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Stephen Coates - Oct 11 2010 - The Sydney Morning Herald
AFP
East Timorese President Jose Ramos Horta believes his tiny country has a humanitarian obligation to accept an Australian proposal to host a regional asylum seeker centre, but insists Dili will not foot the bill.
He said a detention centre for thousands of asylum applicants could cost the Australians and any other contributors about $US30 million ($A30.39 million) for infrastructure, and perhaps the same amount in annual running costs.
"There has to be immigration and customs facilities, health facilities, entertainment for the children - it could be something like 30 million US dollars just for the infrastructure," he said in an interview with Agence France-Presse.
Advertisement: Story continues below Ramos Horta is hoping Australia will lay out the details of its proposal when Immigration Minister Chris Bowen holds talks in Dili on Tuesday, three months after Prime Minister Julia Gillard first floated the idea.
The president, a former political exile, said he would demand assurances that if the processing facility were established, no asylum seeker would be left in "limbo" in East Timor for more than three years.
"There has to be an absolute guarantee that they will be leaving after three years so that people can settle their lives," he said.
"They cannot be waiting like they do in Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand for up to 20 years in camps."
And in a blow to those in Australia looking for a permanent solution to the asylum seeker problem, Ramos Horta said any East Timor centre would only be "temporary".
"Any asylum seeker centre has to be a regional mechanism, it has to be led by the UNHCR (United Nations refugee agency), it has to be financed by others ... and it has to be temporary, not permanent," he said.
The Nobel peace laureate was speaking after attending the finals of East Timor's district beach volleyball championships on Dili's picturesque waterfront on Sunday evening.
Bowen is scheduled to arrive in Dili on Monday on a trip that will also take him to Indonesia and Malaysia, the two main transit countries for asylum seekers who risk their lives trying to reach Australia in rickety boats.
Mostly Sri Lankans and Afghans, they are either caught in the transit countries and spend years in squalid detention facilities awaiting relocation, or pay people smugglers to organise their passage to Australia.
Once in Australia they face mandatory detention, sometimes for years, on isolated Christmas Island and in similarly remote parts of the outback while their asylum applications are processed.
About 100 of the boats, carrying more than 4000 people, have arrived this year, stretching facilities to the limit and exacerbating a politically-sensitive issue.
It is also a delicate matter for East Timorese Prime Xanana Gusmao's coalition government, with a majority of MPs opposed to the proposed processing centre and most ordinary citizens asking why East Timor should play host to Australia's refugee problem.
But Ramos Horta does not see it that way, having lived the life of an exile during much of Indonesia's brutal occupation of East Timor from 1975 until its 1999 independence referendum.
"We look at it purely as an extreme humanitarian issue," he said, predicting that his fellow citizens would eventually see it that way too.
"People are talking about it before they are informed, so they react irrationally and with emotion. But when I explain my view and tell them that we can't close our doors, everybody agrees," he said.
He said Bowen's visit was "just the beginning" of a formal dialogue about the plan.
© 2010 AFP
.
Stephen Coates - Oct 11 2010 - The Sydney Morning Herald
AFP
East Timorese President Jose Ramos Horta believes his tiny country has a humanitarian obligation to accept an Australian proposal to host a regional asylum seeker centre, but insists Dili will not foot the bill.
He said a detention centre for thousands of asylum applicants could cost the Australians and any other contributors about $US30 million ($A30.39 million) for infrastructure, and perhaps the same amount in annual running costs.
"There has to be immigration and customs facilities, health facilities, entertainment for the children - it could be something like 30 million US dollars just for the infrastructure," he said in an interview with Agence France-Presse.
Advertisement: Story continues below Ramos Horta is hoping Australia will lay out the details of its proposal when Immigration Minister Chris Bowen holds talks in Dili on Tuesday, three months after Prime Minister Julia Gillard first floated the idea.
The president, a former political exile, said he would demand assurances that if the processing facility were established, no asylum seeker would be left in "limbo" in East Timor for more than three years.
"There has to be an absolute guarantee that they will be leaving after three years so that people can settle their lives," he said.
"They cannot be waiting like they do in Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand for up to 20 years in camps."
And in a blow to those in Australia looking for a permanent solution to the asylum seeker problem, Ramos Horta said any East Timor centre would only be "temporary".
"Any asylum seeker centre has to be a regional mechanism, it has to be led by the UNHCR (United Nations refugee agency), it has to be financed by others ... and it has to be temporary, not permanent," he said.
The Nobel peace laureate was speaking after attending the finals of East Timor's district beach volleyball championships on Dili's picturesque waterfront on Sunday evening.
Bowen is scheduled to arrive in Dili on Monday on a trip that will also take him to Indonesia and Malaysia, the two main transit countries for asylum seekers who risk their lives trying to reach Australia in rickety boats.
Mostly Sri Lankans and Afghans, they are either caught in the transit countries and spend years in squalid detention facilities awaiting relocation, or pay people smugglers to organise their passage to Australia.
Once in Australia they face mandatory detention, sometimes for years, on isolated Christmas Island and in similarly remote parts of the outback while their asylum applications are processed.
About 100 of the boats, carrying more than 4000 people, have arrived this year, stretching facilities to the limit and exacerbating a politically-sensitive issue.
It is also a delicate matter for East Timorese Prime Xanana Gusmao's coalition government, with a majority of MPs opposed to the proposed processing centre and most ordinary citizens asking why East Timor should play host to Australia's refugee problem.
But Ramos Horta does not see it that way, having lived the life of an exile during much of Indonesia's brutal occupation of East Timor from 1975 until its 1999 independence referendum.
"We look at it purely as an extreme humanitarian issue," he said, predicting that his fellow citizens would eventually see it that way too.
"People are talking about it before they are informed, so they react irrationally and with emotion. But when I explain my view and tell them that we can't close our doors, everybody agrees," he said.
He said Bowen's visit was "just the beginning" of a formal dialogue about the plan.
© 2010 AFP
.
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