Welcome to Malaysia - if you dare
OVERCROWDING, canings, hunger, disease - is Malaysia really the solution to our asylum-seeker problem?
---------------------------------
Even before an asylum seeker has discovered the harsh conditions inside a Malaysian detention centre, he or she will have very likely encountered the hated People's Volunteer Corps, better known as RELA.
With a force of more than two million, the semi-official force is highly visible on the streets of Kuala Lumpur. They shake down anyone they suspect of being an illegal worker, demanding to see papers, or conduct raids against suspected illegals, on whom they are accused of extorting bribes and dealing out unprovoked bashings.
And then there's the cane.
By law, anyone found without appropriate documentation is considered an illegal and faces mandatory imprisonment for a maximum of five years, a fine not to exceed about $3400, or both, and mandatory caning not to exceed six strokes.
Malaysia is not a signatory to the United Nations Convention of Refugees, and does not like the UN's High Commission for Refugees having a presence.
The UNHCR has given its backing to Australia's "Malaysia Solution", but Australia can have little satisfaction that the UNHCR has any real penetration or influence in Malaysia. It operates in the shadows of Kuala Lumpur, and is tolerated so long as it keeps its head down and doesn't challenge the government.
Proof of their ineffectiveness is the crowded, slum-like conditions of Malaysian detention centres.
The US State Department, far bolder than the Australian Government in its criticisms of Malaysia, complained in a human rights report released last month that Malaysia scored very low on its treatment of asylum-seekers.
It also noted Malaysia's criminal and sharia courts continued to use caning as a form of punishment.
While the criminal courts forbid the caning of all women, men aged over 50 and children under the age of 10, the sharia courts do not exempt women from the cane.
The State Department said that Malaysia, by its own admission, had caned 34,923 migrants between 2002 and 2008.
Immigration Minister Chris Bowen claims he has received assurances from Malaysia that under his planned deal to trade refugees, no one would be caned.
"As part of this agreement, Malaysia has undertaken to treat asylum seekers with dignity and respect," Mr Bowen said this week. "Advanced negotiations are continuing and this is a firm commitment. They will not be caned."
But Mr Bowen has no control over Malaysian law or its enforcers. Nor would the media be any use in exposing brutality to returned asylum seekers.
While journalists in neighbouring Indonesia have in the past decade enjoyed a revolution in their freedoms, Malaysian media is tightly controlled to prevent the publication or broadcasting of anti-government questioning or sentiment.
Mr Bowen calls his Malaysian scheme a "bold deal", but the emerging reality is that he has tied Australia to Malaysia's egregious human rights record and from this moment on has forced himself and Prime Minister Julia Gillard to become apologists for it.
In taking the Malaysian path, federal Labor has abandoned its earlier stipulation that they would only create an offshore solution with countries that were signatories to the refugee convention.
The Malaysia deal, not yet ratified by either country, allows for up to 800 asylum seekers who are caught in boats in Australian waters to be sent to Malaysian detention camps, after which they will register with the UNHCR and live in society, awaiting resettlement.
They will join the more than 90,000 asylum seekers and stateless migrant workers already stuck in that country.
Australia would take 4000 refugees from Malaysia over four years and would pay Malaysia, for starters, $300 million, for a regional problem Malaysia created by throwing its borders open.
They did this back when times were good and they wanted to create a second-class migrant worker society to provide cheap labor, viewing themselves as an emerging ruling class.
Malaysia's slack visa laws for visitors from Muslim countries has seen it become the key entry point for terrorists and also the most convenient place for Afghan, Iraqi and Iranian asylum seekers to gather before setting off via nearby Indonesia for Australia.
Every night boats cross from the island of Batam to Johor Baru, in southern Malaysia, carrying Indonesian migrant workers. Every day, Middle Easterners enter via the airport unchallenged.
Most new arrivals blend into the multi-ethnic streetscape, and survive by working for low pay that keeps them in food and little more.
The US State Department said Malaysia's immigration detention centres, or IDCs, were overcrowded, and citizens and illegal aliens alike were subject to arrest under four different laws that permitted detention without trial.
The State Department said it considered "credible" the meek allegations by international organisations that Malaysia's 16 IDCs were overcrowded, lacked adequate food, regular access to clean water, sanitation, medical care and beds.
Malaysia has acknowledged that none of its facilities meet international standards and claims it is moving to address the issue, after the Malaysian Human Rights Commission reported that in 2008, 1300 detainees died in the previous six years in Malaysia's IDCs, prisons and jails.
The Human Rights Commission said most deaths were from communicable diseases spread in unsanitary conditions.
In mid-2009, the UNHCR was at last permitted to visit detention centres and secured the release of more than 2800 detainees who were held without cause. The Malaysian Government has begun co-operating with the UNHCR because it is in its interests to do so.
The UNHCR issued registration cards last year to 91,000 people of concern, 18,000 of whom were children. In this way, the UNHCR can begin applying for their resettlement to other countries, and Malaysia, which will not bear the cost, is happy enough to stand back, arms folded, and let them do it.
As far as the Australian deal goes, Malaysia can hardly lose. We will pay them for a problem they already have.
Is it any surprise that Malaysia has welcomed Chris Bowen? They well remember Bob Hawke condemning them for the execution of Barlow and Chambers.
It must delight them to see the Australian Government begging at it door.
don't come mate it's a shit country, a hell hole and all sort of rubbish........... take it from a malaysian.
ReplyDelete