A Change of Guard

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Friday 23 January 2015

Australia's refugee deal with Cambodia uncertain as almost all refuse offer

Even if no refugees are resettled, the agreement still commits Australia to pay an extra $40m in aid to Cambodia Nauru asylum seeker protest 
nauru asylum seeker protest
Families in the Nauru detention centre protest against Australia’s deal to resettle refugees in Cambodia. Photograph: Supplied


Australia’s controversial $40m deal to resettle refugees in Cambodia may founder because almost all are refusing to go.
All but three of the more than 200 refugees on Nauru refused to meet a delegation from the Cambodian government last week, and it appears uncertain whether even those three will agree to be moved.
Guardian Australia understands from a senior immigration department source that even if no refugees are resettled, the agreement still commits Australia to pay an extra $40m in aid to Cambodia, promised to Hun Sen’s government as a quid pro quo for agreeing to the deal.
“We have not decided yet,” Cambodia’s interior minister Sar Kheng told thePhnom Penh Post, when asked whether refugees would be resettled. “The principle remains, but whether they will come or not, we do not know.”
Kheng said government officials would travel to the Pacific island nation again – funded by Australia – in order to further pitch the resettlement deal.
“We are preparing our officials to visit [Nauru], but during the last visit only three refugees came to meet with our officials. The others refused to meet us, so we don’t know what to do. It’s still unclear whether the three who met us will come [to Cambodia] or not.”
Cambodia has been adamant that only people who volunteer to be moved will be resettled.
The deal to move refugees, who have been taken from Australia to Nauru, on to Cambodia to be resettled has been mired in controversy since it was first announced last February.
The deal was inked in September, but many of the details are still unknown or unclear. It was originally slated, by former immigration minister Scott Morrison, to resettle 1,000 refugees, but the forecast number has since been reduced.
Australia has pledged to provide refugees with settlement support for 12 months, including basic needs and daily subsistence, language and vocational training, education in local schools, and health services.
Australia has promised an additional $40m in aid over four years to Cambodia for taking responsibility for the refugees from Australia. Australia is already providing $79m in aid to Cambodia this financial year. The additional $40m does not appear to be contingent on the number of refugees accepted, if any.
Cambodian officials have been mum on the specifics of the $40m and what it is intended for. A request was left for further information with the Australian embassy in Phnom Penh.
The office of the immigration minister, Peter Dutton, did not return calls on the matter on Thursday. A spokeswoman for his department pointed Guardian Australia towards earlier statements from the minister, in which he described his discussions with Cambodia as “very productive”.
“They are a very significant partner for us, they are very credible to deal with,” he said. He did not discuss the additional payments to Cambodia.
Critics of the deal, including human rights groups in Cambodia, argue the developing nation is poorly suited to accept and support refugees. Cambodia remains one of the most deeply corrupt nations on earth (156th on the Transparency International list of 175 countries) and has, according to Human Rights Watch, “a terrible record for protecting refugees and is mired in serious human rights abuses”.
In five years of processing a small number of refugees, Cambodia has not resettled a single one.
In addition to the more than 200 people recognised as refugees, nearly 900asylum seekers remain in immigration detention on Nauru, awaiting assessment.
Elsewhere in Australia’s immigration detention system, several hundred detainees are still on hunger strike on Manus Island. Almost all detainees held in Foxtrot camp have been refusing food and water for several days. More men in the compound collapsed on Thursday and were taken for medical care. Two men who attempted to commit suicide on Wednesday afternoon remain on the island, under supervision.
Video and pictures of the men – which Guardian Australia has chosen not to publish – show other detainees restraining the men and intervening to stop them.
“The situation is very awful, all of us hunger strike,” one detainee told Guardian Australia.
Up to 40 detainees are in Lorengau jail. They have not been charged with any offence, according to PNG police.
On 2UE radio on Thursday afternoon, the immigration minister said the government’s commitment to offshore processing and resettlement would not be swayed by protests.
“They will not be coming to Australia, that’s the very firm message – if they riot, if they act in a way that would not be acceptable in Australian society, that will not change their outcome,” he said.
Dutton said a change to government policy would reopen routes to Australia by boat. “We are not going to allow the people smugglers to reignite their business.”
Dutton’s allegation that some of the protesters on Manus were armed has been consistently denied by detainees, and also contradicted by a PNG government spokesman, who told the ABC the men were not carrying weapons, only that some weapons were found on a later sweep of Delta compound.
“Obviously, some of the information I received by way of intelligence reports is not publicly disclosed,” Dutton said. “I think the PNG authorities are doing a good job on the ground. They dealt with this incident in a short period of time, there were a number of ringleaders, taken into police custody.”
  • The number of refugees on Nauru was amended in this article on 23 January after updated information was received.

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