Indonesia Finds Asylum-Seekers ‘Turned Back’ by Australia

Jakarta Globe – AFP, May 06, 2014

A group of 21 Sri Lankan asylum seekers rest on their wooden boat on arrival
at a port in Malang, East Java, in this file photo. (AFP Photo/Aman Rochman)

Jakarta. The Indonesian navy has found 19 asylum-seekers who say they were turned around trying to reach Australia in the latest tow-back of a vessel under Canberra’s hardline policies.

The news came just days after Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott abruptly cancelled a visit to Indonesia that had been viewed as a bid to thaw ties damaged by Canberra’s border protection policies and a row over spying.

Reports at the time said he axed the trip to the resort island of Bali, where he had been due to meet Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, over fears an ongoing turn-back operation could inflame tensions.

The Indonesian navy said that it had found a boat with would-be refugees stranded on Lay island in East Nusa Tenggara (NTT) province, in eastern Indonesia, early Sunday.

All the passengers were male, with 15 from India, two from Nepal and two from Albania, said a statement from the navy released late Monday.

The navy said that based on testimony from the crew, the boat started sailing from central Sulawesi island on April 26 and managed to enter Australian territorial waters on Thursday.

“At midnight [on Thursday], the boat was checked by two Australian warships… the boat was later escorted towards Indonesian waters,” the navy said.

Abbott’s office has declined to go into the reasons for putting off the visit to Indonesia.

It would have been his first since damaging revelations in November that Australian spies attempted in 2009 to tap the phone of Yudhoyono, his wife and inner circle.

Jakarta reacted furiously to the news, recalling its ambassador and halting cooperation in key areas including defense and people-smuggling. Tensions were further inflamed by Canberra’s military-led crackdown on asylum-seekers making their way to Australia by boat from Indonesia.

The crackdown, named “Operation Sovereign Borders”, involves Australian vessels turning back asylum-seeker boats to Indonesia when it is safe to do so.

There have also been reports that Canberra has purchased orange lifeboats to send back asylum-seekers if their own vessels are deemed unseaworthy.

In February two boatloads of asylum-seekers washed up in southern Indonesia in orange lifeboats, saying they had been transferred to the vessels by Australian authorities before being turned around.

Agence France-Presse

File photo taken on Februay 8, 2014 shows a now-empty Australian lifeboat,

 which carried asylum seekers turned back by the Australian navy, docked at

western Java island (AFP/File, Timur Matahari)

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