A brief report, some explanation... Three days ago, the Australian Coastwatch signalled a nearby ship, the Tampa (Norwegian freighter), to assist a sinking vessel situated in international waters, located just outside of Australian waters, to the north. (The Tampa had just departed an Australian port, Freemantle, and was heading for Singapore.) The Tampa did so, and saved over 430 people from a small, extremely overcrowded boat that was taking on water. Those people had been making their way to Australia to seek asylum - most of them are from Afghanistan, some from Sri Lanka. The Captain of the Tampa (Arne Rennan), requested to land on Christmas Island, the closest destination, to disembark those who were rescued, many of whom he reported to be in a highly distressed state, some of whom were ill, several lapsing into unconsciousness... The Australian Government refused the Tampa's request to disembark the survivors on Christmas Island, insisting that the Tampa remain in international waters (or head for Indonesia), and that medical supplies and food would be sent to the ship on condition that it did so. The Australian Government have also been seeking to extend the practice of offshore detention camps in Indonesia. There are already a number of undocumented migrants, interned in Indonesia 'on Australia's behalf' - the Australian Government resources these camps, prefering internment offshore, and thereby even greater limits on asylum applications than already exist here. (Offshore imprisonment is nothing new for Australia: Australia was established in 1788 as a penal colony by the English Crown.) Three days after the salvage of the 430 people, no supplies had been sent to the Tampa, contrary to regular media reports suggesting otherwise. The Tampa is fitted for a passenger load of 40 people. The survivors have been sleeping in empty cargo containers on the deck of the ship. A hunger-strike ensued amongst the asylum seekers - the ship's crew convinced the women (some of whom are pregnant) and children to cease the hunger strike, but food supplies were low, as were medical supplies. The Prime Minister said in Parliament that doctors had ascertained that reports of the survivors being ill were "exagerated". It is very difficult to see how any doctor would come to a diagnosis by phone - at the time the PM made these claims in the Parliament, no doctor had set foot on the Tampa. On Wednesday morning, the Captain issued a mayday call and began moving the Tampa into Australian waters. The Australian Government refused the Tampa entry, and promptly sent in the SAS (armed forces) to board the ship. ** The most current news is as follows: The Tampa is located about 1 kilometre off Christmas Island in Australian waters. Pictures of the Tampa's deck show it ringed by SAS soldiers. Some of the survivors have threatened to jump overboard - speculation suggests that the SAS are there, and have ringed the deck, as much to prevent the ship moving any closer to disembark the survivors as they are to ensure that no one jumps overboard. The Tampa's Captain (and the Shipping Company which owns the freighter) is insisting that the law of the sea demands that an SOS be answered by those who are closest. Christmas Island residents' groups, trade unions and the local council have sent a letter to the Australian Prime Minister demanding that the Tampa be allowed to land there. **Why? Australia is caught in an election cycle. Federal elections are due in a few months, and all political statements are hyped with this in mind. How else, in the complete absence of significant political differences, do parties assert 'the national interest' other than by competing as to who is better at guarding 'the nation' from 'invasions'? For some time, but in particular around a fortnight ago, the Opposition Australian Labor Party increased to fever pitch its rhetoric of Australia's borders being assailed by gun-runners, drug-runners and (you guessed it) people-smugglers. They have a longstanding policy of militarising the border under one authority: the so-called Coastguard. The ALP managed to seed the media with reports which apparently illustrated that Australia's borders were under threat by criminal gangs, including a five page spread in the _Australian_ newspaper. Seeing an opportunity to show that they were 'in control', a boat floundering just outside Australian waters became the Liberal-National Government's big election pitch. They instructed an foreign ship to rescue the boat and did so before it entered Australian waters. There has been no assessment as to whether or not a ship from Christmas Island might have made it there quicker, for instance. Nor has there been any assessment of how long the Australian Government knew that the boat was in distress before making a decision to send out a call for a rescue. ** A footnote... It is worth re-stating that the current Australian policy of mandatory and extrajudicial internment of undocumented migrants was authored by the Labor Party in 1992. Therefore, claims that the current frenzy over the most recent lot of arrivals amounts to a Liberal-National Coalition chasing One Nation votes are wrong. The Liberal-National Coalition has always competed with the Labor Party as to who was most xenophobic; the Labor Party began the cycle of running for elections by scapegoating undocumented migrants way back in 1992; and more to the point, all this began well before One Nation had even emerged on the political landscape, that being 1996. The Labor Party has simply reverted to its historical preoccupation with the White Australia Policy, which it championed from its inception, and brought into being in 1901. A.M., Melbourne, August 29, 2001. ===== _________________________ xborder website: http://www.antimedia.net/xborder/ xborder email address: [EMAIL PROTECTED] _________________________ -- Leftlink - Australia's Broad Left Mailing List mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Archived at http://www.cat.org.au/lists/leftlink/ Sponsored by Melbourne's New International Bookshop Subscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=subscribe%20leftlink Unsubscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=unsubscribe%20leftlink
