Article en anglais
| publié le 16 mars 2004 |
The Age 6/3/04
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/03/05/1078464638768.html.
By Orietta Guerrera
Canberra
Australia will be able to continue using Nauru to house asylum seekers under a new $22.5 million agreement signed by the two governments.
Foreign Minister Alexander Downer yesterday said the Federal Government would provide extra assistance to the island nation to help tackle growing financial and law and order crises.
Under the agreement, Australia will be able to continue sending asylum seekers to Nauru to be processed until at least June next year. It will also provide the island with a finance secretary, to assess the nation’s net assets, and a police commissioner.
Opposition immigration spokesman Stephen Smith called for the Government to disclose the terms and conditions of the extra money.
« Labor wants to ensure that any additional financial aid and assistance the Government has promised is not conditional to Nauru’s involvement in the Howard Government’s so-called Pacific Solution,« he said.
Nauru has been able to continue functioning only thanks to $30 million in Australian payments for maintaining detention camps there for the past two years as part of the Pacific Solution. Meanwhile, Immigration Minister Amanda Vanstone said the arrival of 15 suspected asylum seekers on Ashmore Reef confirmed the merit of the Government’s policy of excising many surrounding islands from Australia’s migration zone.
The identity and intention of the nine women and six men, who were detected on the island by customs on Thursday afternoon, was still unclear yesterday.
A spokesman for Senator Vanstone said some of the people had admitted paying up to $1000 to be dropped off in Australia.
Customs officials continued to interview them while bad weather delayed the arrival of one of two navy patrol boats on their way to the island.
The arrivals can be processed offshore and will not have access to Australian courts because Ashmore Reef was excised from the zone in 2001. Senator Vanstone said this showed the policy worked and should be extended.
« If it turns out they were trying to enter Australia without proper authority, it will confirm the merit of excising islands from the Australian migration zone,« she said on ABC radio.
This week’s boat arrival was the first since November last year, when a small fishing vessel carrying 14 Kurds from Turkey, landed on Melville Island.
Howard Glenn, executive director of the refugee advocacy group A Just Australia, called for the latest arrivals to be brought to the mainland to be assessed.
