The orange lifeboat wallowing in the shallows off the coast of Central Java is proving to be a highly effective weapon in Australia’s military campaign against asylum seekers.
To the people forced to travel in them, it is a vomitous and terrifying experience.
‘‘Inside the orange boat it was closed, hot and very dark,’’ says Omar Ali, an Egyptian asylum seeker now held in detention in an old office building in Cilacap, Central Java.
‘‘When the driver opens the door, the water comes inside. Everybody sick – there was no air.’’
This week, Ali and 27 other young men became the seventh group of asylum seekers since December ‘‘turned back’’ from Australian waters to Indonesia, and the third returned in a $46,000 disposable lifeboat.
Their boat, like the previous two, was steered by the Indonesian crew who had been in charge of the wooden vessel provided by the people smugglers.
When it reached the shore, it was abandoned on the beach.
Indonesian authorities have no idea what to do with the ugly vessels landing uninvited on their shores. The experience of the latest group of returnees suggests the Australian authorities are refining their technique.
In the first return, in mid-January, the asylum seekers claimed they were tricked, then given written information about what was happening to them as they were pushed off.
On the second return in early February, an asylum seeker used a phone camera to film the lifeboat being towed behind an Australian customs ship, the Triton.
In this latest incident, the asylum seekers say their interaction with Australian personnel was kept to a minimum.
After intercepting the wooden asylum boat in the sea near Christmas Island at 1am on Friday, February 21, Australian crews wearing blue Customs and Border Protection uniforms tried to recommission the old wooden boat to return the asylum seekers to Indonesia, but the engine failed to start.
The 28 asylum seekers were then transferred to a large customs ship, with officers ‘‘pushing one by one with hands behind our back’’, Ali says.
Any objections or requests for food and water were shouted down.
One customs officer said: ‘‘‘Don’t speak. Shut up. F--- you’,’’ Ali says, others nodding.
One man, Khazim Mohammad, from Iraq, was lying sick on the boat.
‘‘The [Australian officer] said: ‘You’re joking. Liar, liar ... and grabbed him and pulled him."
’Naval and customs officers are allowed to use reasonable force in carrying out their duties.
In December last year, the Chief of the Defence Force exempted them from the requirement under the Work Health and Safety Act to ‘‘not adversely affect the health and safety of other persons’’.
A spokesman for Immigration Minister Scott Morrison would not comment on specific operations, but, asked about the use of force and bad language, he said staff involved ‘‘conduct their roles with the highest levels of professionalism, integrity and personal courage ...The Australian Public Service and Australian Defence Force are required to treat everyone with respect and courtesy, and without harassment.’’
On board the customs ship, interaction between crew and asylum seekers was minimal. Once their details were entered on a computer, the men were given wristbands with numbers on them. Then, they say, they were kept below decks for about three days.
‘‘Inside the big ship, no sun, no air. We don’t know if it’s night or day. We can’t sleep, loud noises,’’ Omar Ali says.
On the first day, they were given cheese sandwiches and a cup each for water, which they were told to fill up in the bathroom.
But for the next two days, the men say, they mounted a hunger strike, refusing further food. The Indonesian crew was kept in a separate part of the ship.
At some point, Pakistani asylum seeker Ashrof Nusrat Ali says, someone searched their belongings, and all valuables – money, phones, SIM cards – were taken.
The next move, last Monday morning, was onto the orange lifeboat. It was the first time the men had seen it and they say the transfer was done within sight of land.
‘‘The soldiers brought us to the orange boat ... and closed the door and said to the driver of this boat ... ‘Go to that island’,’’ Ali said.
The Indonesian crew, who spoke almost no English, said it was Christmas Island.
Ali did not believe them, but there was no chance of turning back to the real Christmas Island.
The crew, although experienced sailors from South Sulawesi, had never seen anything like the orange blob they captained, and there was not enough fuel to go anywhere except to the island.
The island, it turned out, was Java. The lifeboats are small, dark and closed, with a couple of high windows.
Even having 28 people on board would have felt crowded, though the name plate says it is rated for 55 people.
‘‘No air inside and no airconditioning for the orange boat. We are very sick. We are very sick,’’ says Ali. ‘‘It’s like animals. Animals cannot be treated like this.’’
The journey to Java lasted about three hours before the boat ran aground on a rugged bay near the village of Kebumen.
They were 30 metres from the beach in high surf, but there was little choice but to jump.
‘‘We think we will die. We can’t swim,’’ Ali says.
A local farmer found the exhausted men and called the police.
The asylum seekers are bound for detention, while the crew is being questioned by local police.
The fate of the lifeboat is equally uncertain. It has been stripped by scavengers, and is wallowing on the beach.
