'No plans' for more Nauru refugees to come to Cambodia under expensive and collapsing Aussie deal

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Only 4 refugees -- 3 Iranians and 1 Rohingya -- resettled in Cambodia under AU$40 million deal with Australia

By Lauren Crothers

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia

Once sold as an ambitious plan to offer refugees held at an offshore detention facility a fresh start at life in Cambodia, a widely criticized multi-million-dollar resettlement deal struck just under a year ago between Cambodia and Australia has essentially faltered.

The Cambodia Daily on Saturday quoted Cambodian Interior Ministry spokesman Khieu Sopheak as saying that there are no plans to "import more refugees from Nauru to Cambodia."

He then added: "[T]he less we receive the better."

The deal, which was forged in a champagne ceremony in Phnom Penh in September last year, was originally worth AU$40 million ($32 million), but Australia tacked on an additional $15 million in administrative and logistical costs associated with the resettlement of the first and only batch of refugees to agree to the transfer.

Those four, three Iranians and one Rohingya man, have been living in a villa in the southern part of Phnom Penh since their June arrival.

Contacted by Anadolu Agency on Saturday, Sopheak reiterated his position that there are "no plans" for any refugees to come to Cambodia, and that there are also "no plans" for talks to be held between the Cambodian and Australian governments with regard to future transfers.

He said he did not know if any more refugees would ever arrive as part of the deal.

Conditions on Nauru have been described as appalling by rights advocates and in recent days, shocking reports of rapes and sexual assaults on the remote, South Pacific island nation have appeared across Australian media.

Australian immigration rules have been tightened under the present government, with a zero tolerance policy for refugees and asylum seekers who arrive to the country by boat.

Those on Nauru have been told that they will never be allowed to enter Australia, leaving them faced with the choice of either staying on Nauru or volunteering for the transfer to Cambodia.

The Daily quoted Refugee Action Coalition spokesperson Ian Rintoul as saying that efforts on Nauru to convince refugees to come to Cambodia had "essentially stopped."

A request for comment was sent by Anadolu Agency to the office of Australian Immigration Minister Peter Dutton.

source: http://www.aa.com.tr/en/politics/583583--no-plans-for-more-nauru-refugees-to-come-to-cambodia

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Plan to resettle refugees in Cambodia collapses

Lindsay Murdoch South-East Asia correspondent for Fairfax Media

View more articles from Lindsay Murdoch

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/world/plan-to-resettle-refugees-in-cambodia-collapses-20150830-gjavdv.html#ixzz3kGlogXyV

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Australia's $55 million operation to resettle hundreds of refugees from the tiny Pacific island of Nauru to Cambodia appears to have collapsed in a diplomatic embarrassment for the Abbott Government.

A senior Cambodian official says the impoverished nation has no plans to receive any more than four refugees who arrived in Phnom Penh in June, and indicated it did not want any.

"We don't have any plans to import more refugees from Nauru to Cambodia," Interior Ministry spokesman Khieu Sopheak told.

Refugees at Kuala Lumpur airport on their way to Cambodia from Nauru. Photo: Kevin Ponniah

"I think the less we receive the better," he said.

Under a controversial agreement with Australia the Cambodian regime has the right to decide how many refugees are resettled from Nauru.

The regime will pocket an additional $40 million in development aid from Australian taxpayers, no matter how many arrive in the country.

Additional operational costs, including providing health and education training for the first arrivals, has already topped a staggering $15 million, a Senate committee in Canberra has been told.

The Abbott government has a policy not to comment publicly on the Cambodian operation that has been condemned by Cambodian opposition parties, human rights and refugee advocate groups.

The first group of an Iranian couple, Iranian man and Rohingya man from Myanmar have been living in an Australian-funded luxury villa in a Phnom Penh suburb since they were on June 4 whisked through Phnom Penh airport to one of the world's poorest nations, where about 18 percent of the country's 15 million people survive on less than $1.22 a day.

Mr Khieu Sopheak told the Cambodia Daily the four were "enjoying their life" in Cambodia.

