By Kate Bartlett
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia
Cambodia and Australia inked a heavily-criticized deal Friday that will see refugees who had attempted to flee to Australia instead be resettled in Cambodia - a nation activists consider one of the least developed and most corrupt in Southeast Asia.
Australian Immigration Minister Scott Morrison and Cambodian Deputy Prime Minister Sar Kheng raised champagne glasses in a silent toast at a press conference in capital Phnom Penh, but refused to field any questions from the large press corps.
The United Nations, rights groups, Cambodia’s opposition and Australia's Greens Party have said that the opaque deal essentially allows Australia to shirk its own responsibilities by "dumping" refugees in a third country.
Cambodia has a chequered history when it comes to accommodating refugees.
In 2009, Cambodia deported 20 Uighur asylum seekers back to China where they were subsequently given lengthy jail terms. China has since pledged $1 billion worth of investments to Cambodia.
“Australia’s deal with Cambodia will send people to a country that has a terrible record for protecting refugees and is mired in serious human rights abuses,” Elaine Pearson, Australia director for Human Rights Watch, said in a statement this week.
Media reports say Australia — already one of the country’s largest donors -- is giving Cambodia AUS$40 million in aid money in exchange for the agreement, but the immigration minister has denied a “pay-off.”
Morrison insists that only refugees who wish to be resettled in Cambodia will be sent there and that the program is completely voluntary.
Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott was elected last year after pledging to "stop the boats" - a term which champions the halting of often leaky, ramshackle craft packed with people that attempt to make their way into Australian waters in the hope of gaining asylum.
Papua New Guinea and the island of Nauru in the South Pacific already have detention centers housing thousands of asylum seekers - many of them Muslims from Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, China and Myanmar - stopped on their way to Australia. Refugees at the centers have repeatedly held protests against conditions there.
Sarah Hanson-Young, a senator for the Greens, compared giving refugees a choice between remaining on Nauru — where over 1,000 people are currently detained in camps — or coming to Cambodia to “the school bully asking whether you want a punch in the face or a kick in the guts.”
www.aa.com.tr/en
