Tag: Indonesia

UN: Western countries not 'welcoming' enough 'refugees' now residing in Indonesia

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Let’s be clear right off the bat.  Indonesia is a Muslim country and most of those attempting to pass through Indonesia (arriving there illegally), with a goal of being resettled in the US, Australia, Canada, or Europe, are Muslims.
What happened to the supposedly humanitarianism of Islam and governments ruled by it?  Why are these people our problem in the first place?  
The truth is that Indonesia doesn’t want them either!
For years the UN has been processing illegal aliens arriving in Indonesia from Somalia etc. in to your US towns via the US State Department.  Frankly it needs to stop and it looks like it is slowing.
I just checked Wrapsnet for processing through Indonesia to the US and found that we admitted 18 cases (21 individuals indicating most are single (men?) people, hmmm) in the first three months of FY18 (beginning Oct. 1, 2017).

Indonesia waiting
Waiting in Indonesia for a ticket to America, Australia, Canada, Europe…..

Here is Gulf News (NY Times story):
(Journalism 101 requires that every refugee story begins with a sob story!)

JAKARTA: Ebrahim Adam fled armed conflict in his home region of Darfur, Sudan, in 2011, and ended up seeking asylum in Indonesia, hoping to be eventually resettled in Australia or another Western country so he could resume his dream of being an economist. [Usually they want to be doctors, so they say!—ed]

But after languishing for nearly seven years in Indonesia — where he cannot legally work, access public services or obtain citizenship — Ebrahim recently received bad news: His resettlement is unlikely to ever happen. The UN Refugee Agency’s office in Indonesia has begun informing the nearly 14,000 refugees and asylum seekers in Indonesia that they should not expect to be welcomed by another country. Instead, they should prepare to assimilate into Indonesian society as best they can, or consider returning to their strife-torn countries.

 

[….]

Analysts said Ebrahim faces additional obstacles: He is single, Muslim and of military age, which could make countries worried about terrorism less likely to take him in.

[….]

Globally, there are more than 24 million certified refugees and asylum seekers, the highest levels since the Second World War, according to the United Nations.

Historically, the chances of refugees ever being resettled are only around 1 per cent.

Those refugees residing in Indonesia face the additional obstacle that the United States and Australia, the two main resettlement destinations for refugees here, have put in place more stringent immigration policies, further decreasing their already long odds.

Mark Getchell
“Mark Getchell, the IOM’s chief of mission in Indonesia, said the policy changes in Australia and the United States, combined with a reluctance by Canada, New Zealand and European nations to take in additional refugees, means the number of resettlements are only about 400 people a year now in Indonesia.” (IOM is a branch of the UN)

[….]

The situation of refugees hoping for resettlement in the West became more dire after President Donald Trump took office last January. His administration’s travel ban blocks people from eight countries from entering the US, including Somalia, the country with the second-highest number of refugees and asylum seekers stuck in Indonesia.

400 too many!

Last year, only about 400 refugees living in Indonesia were resettled in the United States, according to the United Nations. Indonesia is not a signatory to the 1951 UN refugee convention, which prohibits governments from returning people fleeing persecution to areas where they face serious threats, but the country has allowed certified refugees to remain here as they await resettlement in a third country.

[….]

For years, asylum-seekers from the Middle East and South Asia have used Indonesia as a transit point to reach Australia, boarding rickety wooden boats run by human smugglers for the perilous voyage across the Indian Ocean.

In 2013, however, the Australian government adopted strict new measures to discourage future arrivals by immediately transferring those who made it to its shores to spartan detention centers in Papua New Guinea and Nauru, and refusing to ever consider them for resettlement.

But, golly gee, now we get the booby prize!  We admit to America those same lawbreakers who attempted to get to Australia and were detained. And, we pay for it thanks to the Obama “dumb” deal that Trump agreed to!
More from Gulf News here.

It would make enormous sense if the UN spent more time persuading Indonesia to keep their coreligionists, and promote a PR campaign through Africa and the Middle East that there is no ticket to the West through Indonesia!

European ship headed to Asia to help rescue Rohingya (why you should care)

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

If you are saying to yourself, ho hum, this doesn’t affect me, think again!
Rohingya Muslims by the tens of thousands are piling up in countries like Malaysia and Indonesia (both safe Muslim countries!) and we end up bringing thousands to America.
 

Rohingya at sea
It isn’t just Syrians we should worry about. Rescued Rohingya are being resettled in the US by the thousands. They can’t possibly be screened any better than Syrians!

 
You don’t hear much about it because the Rohingya are slipped into your towns and cities right along with the Burmese Christians and other ethnic minorities and all are labelled simply Burmese.  Last fall we learned that 13,000 Burmese Muslims were already in the US.
This is the rescue ship story which is really a ho hum story, but I’m mentioning it since we haven’t talked much about Rohingya lately, although we have an entire category, here (185 previous posts), devoted to the subject.
From the International Business Times:

A rescue ship credited with saving thousands of migrants stranded in the Mediterranean Sea is to embark on a new mission in south-east Asia. The MY Phoenix, owned by charity Migrant Offshore Aid Station (MOAS), has been used to rescue almost 13,000 people making the perilous journey from north Africa and the Middle East to Europe.

But now its crew is sailing the 40-foot vessel to the Bay of Bengal and Andaman Sea, where it will spend four weeks helping rescue Rohingya refugees. Last year tens of thousands of migrants from Myanmar and Bangladesh attempted dangerous sea crossings to reach Malaysia and Indonesia.

By all means, save them at sea, but resettle them in Muslim countries such as Malaysia and Indonesia!
About the photo:  It is here in a story from May 2015.   The story tells us about the latest round of violence between the Rohingya and the Buddhist Burmese and leaves you with this line (below) that gives the impression that all the deaths and displacement were on the Rohingya side of the ledger.  It just isn’t true!
We followed the conflict as it boiled up in 2012 and it started when Rohingya men raped and murdered a Buddhist girl!  But, in the retelling, the pro-Muslim propagandists never tell you that!  Buddhists were among the dead and homeless!

Clashes in 2012 between the state’s Buddhist community and Rohingya Muslims, a long-oppressed linguistic and ethnic minority in this majority Buddhist country, left hundreds dead and more than 140,000 people homeless.

Visit our ‘Rohingya Reports’ category.  In 2013 the US Conference of Catholic Bishops (testimony here) asked the US State Department to bring in more Rohingya (it is only ‘fair,’ they imply, since we have resettled so many Christians!).  Doesn’t it make enormous sense to bring in the centuries-old warring factions?  Not!