Australia sees no refugee flood after Vietnam boat
CANBERRA - A fishing boat crowded with 54 Vietnamese asylum seekers found off Australia's remote west coast did not mark the
start of a new flood of refugees to test the country's tough border controls, Australia said on Wednesday.
The asylum seekers, the first to arrive in Australian waters since tough new border controls were imposed in late 2001, evaded
customs patrols before they were intercepted just 1.8 miles from the town of Port Hedland on Tuesday. Immigration officials said the
asylum seekers, including eight children and a baby, are being transferred to a detention center on Australia's remote Indian Ocean
outpost of Christmas Island, around 1,500 miles west of Darwin.
"We manage the border control issues very comprehensively but...that doesn't mean that there won't be occasions in which a vessel
might breach those arrangements," Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock told Australian Broadcasting Corp radio.
Australia has long had one of the world's toughest policies on illegal immigration, with all refugees locked up in outback camps,
often for years while their claims were processed.
That control was tightened further in late 2001, when Australia's navy was ordered to intercept boats at sea and illegal arrivals were
sent to new camps in neighboring Pacific states Nauru and Papua New Guinea after initial processing.
That new policy had been hailed a success, with no new arrivals since December 2001.
Ruddock described the new arrival as "opportunistic" and said an investigation had been launched into how it had managed to come
so close to the mainland without being detected.
Refugee advocates, who have pressured the conservative Australian government over its detention of children, criticized the decision
to take the asylum seekers to Christmas Island.
"...it shows the government is prejudging the way they're going to handle these people," said Marion Le of the Independent Council
for Refugee Advocacy.
Trung Doan, a spokesman for Australia's 200,000-strong Vietnamese community, urged fair treatment for the boatpeople. He said
political and economic factors had likely made them leave.
Reuters - July 1st, 2003
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