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Wednesday 22 October 2014

Cash for refugees shames both Australia and Cambodia


Andrew Hamilton |  22 October 2014, Eureka Street

Cambodia's Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Interior Sar Kheng and Australian Immigration Minister Scott Morrison
Cambodia's agreement with Australia to receive refugees from Nauru is moving to implementation, with Cambodian officials soon to visit Nauru. It has also been widely criticised, and refugees on Nauru have protested against it.
?The urgency with which the Australian Government has pursued the agreement is politically motivated. Many asylum seekers on Nauru have been found to be refugees. Nauru is in no position to accept them into the community, and is unwilling to hold indefinitely those found to be refugees. The PNG Government is likely to adopt the same stance. The difficulty for the Australian Government lies in its declaration that none will be resettled in Australia. Cambodia is the circuit breaker that will allow Australia to save face.
The agreement has attracted strong criticism, including from the United Nations High Commission for Refugees which refused to be a co-signatory. Critics have argued that it breaches Australia’s responsibility to provide protection for refugees. It is an exercise not of responsibility sharing for refugees but of burden shifting, from a wealthy to an impoverished nation. Australia’s commitment to the United Nations Convention, built on a universal respect for human dignity, has been betrayed. In its place has been placed a price setting mechanism for people whom nations want to dump elsewhere.
Many parallels have been adduced. It has been described as a return to the transportation policy by which Australia was first settled. It has been seen as the reverse of the common surrogacy agreement by which a poor Asian woman is paid to bear a child for a wealthier Australian woman. Here a poor Asian country agrees is paid to rear the abused children of wealthy Australia.
The agreement itself does provide some benefits for refugees. But they are limited, falling short of full protection. And experience suggests that the promises made in them will not be expeditiously delivered.

The positive features are that Cambodia will accept only refugees who go there voluntarily. They will be given recognition, and are guaranteed identity cards and residence certificates, have health insurance for five years, have been guaranteed freedom of movement and right to travel documents, be given a resettlement package, able to be reunited with families, and have a right to permanent resettlement.
?The limitations on these benefits, and so the threat to human dignity, come partly from Cambodian law dealing with resident aliens, partly from political considerations, and partly from the under resourcing of Cambodian administration. In employment, preference must be given to Cambodian applicants, and the number of Cambodians seeking employment is enormous.
?The refugees will initially be housed in camps. The initial housing for refugees currently is in closed camps guarded by armed police. It is not clear whether and for how long this will be the case for those sent from Nauru.
?The protection against refoulement is less than watertight. Cambodia has already returned Uighurs to danger in China. And Australia is committed to help people return to their own nation or to other countries sounds ominous. The guarantee of freedom of movement is also fragile. Cambodian ministers have already ruled out residence in Phnom Penh.
?The limitations of Cambodian government also limit the guarantees. No process exists at present for receiving the vital residence cards, and no refugee has received one after five years waiting. Access to law is also limited.
?Together these provisions suggest that it will be difficult for refugees to enjoy the conditions for human flourishing while starting a new life in Cambodia. That is not Cambodia’s fault. It is a very poor country served poorly by an authoritarian and corrupt government. It is hard for Cambodians to find employment, especially after many who sought work in Thailand were recently returned to Cambodia. Its bureaucracy struggles to meet the demands of its own citizens and is not equipped to implement the provisions of the agreement.
?The uncertain future promised by the agreement is not in the interests of the people who sought protection from Australia. Since no more than a handful of refugees on Nauru are likely to go voluntarily to Cambodia, it cannot be the political circuit breaker the Government wants. And it is shameful both for the Governments of a wealthy nation like Australia and of an impoverished Cambodia to put their names to such a cash for people deal. 
?Neither prudence, decency nor expediency commends the Cambodian solution.

Andrew Hamilton
Andrew Hamilton is consulting editor of Eureka Street.

Image: Cambodia's Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Interior Sar Kheng and Australian Immigration Minister Scott Morrison shake hands after signing the agreement.

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