekers therefore have no reason to expect protection to be granted in these transit countries and have every right to continue until they reach a safe country that guarantees protection."
Burke added that none of the transit countries are willing, or able, to provide asylum to refugees. "Indonesia has over a million internal refugees and Iran and Pakistan as many Afghanis. Squalid refugee camps, and few rights to health services, education or employment do not constitute 'safety and security'."
From Green Left Weekly, January 16, 2002.
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