Juffa slams Aussies for ‘neo-colonialist’ refugee deal Wire Radio Australia/PACNEWS Dec 21, 2014 via PNG Loop A provincial governor has launched a scathing attack on Australia’s “neo-colonialist” refugee deal with PNG, claiming it will foster social divisions and heighten security risks in the Pacific nation. “It’s very neo-colonialist of Australia to just come and say, ‘Look, here’s a bag of money. Accept what we’re telling you to do and we’ll give you this and that,’” Oro Governor, Gary Juffa told Radio Australia’s Pacific Beat program. “The message that it sends to the rest of the world and the Pacific is that we can be used as a deterrent factor. “We are basically allowing ourselves to grovel at the feet of Australian neo-colonialism.” Earlier this week, PNG announced that it had approved 50 refugee applications from the 1,000 asylum seekers detained on Manus Island, in line with an agreement made with former Labor Prime Minister Kevin Rudd in July 2013. At the time, Australia agreed to provide an extra $420 million (US$349 million) of aid funding to PNG over four years. Juffa accused the PNG government of “aiding and abetting … what I would call an international crime” by agreeing to a deal which he argues breaches Australia’s obligations under the Refugee Convention. He urged Port Moresby to “tell Australia that they should meet their international obligations as they signed up to do so in 1954,” he said. “What is the United Nations doing anyway? Why can’t they enforce that law, that agreement? Why can’t they say, ‘Look, this is not right. You cannot sub-contract your responsibilities to a developing country?’” ‘It’s going to create a lot of hostility.’’ Juffa said that PNG did not have the capacity to “screen” asylum seekers and warned that PNG risked similar incidents to the Sydney siege. “The person who committed those crimes where two innocent people were killed was an Iranian asylum seeker who was given refugee status,” he said. “Now if Papua New Guinea does not have the capacity to screen the type of individuals that we’re allowing into this country, then what guarantee is there that they will live a normal life and fit in and embrace the culture and so forth?” Juffa said he was not making a judgment of all asylum seekers. “It’s a given that perhaps 90 per cent are loyal, hardworking, honest, law-abiding citizens. But there is that 10 per cent that may cause problems,” he said. Under the agreement, Australia will provide support, through a service provider, to any refugees resettled in PNG. Refugees will receive training in English, the national language of Tok Pisin, and in understanding the PNG culture, according to the country’s Immigration Minister Rimbink Pato. They will also receive help to find jobs. Since violent riots on Manus Island in February left one asylum seeker dead and dozens injured, some asylum seekers have expressed fear about reprisal attacks. Juffa – a longstanding critic of the refugee deal – said that high levels of poverty among PNG locals could breed resentment of the refugees. “When they are settled here they are going to be cashed up, they are going to be given money,” he said. “How is that going to sit with the Papua New Guineans who are already significantly marginalised and who don’t feel that they are able to participate meaningfully in their own economy?” The governor also warned about the potential for religious tensions and “radicalism” in the country, where 96 per cent of the population are Christian. “It’s going to create a lot of hostility … They have different religious ideologies that may conflict with those that exist here already,” he said. “Look at what’s happening in the Middle East. Are there not instances of radicalism taking place right now? “Are there not instances where the Western nations are seeing their own citizens go to those countries to participate in these wars and all the social issues that come out of such situations?” Earlier this week, Foreign Minister Julie Bishop, who was in PNG for the annual Australia-Papua New Guinea Ministerial Forum, denied Australia had “traded” its right to criticise PNG’s government in return for its cooperation on asylum seekers. “I don’t believe that we have traded any rights in relation to this matter,” Bishop told the ABC on Tuesday. “The issue of boat people paying people smugglers to travel to Australia is a regional one. PNG is playing its part as part of the Bali Process [the regional co-operation framework on people smuggling]. “Under the Refugee Convention, ‘safe haven’ doesn’t mean you get to choose the economy or the nation where you want to end up.” The number of asylum seekers heading to Australia has slowed dramatically in the last year. Earlier this month, Immigration Minister Scott Morrison released a statement which read: “Ten of 11 full months of 2014 have passed without a successful people smuggling venture to Australia. Just one such venture has arrived this year – 128 days ago.”.
Posted on: Sun, 21 Dec 2014 10:32:23 +0000
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