INDONESIA could do much more to stem the flow of asylum seeker through their territory and could easily shut down people smuggling operations, a former senior army officer says.
Retired Major General Jim Molan, who served as Australian defence adviser in Jakarta, said Indonesian domestic law was sufficient to disrupt the people smugglers and there was a raft of new laws on the way.
“You could in my view in a very short period of time close down the people smugglers,” he told ABC television.
But the problem was that Indonesia didn’t see this as a big problem.
“We have got to impress on the Indonesians that this is a real problem for us and as friends they should assist us,” he said.
“We have assisted them as friends quite often over many many years.”
Mr Molan said Indonesia’s lack of concern was demonstrated by the fact that not a single one of their navy’s 150 ships, including patrol boats donated by Australia, was stationed in their southern search and rescue zone.
Mr Molan said the joint communique signed by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono last week rejected unilateral action of the sort proposed by the coalition with their boat turnback policy.
“Indonesia has for years been taking unilateral action in allowing people to pass through, particularly Java, breaking their domestic laws as they pass through, corrupting their officials. Indonesia has been allowing them to get onto unsafe fishing boats,” he said.
Mr Molan said asylum seeker boats could be turned back but the actual techniques for doing that should not be publicly revealed.
“Because those techniques telegraph what they can do and what they can’t do, I’m not prepared to talk about it,” he said.
Source: news.com.au