Compared with the millions who flow across international borders fleeing persecution or war, 438 people on board a Norwegian freighter in the Indian Ocean off Australia's coast constitute barely a trickle.

But this group of refugees - reportedly from Afghanistan and Iraq - is now testing a nation that has long wrestled with its immigration policies, particularly on refugees and asylum seekers.

Throughout the 1970s and '80s, Australia allowed entry to thousands of people who arrived by boat from Indochina [mainly Vietnam and Cambodia].

In the past two years, the government reports, more than 9,000 people have entered Australia illegally - 1,500 in the past two weeks.

Today, Australia's immigration dilemma hits home as the ship of would-be refugees remains in its Indian Ocean backyard. Indonesia says it will not take them in. Norway and Afghanistan's ruling Taliban are asking Australia to do so.

The Australian government says no: since the refugees were rescued in international waters, they should have been taken to the closest port, in Indonesia.

On Sunday, the captain of a Norwegian-registered ship, the Tampa, issued a distress call soon after rescuing the people from a sinking fishing vessel. When he tried to take them to nearby Indonesia, some reportedly rebelled and threatened to jump overboard. Australia sent military doctors and medical supplies to the vessel after the ship's call.

As of yesterday, Australia's Prime Minister John Howard had ordered Special Air Service troops to seize control of the Norwegian-registered vessel, the Tampa, after it strayed into Australian waters off Christmas Island - an Australian territory - to try to land the refugees.

But the Howard government claims the refugees want to short-cut the official channels for seeking asylum. "If the view becomes entrenched around the world that it's easy to get into this country, we will have an enormous problem," Mr. Howard said yesterday. "We will have an unbelievable problem trying to control our borders."

Australia currently admits about 12,000 refugees a year, selected mainly from camps around the world, in consultation with the United Nations. Also, there are those termed "illegal" arrivals - about 4,200 a year - who seek asylum when they disembark either from airplanes or, increasingly, from unsafe boats.

Refugee advocates say that number pales alongside the 250,000 Burmese who crossed into Bangladesh in the mid-1990s, the 4 million Angolans who live in camps in Mozambique, the 6 million in Pakistan or Iran, or even the 70,000 who last year sought asylum in the United Kingdom.

"This situation, with barely 400 people on a boat, is making us the laughing stock of the world," says David Bitel, president of the Refugee Council of Australia, an advocacy group in Sydney.

Page: 1 | 2