But they have not spoken publicly since their arrival, shielded by officials from the International Organisation for Migration which received an undisclosed amount of money from Australia for taking care of the group.

The four are receiving benefits that millions of Cambodians can only dream about, including their own "case manager", accommodation, training, help finding work, language tuition and health insurance.

Some had their applications for refugee status fast-tracked when they agreed to take a one-way flight to Cambodia.

However, refugee advocates say attempts to convince hundreds more refugees on Nauru to take-up the offer in June, July and August failed to obtain any more applicants.

A shipping container on the island was set-up as a "Cambodian Information Hub" and refugees and asylum seekers were told they should take-up the offer because they would not be allowed to live in Australia.

Australia's foreign minister Julie Bishop said in Malaysia earlier in August that Australia expected more refugees to resettle in Cambodia under the agreement.

Since Australia's then Immigration Minister Scott Morrison signed the deal with Cambodia in a champagne-sipping ceremony in September last year the Abbott government has moved closer to the regime of strongman prime minister Hun Sen, despite his crackdown on opposition figures, dissidents and non-government-organisations in the country.

Cambodia's foreign minister Hor Namhong is scheduled to be welcomed in Canberra in September ahead of a scheduled visit by Mr Hun Sen in December.

For more than 30 years Mr Hun Sen, a former commander of the murderous Khmer Rouge in the 1970s, has used persecution, violence, repression and corruption to remain in power, human rights groups say.

Mr Hun Sen and about 20 of his closest associates have amassed billions of dollars in personal wealth, prompting Cambodia to be ranked near the bottom of Transparency International's index of 175 nations.

Billions of dollars in foreign development has rarely trickled down poor Cambodians, observers in the country say.

Groups including the Cambodian Centre for Human Rights and Cambodian League for Promotion of Defence and Human Rights have told the United Nations they are "deeply concerned" about systematic human rights violations in Cambodia as the regime in Phnom Penh has restricted freedom of expression, peaceful assembly and association and limited the political opposition's ability to meaningful engage in policy making.

"There has been an increase in the use of lethal and other excessive force against peaceful protests and occasionally violent social unrest, as well as instances of judicial harassment and unwarranted legal attacks against human rights defenders, community activists, trade unionist and political opposition members and their supporters," the groups told the Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council on August 20.

The UN refugee agency has refused to play any role in the resettlement scheme, saying it was "deeply concerned" at the precedent set by Cambodia's agreement with Australia.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/world/plan-to-resettle-refugees-in-cambodia-collapses-20150830-gjavdv.html#ixzz3kGlblmXk

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PNG deal is also failing.

http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/aug/14/refugees-forced-to-choose-between-png-resettlement-or-custody-in-new-prison

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Abbott defends $55m resettlement deal after Cambodia says no to more refugees

The immigration minister, Peter Dutton, says the deal is ‘ongoing’ and the government has had no advice from Cambodia that the situation has changed

Tony Abbott and other senior Australian ministers have defended a $55m refugee resettlement deal with Cambodia after a spokesman for Cambodia’s government said it had no plans to take any more than the four refugees it has already accepted.

Four refugees – an Iranian couple, an Iranian man and a Rohingyan man from Burma – were transferred from Nauru to the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh in June. They live in relative luxury in an Australian-funded villa, and will remain there indefinitely.

However, Cambodia expects it will take no more from Australia’s resettlement plan, which has so far cost $55m, or more than $13m per refugee.

Cambodia deal doomed after just four Nauru refugees resettled for $55m

Read more

“We don’t have any plans to import more refugees from Nauru to Cambodia,” interior ministry spokesman Khieu Sopheak told the Cambodia Daily. “I think the fewer we receive the better.”

Immigration minister Peter Dutton said he believed the agreement to resettle people in Cambodia was “ongoing”.

“Well, the government has not had that advice [that no more refugees would be resettled],” he said. “Obviously people at the low level will make comment from time to time but we have a good engagement with my counterpart, with counterparts at an official level and our discussions are ongoing.”

