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SYDNEY, Oct 7: Children were thrown overboard during a stand-off at sea between 200 boat people and an Australian warship in what the government described Sunday as a perverse attempt to claim asylum here.
The group of mainly Iraqis is the latest in a stream of predominantly Muslim boat people whose fate has turned illegal immigration into a major issue ahead of Australia’s November 10 general election.
Navy officers from the frigate HMAS Adelaide boarded the boat after it entered Australian waters some 120 nautical miles off Christmas Island, a remote Australian outpost south of the main Indonesian island of Java.
In their apparent desperation to seek asylum in Australia, some of the boat people at one point threw several children overboard and jumped after them into the water, according to a spokeswoman for Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock.
They were rescued by HMAS Adelaide, which, after a tense stand-off, later escorted the boat out of Australian waters.
A spokesman for Defence Minister Peter Reith said the intended next destination of the boat people was not known but they were steaming slowly north, possibly headed for Indonesia.
Christmas Island is around 400 km south of the Indonesian capital, Jakarta, and 2,300 km northwest of the nearest main Australian city of Perth.
NO FLAG: It is believed the vessel left for Australia from east Java, Ruddock’s spokeswoman said. It was not flying a flag when intercepted by the Adelaide but was believed to have taken down an Indonesian flag as it was approached by the navy vessel.
Lieutenant Ditya Sudarsono, spokesman for the Indonesian Navy’s Eastern Fleet, said they had not received any information in the past week about boat people heading for Australia.
“But if there were any and Australia turns them away and forces them to cross Indonesia’s borders, we will arrest them and hand these boat people over to the immigration office which will eventually deport them,” he told Reuters — an outcome that the Australian government also seemed to be expecting.
“I don’t have high expectations that Indonesia will want to receive back other people’s nationals,” Ruddock told ABC radio.
The interception of the boat came on the second day of campaigning for Australia’s federal election.
Prime Minister John Howard called the election last Friday after his tough line against a rising tide of mostly Middle Eastern and Afghan boat people sent his popularity at home soaring despite fierce criticism abroad.
Howard told a news conference that naval officials were directed to treat the latest asylum seekers in a “humane fashion” but the government would not be intimidated by their behaviour.
POPULAR MOVE: Howard’s conservative government was badly trailing opposition Labour until August when the prime minister ordered troops to board a Norwegian freighter, the Tampa, to stop 433 boat people from coming ashore onto Australia soil.
A similarly hard stance since then against several other boats carrying about 1,000 illegal immigrants has won back conservative voters in droves, giving the government a lead over Labour in opinion polls of eight percentage points.
The navy is currently shipping 262 mostly Iraqi boat people to the tiny Pacific island of Nauru for their asylum claims to be processed under a costly deal between Australia and cash-strapped Nauru to take illegal immigrants off Canberra’s hands.
About 500 asylum seekers have already been sent to Nauru, where the reluctance of some to disembark further inflamed anti-immigrant sentiment in Australia.
More than 9,000 illegal immigrants have arrived in Australia in the past two years, a trickle by international standards, but a jump on just a few hundred five years ago.—Agencies
