Australia urged to repatriate Sri Lankan asylum seekers

Nov 8, 2009, 2:40 GMT

   Sydney - Australia should repatriate the 78 Sri Lankans who for more than two weeks have been refusing to disembark from an Australian Customs vessel moored off Indonesia's Bintan Island, an influential parliamentarian said Sunday.

   The asylum seekers were rescued at Jakarta's request in international waters three weeks ago and want the Oceanic Viking to sail to Australia.

   Canberra wants them to leave the ship for internment in an Australian-funded immigration detention centre at Tanjung Pinang on Bintan, which is near Singapore.

   'If you want to show strength, ... then send the Oceanic Viking to Colombo, and you'll have made a strong statement,' said opposition upper house member Barnaby Joyce.

   Joyce, who is the de-facto leader of the Nationals, told local television that Prime Minister Kevin Rudd should not bow to pressure and order the Oceanic Viking to sail to Australia's Indian Ocean territory of Christmas Island, where it has a refugee detention centre.

   'That is in essence defeat,' Joyce said of calls for the Sri Lankans to be interned on Christmas Island. 'It means people have worked you out. They just hang about on the boat, and in the end, you will capitulate and you will land at Christmas Island.'

   Both Australia and Indonesia have pledged not to use force to break the impasse, which could sour relations between Jakarta and Canberra.

   The recent surge in arrivals of undocumented immigrants - more than 30 boats have arrived this year compared with seven for the whole of 2008 - has damaged the popularity of Rudd's 2-year-old Labor government.

   Labor promised a softer approach to undocumented immigrants than the previous conservative government under John Howard, who shunted asylum seekers to detention centres in Nauru and Papua New Guinea.

   Stephen Fielding, an independent in the Canberra Parliament, has also urged Rudd to take a tougher line.

   He claimed the Oceanic Viking had been 'hijacked' by the Sri Lankans.

   'This is our boat, it's been hijacked by the refugees, and the Rudd government hasn't got a clue what to do,' Fielding said. 'Those people trying to jump the queue should go to the back of the queue.'