Indonesians head south to discuss boatpeople

CANBERRA, Australia -- The bilateral irritant of people smuggling that has strained relations between Australia and Indonesia will be on the agenda when Indonesia's foreign minister visits Australia for talks next week.

Foreign Minister Hassan Wirajuda will visit Australia and New Zealand on dates yet to be confirmed, said Foreign Ministry spokesman Wahid Supriyadi on Saturday.

Asked by Reuters news agency if the boat people issue would come up during discussions in Australia, he said: "Yes, among others."

Australian Prime Minister John Howard said on Friday that reaching an agreement with Indonesia to control people smugglers in the archipelago had become vital.

Australia's policy of diverting boat people to Pacific islands for processing has hit another snag after talks with Fiji and Kiribati collapsed, leaving a bottleneck of migrants awaiting a temporary home.

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Australia had hoped to convince neighboring Fiji to take several hundred unwanted asylum seekers, but domestic troubles and post-coup pressures in Fiji have made that impossible.

The Indonesian talks will focus on curbing the problem by stemming the tide of boatpeople before they leave for Australia, often in ships of dubious seaworthiness.

Indonesia is the main jumping off point to Australia for thousands of Middle Eastern and Afghani asylum seekers who attempt the treacherous journey in leaky boats.

Jakarta has said it was hard to control the problem because the many thousands of islands that make up the archipelago provide plenty of cover for people smugglers.

The issue is also low on the priority list for a government more concerned about economic recovery and political stability.

'Pacific solution' in tatters

In Australia, spokesman for Foreign Affairs Minister Alexander Downer told Reuters news agency that Australia had withdrawn its request for Fiji to host a processing center for refugees, but he could not confirm reports that Fiji had asked the request be withdrawn.

"I don't know what the sort of to and fro was, but the end result is that we have withdrawn the request," he told Reuters on Friday.

Negotiations with Kiribati have also collapsed due to "logistical reasons," but talks with Palau are still going on and it is possible that Papua New Guinea may increase its intake.

In August the conservative government of Prime Minister John Howard began turning away all asylum seekers caught trying to sneak into Australia in boats operated by people smugglers.

Since then, hundreds of asylum seekers have been shipped by Australia to hastily built camps on Nauru, a tiny island in the Pacific, and Papua New Guinea.

But Australia's so-called "Pacific solution," hatched in the lead-up to a November 10 election, has sparked a regional backlash, with experts saying that Canberra's cash compensation is not enough to outweigh local resentment.

'Bullying tactic'

Already aid groups have slammed the policy, saying that Australia is in the business of human trafficking by using aid deals to lure Pacific island nations to accept boatloads of asylum seekers.

Vanuatu's Prime Minister Edward Natapei has called Australia's "Pacific solution" a "Big Brother" tactic of bullying smaller island neighbors into taking boat people.

The tiny island of Kiribati is one of the places Australia had picked to 'process' the refugees

In a bid to shore up support for his policy, Downer has said he would visit neighboring Pacific nations in the coming weeks.

He will also host a visit by Indonesian Foreign Minister Hassan Wirajuda to discuss the people-smuggling problem.

Indonesia is the jumping off point to Australia for most of the Middle Eastern and Afghani asylum seekers, and reaching a deal with Jakarta to control people smugglers based has become vital.

Most of the boats that arrive off Australia's coast sail from Indonesia, a journey that takes several days, with some 8,200 people arriving in Australia over the last two years. It is thought that most of them are fleeing war and religious persecution.

The Australian navy and air force has already shipped more than 1,000 mostly Afghan and Iraqi migrants to Nauru and PNG after Canberra struck financial deals with the cash-strapped nations in September and October.

Another 540 are waiting on Australia's Indian Ocean territory of Christmas Island while Canberra negotiates with neighbors to take them.

The flow of boats is expected to continue until the December monsoon season effectively closes the treacherous ocean crossing from Indonesia.

Neighbours Indonesia and Australia historically have been at odds on issues ranging from human rights and East Timor to, most recently, the boat people.

But Australian diplomats in Jakarta also point out that official, business and cultural links have grown steadily over the years, helping stabilise ties that in the past might have more easily been rocked by political rows.