http://www.theage.com.au/national/smugglers-profit-while-poor-pay-the-price-20100404-rlns.html
Smugglers profit while poor pay the price LINDSAY MURDOCH April 5, 2010 SIEV 36 just before the explosion that killed five people. POOR Indonesian fishermen duped into steering boats into Australian waters for people smugglers face up to 20 years jail - the equivalent of murder sentences. More than 150 Indonesian crewmen face charges that carry heavy penalties under anti-people smuggling laws that lawyers are criticising as unjust. The crewmen are recruited by ruthless people smugglers reaping millions of dollars for organising asylum seeker boats. None of the main organisers of 102 boats that have arrived in Australia since 2008 have been brought to justice. They have developed sophisticated tactics to avoid capture in Australia, including using a second, usually smaller and faster, boat to return to Indonesia to plan more smuggling trips. The Indonesian crewmen are usually paid only the equivalent of a few hundred dollars in Indonesian rupiah for taking a boat into Australian waters. They are told Australian authorities will take care of them - and will even pay them for each day they are detained - before quickly flying them back to Indonesia. The con is easily sold, because for years that is the way Australian authorities treated the crews of illegal Indonesian fishing boats. Lawyers say the Indonesians arriving in Australia on asylum seeker boats are shocked to learn that judges have no option under federal people-smuggling laws but to send them to jail for years. Suzan Cox, director of the Northern Territory Legal Aid Commission, told The Age that most of the people facing people smuggling offences and mandatory jail terms in Australia were not organising the boats. ''That's what we see as the injustice,'' Ms Cox said. ''They are poor fishermen with limited education who come from impoverished backgrounds.'' Mandatory sentencing did not make any allowance for the degree of a person's involvement. Indonesian crewmen should instead be charged with bringing boats illegally into Australian waters, she said. The federal government makes no distinction between crew and people smugglers. Last year, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said of the latter that they ''should all rot in jail because they represent the absolute scum of the earth''. Under the Migration Act, people convicted for a boat carrying five or more people face a maximum penalty of 20 years' imprisonment, a fine of $220,000, or both. The minimum sentence for first-time offenders is five years' jail with a three-year non-parole period. When he sentenced two Indonesian crewmen who were on SIEV 36, the boat on which five people died when it exploded near Ashmore Reef last year, Northern Territory Supreme Court judge Dean Mildren said he believed they did not deserve five years' jail. ''But for the mandatory minimum sentences I am required to impose, I would have imposed a much lesser sentence,'' Justice Mildren said. Organisers of the asylum-seeker boats have begun using sophisticated equipment and tactics. Last week, the 100th boat to arrive in Australian waters since the Rudd government came to power had GPS, satellite telephones and Australian mobile telephones on board, sources say. The boat landed undetected at Christmas Island and someone on board called the immigration detention camp office to pick them up. Two days later, someone on another boat called the Australian Federal Police when it was close to the island, asking for a boat to transfer them to the detention centre. Notorious people smuggler Abraham Lauhenaspessy - better known as Captain Bram - has evaded capture in Australia since he began organising asylum seeker boats in 2000. On October 12 last year, he turned a boat of 255 Sri Lankans away from Christmas Island into the path of an Indonesian navy vessel after he missed a rendezvous with a smaller boat he intended to transfer to. Lauhenaspessy, 47, knew if he was apprehended in Australian territory he would face a long jail sentence. He was freed on minor charges by an Indonesian court last month. Police suspect he is now organising more boats. The Sri Lankans have spent six months on their wooden boat at a port in West Java, refusing to get off because they fear they will have to wait years in Indonesia before resettlement in another country. They had paid Lauhenaspessy a total of $4.3 million. Mr Rudd defended his government's approach to asylum seekers at the weekend, saying their numbers would vary according to global conditions. He said migration levels were about the same under his government as they were under the Howard government. The prime minister denied that the Christmas Island detention centre was overcrowded after the arrival of the 34th boat so far this year. There are now 2067 people in the centre, which the Immigration Department previously said could accommodate 2040. Australian authorities have intelligence that people smugglers are planning for up to 70 more boats to make the risky journey to Australian waters in the next few months. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
