Medivac law changes nothing: Java boatmen

Indonesia’s asylum-seeker community and the fishermen who once ferried them here agree: nothing changes while turnbacks remain.

Local fisherman Yosep on his boat at the port at Pelabuhan Ratu, Java. His younger brother was jailed in Australia for people-smuggling. Picture: Graham Crouch

Australia’s new medivac law may be stirring furious debate at home, but among Indonesia’s asylum-seeker community and the fishermen who once ferried them across the Indian Ocean, the consensus is that nothing changes while boat turnbacks remain in place.

Notwithstanding intelligence agency warnings that “the beast is stirring” in Indonesia, and the govern­ment’s pre-emptive decis­ion to reopen the Christmas Island detention centre, no one The ­Australian spoke to yesterday believe­d the law would prompt a fresh flood of asylum vessels.

On remote Rote Island, Indon­esia’s closest landmass to Australia’s maritime border, local fisher­men’s advocate Sadli Hudari Ardani said there was no sign that traf­fickers were preparing to ­restart the boat trade since ­legislation passed on Tuesday ­allowing very ill refugees in offshore detention to be treated in Australia.

“There are a number of middlemen in Papela village who have direc­t contact with (smuggling) bosses and there has been no recen­t contact,’’ Mr Sadi said.

“If there had, these people would be busy going from one fisher­man to the next and they haven’t done that so far. The fisher­men here are very talkative and would tell everything to ­anyone, so I would know.’’

Rote fishermen are renowned navigators and many have earned good money piloting asylum boats, so were alive to the possib­ility of the trade resuming, but “what matters for the fishermen is whether the turnbacks are still in place or not”, he added.

“If the turnback policy ends then traffickers will restart but if they are still in place fishermen won’t do it because they won’t get paid if the asylum-seekers don’t make it to Australia. They don’t worry about going to an Aust­ralian prison but if they are turned back they risk a minimum five years’ jail in Indonesia. That’s what they are scared of.”

In any case, he said, boats would be more likely to launch along Java’s long southern coastline, where asylum-seekers can blend in with tourists, than from Rote.

In Cibangban, one of dozens of small fishing villages along south Java’s Pelabuhan Ratu bay, from where hundreds of asylum boats once set off on the perilous two-day, two-night journey to Christmas Island, a group of fishermen says the “heyday” has passed.

One man, Darji, says he ferried more than 1000 asylum-seekers to larger boats offshore, earning 3 million rupiah ($300) for each night’s work before fatal boat sinkings and a 2015 crackdown all but ended the trade. The last time he did so, in June 2017, he was arrest­ed and spent a month in jail.

Authorities have made it very clear to fishing communities across Indonesia that anyone helpin­g people-smugglers faces at least five years in jail. “No one has contacted me since then and I wouldn’t do it anyway because my name is already in Indonesian police records,” says Darji. “If I am sure I won’t get arrested then probably I would take the offer, but things are too uncertain … now.”

At Pelabuhan Ratu city’s main port, fishermen point to a wreck of larger boats previously used to fish for shark fin in waters further offshore, which doubled as asylu­m vessels when smugglers came calling. With the crackdown on both trades, they have been left to rot.

One older man, Yosep, said “many, many fishermen in Pelabuhan Ratu have spent time in an Australian prison” for transporting asylum-seekers, including his younger brother, and wouldn’t do it again. “No one has come around here recently,” he says. “There’s been no big (smuggling) bosses, no middlemen, or immig­rants.”

Even refugees facing a decades-long wait for resettlement, including those who admit they would try their luck if the boats resumed, said yesterday that while they welcome­d the medivac bill it did not alter their situation.

“I’m trying to be an optimist but I don’t think this changes anything,” said Abdul Raouf, a young Afghan Hazara refugee in East Nusa Tenggara.

Mohammad Hassan, another Hazara who has tried 13 times to get to Australia by boat, said most people he knew were just waiting for the Australian elections.

“Many, many people are hopin­g the new government will open up more opportunities for refugees to come legally,” he said.