BY PAUL BENEDEK
They sit just below Osama bin Laden on the "evil" ladder. They are subhuman, and a threat to "our" borders. They are the heinous creatures simply referred to as "people smugglers".
With increasing criticism of the federal government's scapegoating of desperate asylum seekers, the Australian government, with a pliant "opposition" has sought to create more demons — those that are involved in assisting refugees to come to Australia. But just who is to blame for the "people smuggling" trade?
Refugees fleeing terror, oppression and war will seek safety any way they can. For millions, this means risking their lives using transportation operated without government permission. As government-authorised methods of reaching safety have been dramatically reduced, more are forced into this option.
In Australia, the refugee intake has been cut from 20,000 (plus onshore arrivals) in the early 1990s to 12,000 (in total) in 2002. While more people are forced into becoming refugees than ever before, First World governments are offering less refugee places.
Even those who gain refugee status through the "proper channels" (applying at an embassy or United Nations High Commission for Refugees office) are often forced to risk the danger of unauthorised journeys because no country will assist them to resettle. Of those asylum seekers who tragically drowned when a ship sank en route from Indonesia to Australia in 2000, 24 had already gained refugee status but no country would accept them.
The term "people smuggler" is designed to conjure up images of evil operators transporting people against their will, bound and gagged. To smuggle is to "to import or export goods secretly" — but refugees are not goods, but human beings who make a conscious decision to seek refuge. They are not unwillingly taken.
"People smugglers" meet a powerful, driving need to escape persecution. Without them many asylum seekers would be dead. Would the government have charged and convicted those who assisted, for money, jews fleeing Hitler during World War II?
The "illegality" of "people smuggling" leaves refugees open to unscrupulous profiteers at the top, while many involved in the journeys are earning a living in one of the few ways available to them.
Some, however, are genuinely concerned for the welfare of refugees. An Iranian man in Melbourne recently gave humanitarian assistance to a handful of his friends to get to Australia. He probably saved their lives, yet he was charged with "people smuggling" — treated the same as the profit-making sharks.
But regardless of the varied motivations of "people smugglers", it is the First World governments' locked gates that drives refugees into their hands.
Yet in September the Australian government passed harsh anti-"people smuggling" laws with a mandatory term of five years jail for a first offence and seven years for subsequent offences. The penalties make no distinction between the sharks at the top of the operation and poverty-striken Indonesian fishers who can't make a living except to crew a boat full of asylum seekers.
The result of these laws? Refugees still flee war, persecution, rape and torture. But with increased penalties, there will be less crews willing to travel, and boats will be understaffed. Operators will want to risk less journeys, and so will cram more asylum seekers onto boats. Prices will rise, which won't stop refugees, but may force them to turn to prostitution or crime to raise the necessary money.
Ultimately, there will be more drownings and more deaths. It is a deadly policy decision.
Humane alternatives exist and have been used in the past. The Australian government could dramatically increase its intake of refugees, actively assisting them to resettle. This could easily be funded by diverting the millions it is currently spending on building detention centres on Pacific islands and maintaining mandatory detention in Australia.
But instead Prime Minister John Howard and minister for racism Philip Ruddock blame the "people smugglers", encourage xenophobia and racism and tighten the doors against Third World refugees.
Human rights supporters should point the finger directly at those to blame — an anti-refugee government — and demand it provide safe, free passage for all those seeking asylum, making private provision of refugee passage outmoded and unnecessary.
[Paul Benedek is a member of Free the Refugees campaign and the Sydney Central secretary of the Democratic Socialist Party.]
From 91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ Weekly, January 16, 2002.
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