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Can we retrieve our moral values?

By Duncan Graham - posted Thursday, 18 February 2016


Those escaping Iran and Iraq are either Christian or Shia Muslim. Indonesia is overwhelmingly Sunni and intolerant of what it calls 'deviant sects'.

There's already been conflict – eight died in a 2013 brawl in a centre funded by Australia. There have been reports of brutality and fighting on Nauru and Manus, though nothing on this scale

According to Monash University anthropologist Dr Antje Missbach, whose book Troubled Transit looks at the situation in Indonesia, there's little chance the country's present administration will ratify the Refugee Convention.

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Missbach writes that Jakarta fears 'Australia could then designate Indonesia as a safe first country and return people there, which Indonesia wants to avoid more than anything else.' If correct then reassuring our neighbour that these concerns are groundless could shift another obstacle.

Indonesia's concession could be to tighten border controls and vigorously pursue corrupt immigration officials and police who help the people smugglers.
There's been loose talk in Jakarta about using an island. In the 17 years from 1979 around 250,000 mainly Vietnamese refugees lived on Galang near Singapore until resettled. The Indonesian camp was run by the UNHCR. It is now empty.

Unfortunately the apparent deterrent success of the Pacific Solution has reduced the urgency to find a better way. The moral pressures being applied by medical professionals, churches and others are commendable, but a spit in the wind of intolerant opposition.

Unless they propose real alternatives acceptable to most Australians, banner wavers do little more than encourage the idle human traffickers in Indonesia to think business might pick up soon. Better to lobby the Bali Processors to confront their responsibilities and find that elusive regional solution.

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About the Author

Duncan Graham is a Perth journalist who now lives in Indonesia in winter and New Zealand in summer. He is the author of The People Next Door (University of Western Australia Press) and Doing Business Next Door (Wordstars). He blogs atIndonesia Now.

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Creative Commons LicenseThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

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