On April 29, PM Kevin Rudd announced an extra 450 troops would be sent to Afghanistan to participate in the latest US-led "surge".
As the brutal war of occupation continues in their homeland, more and more Afghans are fleeing the horrors it creates, hoping for refuge and a future elsewhere.
Some of them, having no other options, seek the services of what the Australian government calls "people smugglers". Refugees turn to these people in desperate times and place their lives in their hands because the alternative — to be returned home — is unthinkable.
Green Left Weekly rejects the term "people smugglers". Human beings are not illegal goods, to be "smuggled" from one part of the world to another.
In the absence of just, humane refugee policies that would allow refugees a safe journey to a new home, people with few other choices will continue to come to Australia in crowded, leaking boats.
Rudd has called "people smugglers" — those paid to help refugees escape from persecution — "the scum of the earth", and has said they should "rot in hell".
But as long as countries like Australia continue to participate in and support brutal imperialist wars like those in Afghanistan and Iraq, such services will be sought.
Rudd's attack on "people smugglers" is really just a thinly veiled attack on refugees.
There has been a global increase in refugees, especially from Sri Lanka and Afghanistan. Many of the asylum seekers recently coming to Australia have been fleeing these war zones.
At the same time as he sends more troops to Afghanistan and turns a blind eye to Sri Lanka's genocide of the Tamil people, Rudd refuses to take responsibility for the people whose suffering the Australian government has helped create.
Rudd's hypocrisy on refugees is killing people, as occurred on April 16 when a boat carrying Afghan refugees exploded near Ashmore Reef.
Five people were killed. Thirty-one were admitted to hospitals with serious burns and other injuries. Twenty-nine critically injured people were taken first to an oil rig, and then airlifted to hospitals on the Australian mainland.
Because they did not first "land" on Australian territory, those 29 people will be denied their right to claim refugee status in this country.
The reason these people can be denied their basic rights is because the oil rig was "excised" from the Australian mainland for immigration purposes by the previous Coalition government of John Howard. This policy violates international law. The refugees have a legal right to claim asylum here.
The infamous "children overboard" scandal, where the Howard government falsely accused refugees of throwing their children overboard, provoked outrage among many. It helped lead to a mass movement for refugee rights that swayed public opinion and forced the new Labor government to promise to end the detention of children.
Eight years later, a federal Labor government is continuing the Coalition's racist, anti-refugee policies. We need to harness that same outrage again.
The Australian government must bring all the troops home now — the majority of Australians want it to. It must also take a stand against the genocide taking place in Sri Lanka and pressure the Sri Lankan government for an immediate, lasting ceasefire.
Rudd must allow refugees to arrive in Australia, let them stay and help them to settle and rebuild their lives.
The areas excised by Howard must be brought back under Australian immigration law and the detention centres shut down.
As the government and corporate media try to whip up hysteria about a "surge" in asylum seekers coming to Australia, now is the time to counter their racism.
Those of us who — in very recent history — fought Howard's racist policies, must once more take a stand. Lives are depending on it.