Australia’s foreign minister Julie Bishop denied the deal was collapsing. “That is not correct,” she told reporters in Sydney. “You’re relying on an alleged statement of one official.”

She said she had had a positive meeting with her Cambodian counterpart earlier this month and the south-east Asian country was keen to harness the skills of foreign workers to boost its gross domestic product.

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Prime minister Tony Abbott said Cambodia had been helped by the international community when it was “in trouble some years ago” – a reference to the Khmer Rouge period – but that it was now keen to assist in managing refugee flows.

“This is an important agreement and it’s an agreement which indicates Cambodia’s readiness to be a good international citizen,” he said.

Under the deal, signed by then immigration minister Scott Morrison and Cambodia’s interior minister Sar Kheng last September, Australia promised an additional $40m in aid to the impoverished south-east Asian country as well as $15.5m in resettlement, housing, education and integration costs for the refugees.

The deal was not contingent on Cambodia taking a certain number of refugees.

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, a former battalion commander in the Khmer Rouge, who has ruled his country for 30 years, will visit Australia in December.

Labor’s immigration spokesman, Richard Marles, called on Dutton to explain the situation.

“This is an expensive joke and once again we are learning about this through comments from ministers in the Cambodian government rather than ministers in our own government,” he told Sky News.

When the Cambodian deal was signed it was condemned by the United Nations, who described it as “a worrying departure from international norms” and said Australia was shirking its responsibility towards people fleeing persecution.

“We are seeing record forced displacement globally, with 87% of refugees now being hosted in developing countries,” the UN’s high commissioner for refugees, António Guterres, said. “It’s crucial that countries do not shift their refugee responsibilities elsewhere.”

“International responsibility sharing is the basis on which the whole global refugee system works. I hope the Australian government will reconsider its approach.”

source: http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/aug/31/abbott-defends-55m-resettlement-deal-after-cambodia-says-no-to-more-refugees

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Has Australia’s Plan to Resettle Asylum Seekers in Cambodia Already Ended in Failure?

Pring Samrang—Reuters A man rides a motorcycle past a house that is used to temporarily house asylum seekers sent from a South Pacific detention centre, in Phnom Penh, Cambodia August 31, 2015. Just four people have been resettled under the plan

Cambodia said Monday that the country had no plans to accept any more refugees living on the tiny Pacific island of Nauru.

Just four detainees—an Iranian couple, a Rohingya man from Burma (formally known as Myanmar) and another Iranian man—have moved to the Southeast Asian nation under a $39 million controversial deal with Canberra, reports the Sydney Morning Herald. The group were transferred in June and are reportedly living in villas in the capital Phnom Penh.

“We don’t have any plans to import more refugees from Nauru to Cambodia,” Interior Ministry spokesperson Khieu Sopheak told local paper the Cambodia Daily. “I think the less we receive the better.”

Australian immigration officials also failed to sign any more Nauru detainees up for the resettlement program in June, July and August.

However, speaking to reporters in Sydney, Australian foreign minister Julie Bishop denied the pact had collapsed, saying Cambodia was committed to the resettlement deal, reports Reuters.

Under the pact, which was signed last September, Cambodia is meant to accept an unlimited number of the asylum seekers currently being held on Nauru in exchange for $28.5 million in development aid from Australia. A further $11 million was to be used for healthcare, housing, education and training for the new arrivals.

Human rights groups and opposition leaders in Cambodia and Australia have slammed the deal for sending vulnerable people to an impoverished country that itself has a long history of abuses against asylum seekers.

Australia has repeatedly vowed that no asylum seeker trying to reach its shores by boat would ever be resettled in the country. Instead, such arrivals are sent to offshore processing camps on Nauru and Manus Island in Papua New Guinea.

source: http://time.com/4016756/cambodia-australia-refugee-deal-nauru/

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Australia’s Disastrous Asylum Seeker Deal

Whether it continues or not, the deal with Cambodia has been an abject failure.

