Australia’s plan to use Timor Leste as a regional refugee processing center must be coordinated with Jakarta because travel to and from Timor Leste will pass through Indonesia’s land, sea and air territories, a Defense Ministry representative said Wednesday.
New Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard said in a speech Tuesday that she already spoke with Timor Leste President Jose Ramos-Horta and the United Nations about hosting a new regional asylum processing center in Timor Leste, which borders the Indonesian province of East Nusa Tenggara.
“In terms of security, we may have to work closely with Timor Leste authorities to manage the traffic and mobility of people because they will pass through our territory by land, sea and air on their way to and from Timor Leste,” said I Wayan Midhio, spokesman for the Defense Ministry.
He added that any discussion on security planning with Indonesia might come after Australia and Timor Leste finalized the plan.
Indonesia’s Foreign Ministry has reserved comment on Australia’s idea and said that they were not fully informed of the new proposal on refugee processing center.
“The plan was just announced Tuesday and we need some detail before we can respond,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Teuku Faizasyah said Wednesday.
Experts agree that a new refugee center in Timor Leste may increase the flow of illegal migrants into Indonesia because of lax border immigration control.
Jakarta has been under fire for sheltering thousands of refugees bound for Australia who were intercepted on the way to the country.
Faizasyah said he could not confirm whether Australia communicated its proposals on Timor Leste to Jakarta prior to Gillard’s announcement but added that Jakarta and Canberra have kept in close contact on the refugees issue under the Bali Process.
Indonesia and Australia co-chair the Bali Process group, which convenes representatives from more than 50 Asia-Pacific governments to discuss people smuggling, human trafficking and related transnational crimes in the region.
In her speech, Gillard expressed her appreciation of Indonesia’s cooperation during the Bali Process forum but did not discuss Jakarta’s potential role under the asylum proposal.
Faizasyah said lax immigration control along the Timor Leste-Indonesian border was a case of special circumstances intended to help border residents to travel between the two countries without strict document control. “These are traditional communities whose people have families on the border of Indonesia and so they have been allowed easy access,” he said.
Bassina Farbenblum, a lecturer at the University of New South Wales, said Gillard’s proposals were not specific and left unanswered questions on the future of asylum seekers, especially from Afghanistan, whose claims have remained frozen.
Canberra has suspended asylum claims from Afghanistan since April as it cited reports of security improvement in the war-torn country that would mean Afghans no longer need to escape abroad.
“What will happen to the people if they are found to be refugees. Will Australia accept them?,” she said in an email to The Jakarta Post.
Farbenblum added it would be difficult for Australia to shift responsibility for refugees to Canada or European countries, when those countries already received more asylum applicants.
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