In an item redolent with irrelevant gossip from bygone eras, one-sided political claims and a view of Australian history as seen through a particular ideological prism, Jeff Sparrow, was unable to cite one instance where ASIO assessments of refugees have been improper or incorrect, nor was he able to demonstrate that security screening of refugees is somehow unjustified, illogical or immoral.
Moreover, those of Sparrow’s ideological bent heartily criticised ASIO for many years for its part in the supposed poor screening of post-World War II refugees and immigrants with fascist or Nazi records.
The bottom line is that some security screening of those entering Australia, whether as refugees, immigrants or visitors, is clearly required. Not least because we all live in a globalised society and economy, we cannot somehow quarantine Australia from the rest of the world by total exclusion of travel, and there are at least some foreigners who seek to enter Australia with ill intent.
With regard to asylum seeking, Australia remains one of only seven countries between the Aegean and Arafura seas that are signatories to the 1951 Convention and we are the only first-world liberal democracy (and country of mass settlement) among them. The legal and moral dilemmas of our situation are complex and nuanced. Just what can you do, for example, when a claimant for asylum turns out to be a serious violator of international humanitarian law (IHL) and likely to remain so?
Sparrow’s further claim that receiving information from foreign governments is automatically an example of malign influence by such a government is simplistic nonsense. Obviously most of the information on foreigners coming to Australia has to come from somewhere overseas. But equally obviously the views of foreign governments are weighted accordingly, depending on their reliability and rule-of-law standards. Information from anywhere in a dictatorship (or compromised democracy such as Sri Lanka) is obviously treated with much more scepticism than information provided legitimately, in accordance with international law and UN processes, by the police force or security intelligence agency of a fellow liberal democracy that respects IHL.
Finally, the end of the civil war in Sri Lanka again highlights serious problems with applying the 1951 Refugee Convention and its underlying concepts to today’s realities. Both sides in this war disobeyed international humanitarian law but the Tamil Tigers were much guiltier in this regard. Despite the propaganda emanating from Tiger sympathisers among Australia’s Tamil community, the Sri Lankan government is fully entitled to screen the population of areas previously controlled, viciously, by the Tigers in order to segregate Tiger combatants and committed supporters of terrorism.
As long as such screening and detention meets IHL norms, it does not qualify as persecution in terms of the 1951 Refugee Convention. With appropriate safeguards, returning committed violators of IHL to Sri Lanka for criminal trial or temporary detention under the Laws of Armed Conflict is not necessarily a breach of the non-refoulement principle governing the treatment of asylum seekers or even refugees. As understandably no other Convention signatory seems willing to accept serious IHL violators, the imperfect but necessary alternative of administratively detaining them indefinitely in Australia, as it stretches into years, ends up being improper and eventually even inhumane.
That would be ideological filter, not prism. A prism breaks light down into a spectrum representing all its components, hardly the analogy you want.
How could anyone “cite one instance where ASIO assessments of refugees have been improper or incorrect” when their assessments and reasoning are kept secret from the public? That was one of the major points of the article.
And how can you say there are “serious problems with applying the 1951 Refugee Convention and its underlying concepts to today’s realities. Both sides in this war disobeyed international humanitarian law…”? Obviously the German regime disobeyed international humanitarian law inWWII, but so did we – the carpet-bombing of Dresden and the nuclear weapons dropped on Japanese cities being only two examples. Doesn’t seem that different from “today’s realities”, particularly if you consider the role played by freedom fighters/terrorists like the Partisans.
Neil James
With all due respect, Mr. James, the Refugee Convention is not about who is ‘guiltier’ – what an unfortunate term- but about persecution and torture for POLITICAl, religious, ethnic, racial or a membership of a particular social group reasons. According to the Convention, and The Regugee Law by Hathaway, the State or State sponsored perpetrators should not be part of refugee assessment processes.
We had numerous examples when government interefered with refugee assessment cases of prominent dissidents from the former Soviet Union. Same with China.
Politics should not be a part of assessing process. Many Serbs who were also victims of the Balkan war could not even dream of getting a refugee status as they were all automatically classified as terrorists.
ASIO is a very important Australian organisation. And we put trust in people responsible for our national security. So there will be no ‘oops’ – weapons of mass destruction misunderstanding or ‘oops’ children were not overboard but we had election looming. It is too serious to make a joke or take it lightly. Innocent people can get hurt. And you have already ‘assessed’ all Tamils as ‘guiltier’.
Noone is against screening people coming to Australia. But then, again we seem to concentrate on dinghy boats and airports. We do not seem to be very successful in monitoring smuggling hard drugs into Australia. There are plenty of victims here.
We have to trust ASIO and strongly believe they protect us and our national interests. Otherwise we would be listening to nasty comments, as I did recently, that the only reason to highlight refugee-terrorist links (again) is to solicit for full body scanners. Apparently very costly and not terribly useful. Fifteen full body scanners at the Amsterdam airport failed to detect a terrorist plot attempt.
Neil James – If we used your criteria, then George W Bush, Tony Blair and others should never have been given permission to land in this country, and neither should Dick Cheney.
There’s enough evidence to hand now, that at best queries the legitimacy of the invasion of Iraq certainly, and probably Afghanistan. There’s plenty of evidence about the role of the CIA in its rendition programmes; the absolute disregard, no scathing disgraceful and torturous behaviour re ‘suspects’, and the killings either deliberate or via ‘inhumane and degrading’ treatment at too many US run prisons. If you came out castigating and shrieking calls of injustice and/or crimes against humanity just once; or criticize both the US and Britain (with our agreeance)the breaking of many Geneva Conventions or in fact several other well documented and known Laws, perhaps I’d give your comments here some credence. At best, all you’ve ever annunciated are pro-govt, pro-war utterances that I find disgraceful and sadly pathetic! I think it’s called, ‘justifying your own position’? We have too many avenues to educate ourselves these days. I don’t have to take your word or the PM’s or the President of the US either, for that matter.
This country provides information, monies and support for several dictatorships that I know of; Indonesia, Israel, Burma and Sri Lanka to name just 4. Of course there’s our slavish following of everything the US thinks and does, regardless of the lives lost, persecuted or tortured. You haven’t answered the main question; how can people be deemed genuine refugees entitled to asylum, but at the same time be considered some security threat? To whom? To what? Sri Lanka’s so called democracy, peace and just treatment of its citizens? Oh please!
By the way, Australia isn’t “between the Aegean and Arafura seas”.