People smuggling

a tale of two attempts at freedom by one person
as told by AB to Grace Gorman

Algeria is a scary country. Michael Palin didn't like it. In his TV series, Around The World in 80 Days, Algeria was the only place where Palin said he felt really uncomfortable and unsafe, and couldn't get out of it fast enough.

I came to know AB while he was trapped in Port Hedland immigration detention centre between 1998 and 2002, during which time he told me his entire story.

He grew up in Algeria to be politically active, intensifying his activism in 1991 when the Algerian political situation became tense and unpleasant. An Islamic group was scheduled to win the next election, so the military intervened and the election was cancelled.

After security police had killed a friend and thrown his body into the street, another friend told AB if he went back to work he would be in danger, too.

“For what happened I must go out from my country, and with help from husband of my sister I was able to go to Tunisia. He gave bribe and I was able to go out.”

The first attempt

“When I arrived in Indonesia the first time I didn’t know anything about Australia, or that smugglers went there, but some people encouraged me to make this dangerous attempt. Before taking that route, I took my passport to the Australian embassy but they refused to give me a visa.”

This first attempt failed because the captain of the smuggle boat was either incompetent, or had no regard for his passengers and just wanted their money. They thought they were heading for Christmas Island, but AB thinks the captain didn’t know where that was. When it became clear they were “lost”, the captain and his crew

• stole money and clothing from their exhausted and unconscious passengers,
• emptied spare fuel from the jerry cans so they could use them as floaters for swimming a longer distance,
• slipped off the boat under cover of night,
• and abandoned their human cargo, leaving them out at sea, unaware of their situation until the morning.

“Another asylum seeker in our group woke us all up, and everyone was shocked because the crew had left the fishing boat.”

AB and his fellow passengers then took control of the boat themselves and headed for any beach they could see, which turned out to be Indonesia.

“After six days in the Indian Ocean we had finished all our food and water, but with luck we were able to return to Indonesian shores on the seventh day at 3am.

We stayed in the boat until daylight, when someone in our group piloted the boat to a point about 300m from the beach, when everyone jumped into the water and tried to swim to the beach. Many people lost their luggage and their money. I was able to swim with my CD player bag, with my passport and everything, but the Indonesians had already called the police and we were taken to detention.

The UNHCR process of determining our refugee claims was very slow. It seemed they forgot us. So 11 asylum seekers from different countries did a protest in UNHCR headquarters quite successfully. Our aim was to bring attention to the dangerous situations. I had opportunity to have a TV interview, and I spoke about dangerous situation in Algeria, and about civil war and dictatorial regime.

Then Algerian embassy agents came to know we had made a protest and had interviews with media, so they began to follow us quietly and closely, and this created great shock and fear.

We found Indonesia now an unsafe place for us. We all knew in that time Algerian secret agents could do anything to us, and nobody would know who did it. Everywhere fighting in Jakarta and most of Indonesia.”

Conditions in Indonesia were chaotic at that time. Soeharto was about to topple, and there was rioting in the streets because of the Indonesian people’s anger with Soeharto. UNHCR’s Indonesia office was under serious pressure because heaps of people were trying to get out.

“Therefore I couldn’t wait UNHCR decision on my case and I wanted to flee from Indonesia and arrive in Australia to safety.

Before our departure from Indonesia we asked UNHCR if it could find a third country, and we explained in detail the security issue and our fear, but we didn’t get any proper or practical response to our concern.”

Attempt Number Two

“Before the sun went down the waves became big like mountains. The weather and the sky start to become black, and start raining and wind became strong. Then the driver lost the way. Thunder and lightening and black sky. The driver say, “Pray to God, please help us,” and everybody start to pray, “Oh, my God, help us. Oh, my God, help us,” About 3 or 4am then start to become a little more normal. We are in middle of the ocean, surrounded by water, and the water was good, there was no big wave, and a crew member start fishing and catch tuna, and cooked it in the boat, and gave us to eat.

About 10am a crew member went high up in the boat and could see island, Ashmore Reef.

When we arrived there we got in dinghy. The water is very clean and clear. Then he took us, two by two to the beach. After we arrive to beach we start to swimming, and there is pump for water. After we finished, we got shower.

Then we speak with this captain, and say to him, “You cannot leave us on this island alone. Maybe Australian coast guard plane does not come to see us on this island. We cannot stay here alone.” He say, “No problem, I can stay with you,” and he stay there two days.

At high tide, we took sea weed and the captain showed us how to cook it with rice.

In the morning we start to go around this Ashmore Reef island. In the night we saw turtles come to put their eggs, maybe 10. Then Captain put some branch, here there is egg, took out these eggs and he make fire and start to boil water and put in eggs. After 20 minutes, eat the eggs. Then he ask us, is good, try. Different from chicken eggs. Strong taste. Very different.

In the morning we saw plane coming, and we wrote on the beach, “Please help us, SOS.”

Then Captain say, “I want to go now. If Australian coastguard catch me, I go to jail.” Then we give him everything, clothes and money, and after he leave the island, Australian coastguard took us two by two to the big naval vessel.

Then we find ourselves in Port Hedland – another Hell.

So the first smuggler was a criminal, and the second was a humanitarian.