Foreign Minister Stephen Smith told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio that good discussions had taken place with officials from East Timor on a proposal to make it a UN-approved hub for asylum seekers and that Australia’s “focus is very squarely on East Timor.” Australia receives just a tiny proportion of the world’s asylum seekers, but in the past three years has witnessed a surge of people arriving via Indonesia in rickety boats — some 150 in the past three years carrying around 4,000 people. Illegal people smuggling to Australia has become a major issue ahead of elections expected in the next few weeks.
Between 2001 and 2007, Australia paid tiny Nauru an estimated $1 million a month to detain asylum seekers bound for Australia. When the Labour Party came to power in 2007, it shut down the camp in 2007 amid criticism that it was cruel to locate refugees in the poor, remote island.
The UN refugee agency was one of the biggest critics of the detention center at Nauru, making its revival an unlikely option.
But Nauru President Marcus Stephen said Wednesday his impoverished island of 15,000 habitants was willing to discuss reopening the detention center.
“We would consider the request for assistance on this matter or any other issue,” Stephen told Sky TV news, adding that Australia had not approached Nauru with an offer. Nauru would also consider ratifying the UN Refugee Convention, as East Timor had done, if necessary, Stephen said.
East Timor’s President Jose Ramos Horta said last week he supported the plan in principle, but did not want his nation of 1 million people to become an “island prison.” But East Timor Deputy Prime Minister Mario Viegas Carrascalao on Wednesday rejected the plan.
“We don’t want another country to dictate to us,” he said. “We’re already independent and won’t be a puppet of any other country.”
