Indonesia Won't Let Asylum Seekers off Ship

JAKARTA — Indonesian officials have refused to allow 78 Sri Lankan asylum seekers to get off the Australian ship that rescued them from the high seas more than a week ago, complicating efforts between the countries to deal with a surge in boat people.

The ethnic Tamils including women and children were drifting in a wooden boat with a broken engine in international waters near Indonesia when they were picked up by the Australian Customs Service ship. They were taken to Bintan island to be assessed under UN refugee rules at an immigration detention center.

A Sri Lankan asylum seeker stands next to signs on a boat moored at Merak seaport in Serang District on Indonesia's Java island on October 22. (Photo: Getty Images)

But the local government has not granted approval for the Sri Lankans to disembark, said I Gde Widiarta, a law and human rights official in Riau Kepulauan province. The island is about 625 miles (1,000 kilometers) north of Jakarta and across the Singapore Strait from Singapore.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Teuku Faizasyah said Tuesday that talks were under way between Jakarta and local government officials.

"We are trying to convince (them) that our aim to help the 78 asylum seekers is merely based on humanitarian grounds," Faizasyah said.

Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith said Wednesday that Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono had told Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd that Indonesia would take the asylum seekers, and that expected that the local governor would eventually "do what the president directs him to do."

Further complicating the issue, the Sri Lankans are reportedly refusing to get off the Australian ship, saying they want to go to Australia. Smith, speaking on Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio, said he hoped that force would not be needed to remove the asylum seekers.

Sri Lankan asylum seekers, detained by the Indonesian Navy, sit on their wooden boat at Cilegon harbour in Indonesia's Binten province on October 21. (Photo: Reuters)

"It is not a matter for the Sri Lankans on board to choose where they make their application for refugee status. We absolutely defend their right to make that application, but they were ... rescued on the high seas. It is not their choice," Smith said.

The Sri Lankans are the latest in a flood of thousands of people from war-torn countries such as Afghanistan and Iraq seeking better futures in Australia but arriving in Indonesia, a staging point for human traffickers who have been known to charge $15,000 per person for the treacherous journey, often made on boats unfit for the rough seas, to isolated Christmas Island, an Australian territory.

Around 250 Sri Lankans caught on another boat en route to Australia are refusing to leave their ship, which is anchored off Java.

The cash-strapped Indonesian government has limited resources for dealing with the influx of new arrivals and relies heavily on assistance from the United Nations and International Organization for Migration to feed and shelter them.