[link|http://www.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/asiapcf/auspac/10/07/aust.boatchildren/index.html|What an ugly situation]
Excerpt:
When the boat was ordered to
turn back, some asylum seekers
jumped overboard after their
children into the water in what
Australian Immigration Minister
Philip Ruddock called "one of the
most disturbing practices I've
come across."
The boat people were wearing life
jackets but Ruddock said they
acted "with the intention of
putting us under duress.
Prime Minister John Howard refused to allow the Tampa's human
cargo to land and on Friday called a national election on the
strength of his renewed popularity among Australians who want to
end to the trickle of illegal sea-bound immigrants to their country.
The popularity of Howard's actions in Australia contrasts with
international condemnation from other governments and United
Nations bodies.
Howard, whose conservative Liberal Party is seeking a third term
on the slogan "Putting Australia First," sent elite troops to the
Tampa, introduced laws barring would-be refugees, and contracted
the impoverished Pacific island of Nauru to become a staging post
for asylum-seekers.
In the past year more than 5,000 asylum seekers, mostly fleeing
strife in the Middle East, and increasingly from Afghanistan, have
come by boat via Indonesia with the help of people smuggling gangs.
Nauru has so far accepted almost 700 would-be refugees, 130 have
since gone to New Zealand and another 270 are in transit.
My commentary:
Nobody wants these people, and that's no freak accident. It's tough on the kids, being stuck by an accident of birth among pariahs of the planet. Can't they rescue the kids, put them up for adoption, and leave their scum parents to sink or swim?
We have got to take over that country and force them to get their act together. For humanitarian reasons, if nothing else. Address the problem at its source. Good old American arrogance and heavyhandedness is the only real solution I can see.
The trouble with those missionaries and their aggressive in-yer-face evangelism is it never goes far enough. Now if they had carried guns and had air support...