REFUGEE

More than 300 desperate Tamil refugees are being refused asylum by the Australian authorities, with the connivance of the Indonesian authorities. While governments leave these people in a terrible state, workers in Australia and Indonesia have expressed support and solidarity. Join themIn the wake of the most brutal military offensive against the Tamils this year, hundreds of thousands of Tamil people were displaced from their homes and quarantined in “concentration camps” across Sri Lanka. There are 32 such camps in Vavuniya alone which are home to more than 160,000 Tamil refugees. In total, there are about 300 thousand Tamils who have been detained in these camps since the military offensive against the Tamil Tigers ended in May.

The condition of these camps is dire. Amnesty International said that the camps “are run by the military and the camp residents are prevented from leaving them... Displaced people have even been prevented from talking to aid workers. With no independent monitors able to freely visit the camps, many people are unprotected and at risk from enforced disappearances, abductions, arbitrary arrest and sexual violence.”

Hundreds of Tamil refugees in desperation, trying to escape this inhumane condition, have risked their lives on the high seas by boat to seek asylum in Australia. For weeks, more than 250 Sri Lankan Tamils have been stranded in a boat in Merak, Indonesia. Another 68 remain on the Australian customs ship Oceanic Viking off Tanjung Pinang, Indonesia. Their boat was intercepted by the Indonesian government on its way to Australia after the Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd phoned the Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono urging his government to prevent the boat from reaching Australia.

The Rudd government has been refusing to grant asylum to these oppressed Tamils and the Indonesian government has played a role as their border guard. However, the Australian workers have shown a totally different attitude; Australian seafarers, miners and wharfies donated $10,000 to the refugees, showing working class solidarity to their brothers and sisters. The Indonesian workers have also shown their solidarity as KASBI (Confederation Congress of Indonesian Union Alliance), one of the trade union federations in Indonesia, has organised a campaign to help the plight of these asylum seekers.

Below we publish a joint statement by a number of organizations across Indonesia, Malaysia, and Australia condemning this inhumane treatment of the Tamil asylum-seekers and demanding their asylum rights to be recognized. Militan, a socialist organization in Indonesia, fully supports this joint statement and the demands it carries.

We also publish here an appeal by the 255 Tamil asylum-seekers who have been stranded in Merak, Indonesia for weeks.