Plan to resettle refugees in Cambodia collapses

Refugees at Kuala Lumpur airport on their way to Cambodia from Nauru. Photo: Kevin Ponniah

August 30, 2015

Lindsay Murdoch

South-East Asia correspondent for Fairfax Media

Australia's $55 million operation to resettle hundreds of refugees from the tiny Pacific island of Nauru to Cambodia appears to have collapsed in a diplomatic embarrassment for the Abbott Government.

A senior Cambodian official says the impoverished nation has no plans to receive any more than four refugees who arrived in Phnom Penh in June, and indicated it did not want any.

"We don't have any plans to import more refugees from Nauru to Cambodia," Interior Ministry spokesman Khieu Sopheak told the Cambodia Daily.

Australia's $55 million operation to resettle hundreds of refugees from the tiny Pacific island of Nauru to Cambodia appears to have collapsed in a diplomatic embarrassment for the Abbott Government.

A senior Cambodian official says the impoverished nation has no plans to receive any more than four refugees who arrived in Phnom Penh in June, and indicated it did not want any.

Illustration: Matt Golding.

"We don't have any plans to import more refugees from Nauru to Cambodia," Interior Ministry spokesman Khieu Sopheak told the Cambodia Daily.

"I think the less we receive the better," he said.

Under a controversial agreement with Australia the Cambodian regime has the right to decide how many refugees are resettled from Nauru.

The regime will pocket an additional $40 million in development aid from Australian taxpayers, no matter how many arrive in the country.

Additional operational costs, including providing health and education training for the first arrivals, has already topped a staggering $15 million, a Senate committee in Canberra has been told.

The Abbott government has a policy not to comment publicly on the Cambodian operation that has been condemned by Cambodian opposition parties, human rights and refugee advocate groups.

The first group of an Iranian couple, Iranian man and Rohingya man from Myanmar have been living in an Australian-funded luxury villa in a Phnom Penh suburb since they were on June 4 whisked through Phnom Penh airport to one of the world's poorest nations, where about 18 percent of the country's 15 million people survive on less than $1.22 a day.

Mr Khieu Sopheak told the Cambodia Daily the four were "enjoying their life" in Cambodia.

But they have not spoken publicly since their arrival, shielded by officials from the International Organisation for Migration which received an undisclosed amount of money from Australia for taking care of the group.

The four are receiving benefits that millions of Cambodians can only dream about, including their own "case manager", accommodation, training, help finding work, language tuition and health insurance.

Some had their applications for refugee status fast-tracked when they agreed to take a one-way flight to Cambodia.

However, refugee advocates say attempts to convince hundreds more refugees on Nauru to take-up the offer in June, July and August failed to obtain any more applicants.

A shipping container on the island was set-up as a "Cambodian Information Hub" and refugees and asylum seekers were told they should take-up the offer because they would not be allowed to live in Australia.

A spokesman for Immigration Minister Peter Dutton said the  government has been clear since day one that people who have arrive illegally by boat will not be settled in Australia.

"The Government continues to work with Cambodia and other partners, including source countries, to facilitate the return or placement of people on Nauru and Manus Island," he said.

Australia's foreign minister Julie Bishop said in Malaysia earlier in August that Australia expected more refugees to resettle in Cambodia under the agreement.

Since Australia's then Immigration Minister Scott Morrison signed the deal with Cambodia in a champagne-sipping ceremony in September last year the Abbott government has moved closer to the regime of strongman prime minister Hun Sen, despite his crackdown on opposition figures, dissidents and non-government-organisations in the country.

Cambodia's foreign minister Hor Namhong is scheduled to be welcomed in Canberra in September ahead of a scheduled visit by Mr Hun Sen in December.

For more than 30 years Mr Hun Sen, a former commander of the murderous Khmer Rouge in the 1970s, has used persecution, violence, repression and corruption to remain in power, human rights groups say.

Mr Hun Sen and about 20 of his closest associates have amassed billions of dollars in personal wealth, prompting Cambodia to be ranked near the bottom of Transparency International's index of 175 nations.

Billions of dollars in foreign development has rarely trickled down poor Cambodians, observers in the country say.

Groups including the Cambodian Centre for Human Rights and Cambodian League for Promotion of Defence and Human Rights have told the United Nations they are "deeply concerned" about systematic human rights violations in Cambodia as the regime in Phnom Penh has restricted freedom of expression, peaceful assembly and association and limited the political opposition's ability to meaningful engage in policy making.

"There has been an increase in the use of lethal and other excessive force against peaceful protests and occasionally violent social unrest, as well as instances of judicial harassment and unwarranted legal attacks against human rights defenders, community activists, trade unionist and political opposition members and their supporters," the groups told the Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council on August 20.

The UN refugee agency has refused to play any role in the resettlement scheme, saying it was "deeply concerned" at the precedent set by Cambodia's agreement with Australia.