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Sri Lankan refugees on island of despairJewel Topsfield, Canberra |
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SIX weeks after Labor came to power promising to close the controversial detention camp on Nauru, 75 Sri Lankans remain stuck on the tiny island state even though they have been found to be genuine refugees.
The ALP said it would dismantle the "Pacific Solution", introduced after the Tampa crisis in 2001, under which asylum seekers intercepted before they reached the Australian mainland were processed on Nauru or Manus Island outside Australian law.
The Rudd Government moved quickly to give refugee status to seven asylum seekers from Burma's persecuted Rohingya minority who had been on Nauru since September 2006 and quietly resettled them in Australia just before Christmas.
But 75 Sri Lankan Tamils — who were found to be genuine refugees in September but were told by the former government they would not be allowed to resettle in Australia — remain stranded on Nauru.
Wicki Wickiramasingham, from the Tamil community in Melbourne, said the men were becoming increasingly frustrated.
"The boys don't know what's going on," Mr Wickiramasingham said. "When the Burmese came out to Australia, they were really worried why they had not been given the first chance because they were found to be refugees first."
The Tamils were treated like prisoners and were not permitted to leave the detention camp without a security guard even though they were genuine refugees, Mr Wickiramasingham said.
"I don't know why they haven't brought them to the mainland. The Government was telling us as soon as they came to power they would close down the centres of the Pacific Solution and make arrangements for these people to be settled down."
He said violence had escalated in Tamil areas in the north and east of Sri Lanka in the past month and the men struggled to make contact with their families from Nauru because the phone lines were often down.
The Sri Lankans were among 83 people picked up off northern Australia in February last year. One is in Perth after being treated for shrapnel wounds and another is having a refugee refusal decision reviewed. Six were charged over the sexual assault of a Nauruan woman and no decision has yet been made on their status.
An Immigration Department spokesman said the 75 who had been found to be refugees were being processed for relocation in Australia. "The processing is still taking place.
They got to Nauru after the Burmese, not before," the spokesman said, adding that he did not know when the processing would be completed.
David Manne, from the Refugee and Immigration Legal Centre, which is representing 27 of the men, urged the Government to take the "same commonsense and humane approach" as was taken with the Burmese.
"It's crucial that the unacceptable situation left by the Howard government, which was a nightmare with no end, is resolved promptly," he said. Sri
Lankan refugees desperate plea to Rudd
They are the remnants of the Howard government's much maligned Pacific Solution - 74 Sri Lankan refugees in limbo, waiting to begin new lives in Australia.
In his bid for government, Kevin Rudd committed to closing the detention centre on Nauru, the tiny island state that was enlisted by Australia to process boat people in the wake of the 2001 Tampa crisis.
Eighty three Sri Lankans - aged 18 to 28 - have been in detention since March, when the tiny fishing boat in which they hoped to reach the Australian territory of Christmas Island was intercepted by the Australian navy.
They thought their prayers were answered. Most - 74 - won refugee status in September after convincing Australian authorities they would almost certainly be executed if they returned to their homeland, where civil war has raged for 20 years. Now they wait, bored and unhappy.
On Tuesday, they will mark Christmas with a meal - the ironically named "coalition of cold cuts" - though the day will mean little to the mainly Hindu men.
What they desire is to celebrate their faith's January 14 sun festival - when a feast is held to mark the sun's importance in growing produce - in their new homeland.
And they hope Mr Rudd will make good his pledge to close the centre "as quickly as possible".
Kandha Thuraisingam, 18, was studying mathematics in Sri Lanka before he fled to the sea with his countrymen in a bid for freedom.
"Everyone told us a new government in Australia will be good for us. They said we would be able to lead a good life," he says.
But Mr Thuraisingam is tired: "This is not a life. We are just sitting, eating, sleeping. We are bored. We don't prefer this life to a new beginning."
And he is anxious: "What do you think Australians will think of us? Will they like us?"
Another refugee, Ronald Reagan, 26, left a fish transport business in his home city of Jaffna. Like many of the others, he lost friends and family to the violence that has torn Sri Lanka apart. He cannot go back.
More than 1200 asylum seekers - including 680 who were found to be genuine refugees - have been kept in the detention centre since it opened..
Lawyer David Manne, the director of Melbourne's Refugee and Immigration Legal Centre who is representing 27 of the remaining Sri Lankans, believes the Howard government "lost sight of the human face" when it instituted the Pacific Solution.
Leaving asylum seekers and refugees to languish in one of the world's poorest and smallest countries was "scandalous abuse and cruel indifference".
"All the evidence is that they had nowhere to hide. There is undoubtedly a clear-cut prospect they would be brutally executed by one or other of the warring parties if forced back there. That's why they were rightly recognised as refugees. "We want these people to come here quickly. There is no other viable solution. It is our basic obligation.
"They are likely to make a remarkable contribution to our society.
"Our country has been built on people from all corners of the globe wanting to live here and we are richer and stronger for it."
The refugees are looking for help to new Nauruan President Marcus Stephen, who toppled his predecessor, Ludwig Scotty, in a no-confidence motion on Wednesday.
So are the locals, many of whom will face ruin when the detention centre - estimated to generate at least $10million annually - is finally closed. |