By Helen Clark

September 01, 2015

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Last year, Australia signed an import deal with Cambodia, though the terms of trade were hardly usual: Australia would give Cambodia A$40 million ($28.4 million) in aid if it would take its asylum seekers. Canberra’s policy of refusing to permit any resettlement for illegal boat arrivals drove this solution. Almost a year after then-Immigration Minister Scott Morrison signed a deal in Phnom Penh four people have been resettled and Australian media is concluding that the deal has “collapsed.”

In May, The Diplomat suggested that the refugee deal between the two nations, which had been attacked in both countries from the outset, was foundering. The headline “Did Cambodia Just Scam Australia?” pretty much sums it up.

On August 29, Cambodia’s Interior Minister Khieu Sopheak told the Cambodia Daily, “We don’t have any plans to import more refugees from Nauru to Cambodia. I think the less we receive the better.” Those quotes fed the story and have been repeated around the world. No plans for more refugees? Cambodia has taken four, and A$55 million.

This was A$40 million in aid and another A$15 million after that, according to the Sydney Morning Herald. That amounts, as many have pointed out, to close to $15 million per refugee. The money was, apart from aid to the country, to be spent on case workers, health insurance, language tuition, and help finding employment. According to the SMH, “The four of them are receiving benefits that millions of Cambodians can only dream about.” Given how many people still live on $1 a day they do indeed seem lucky and not yet enduring the hardship predicted for them by many, though help was always slated to last only so long.

Cambodian officials did seem to backtrack a little Monday. Sopheak told the Cambodia Daily that those “no plans” were actually for the moment, but that in the future he didn’t know. Should more refugees apply to be resettled in Cambodia they would be considered, but not until the original four showed they could “integrate themselves into Cambodian society.”

Criticism

There have been many critics of the scheme, from international human rights experts to Cambodian opposition parties, and local Cambodians as well as many in Australia. Cambodia is poor, with a shoddy human rights record and serious corruption issues. It has recently sent Vietnamese asylum seekers back to Vietnam. It seemed an odd idea from the beginning and stranger now given the Australian government’s hard line on fiscal conservatism.

The plan was to move refugees from Nauru to Cambodia, where they would be permanently resettled, given that Canberra has sworn – loudly, publicly and in varied languages in its overseas advertising campaigns – that no one who arrives illegally by boat to Australia will ever settle there. Cambodia’s part of the agreement specifies that it can set the number of refugees and that all resettlements must be voluntary. Few have volunteered.

According to Ian Rintoul of the Refugee Action Coalition, speaking to the Cambodia Daily, “They made a big effort in the first few weeks after [the four] were sent. They put up a shipping container with a sign on it that said ‘Cambodia Information Hub.’ They started cold-calling and using interviews to try to convince people,” he said. “But they got nobody.” The Cambodian government presence on Nauru finished when the refugees left, according to Rintoul. There have been videos and brochures detailing its peaceful lifestyle and democratic traditions.

As we’ve previously reported, the beginning of this deal began as badly as it is now alleged to be ending: “It was a dreadful omen. As Australian Immigration Minister Scott Morrison sat down with Cambodia’s Interior Minister Sar Kheng, hapless waiters accidentally dropped trays of champagne. Glasses clanged and smashed to the floor as the pair signed off on the fate of hundreds of refugees.”

The upside, pointed out by author Luke Hunt, was that Cambodia is a signatory to the UN Convention on Refugees in that region, with only the Philippines for company. That made the deal legally viable, if not wise in many other regards.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott, Immigration Minister Peter Dutton (who took over from Morrison), and Foreign Minister Julie Bishop have all insisted the deal remains alive, with Bishop saying she had had discussions on the matter with her Cambodian counterpart. Dutton’s shadow counterpart Richard Marles has meanwhile called the plan an “expensive joke.”

Should the government send more refugees to Cambodia, human rights concerns will persist. If the program really is dead in the water then Australia is out of pocket A$55 million at a time when it has cut aid steeply. It may be more an expensive quandary than a laughing matter, unless anyone’s heading to a bank in Cambodia’s capital.

source: http://thediplomat.com/2015/09/australias-disastrous-asylum-seeker-deal/