The Big Con. In November 2013, American writer Luke Mogelson and Dutch photographer Joel Van Houdt gave the first account of what boat people go through to reach Australia. Mogelsons and Van Houdts journey began in Afghanistan, where Mogelson lives. No people smugglers would agree to take journalists, so they masqueraded as asylum seekers. They were white, so they pretended to be Georgians with sensitive information about their governments activities in the 2008 war. In the event of a search, this explained their possession of cameras and recorders. An Afghan colleague pretended to be a local schemer and contacted another Afghan in Jakarta, a people smuggler known as Hajji Sahib. He agreed to provide them passage from Indonesia to Christmas Island for the discounted fee of $4000 each. After flying to Jakarta, they were taken to the 23rd storey of a tower block on the northern edge of the city. Here they lived in a flat with an Iranian man, his eight-year-old son and six-year-old daughter. About 30 more asylum seekers lived in these flats. Most were not Afghans but Iranians from lower middle-class cities, builders, drivers, barbers and shopkeepers who complained about the economy at home and the chokehold on their freedoms. After being delivered by truck to the coast of Jakarta, these people waded into the surf to board open-hulled skiffs that took them to their boat. All but one Afghan man among the asylum seekers were Iranian. Upon nearing Christmas Island, a crew member used a satellite phone to call Australian authorities for help, before passengers destroyed passports and identity documents and threw mobile phones overboard. Australian sailors subsequently arrived, distributing new life vests, fresh water, bags of frozen tortillas, jars of honey and a tub of strawberry jam. They instructed the crew to restart the boats engines and continue the voyage under escort. Is this what real refugees or asylum seekers do? Destroy their passports and identity documents and throw their mobile phones overboard? How many real refugees in those squalid camps in Africa even possess mobile phones? Were these so-called asylum seekers living in those flats in Jakarta that under any sort of threat of persecution or death in Indonesia? Of course not, simply meaning that they were not refugees or asylum seekers at that time and should have never been treated as such by Australia. And if their boat was still seaworthy and the engine worked, why was the boat not turned around and sent back to Indonesia? This report alone proves that these boatpeople are nothing more than scheming opportunists who deliberately set out to violate Australias sovereignty and treat Australians as a soft touch to be exploited. This was seen by the fact that the Australians took these bogus asylum seekers to Christmas Island, even though their boat was operable, came from Indonesia and had no permission to enter Australian waters. And the Indonesians facilitate the scam, all the way to the top of the government, because they allow these people to legally enter and reside in Indonesia until they can be sent on their way to Australian waters. The corrupt Indonesians could stop this racket overnight, but obviously they are making too much money by being involved. Mogelsons and Van Houdts eyewitness report merely proves the scam and this is why every single one of those boats full of bogus asylum seekers should be stopped at gunpoint and turned around. And if the people on board decide to scuttle their boats to try and blackmail Australia into rescuing them, well Hotheads believes that Australia has no obligation to rescue people who deliberately want to commit suicide. If a few boatloads of these criminals - and thats exactly what they are - drowned because Australia refused to rescue them and it was publicised that this was Australian policy, then those boats would stop coming overnight.
Posted on: Sun, 02 Feb 2014 22:01:23 +0000
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