Heavily armed Australian special forces yesterday stormed a Norwegian freighter carrying 434 exhausted asylum seekers after it entered territorial waters, and officials vowed to force the vessel back out to sea.
The ship's owners said the captain felt a three-day-old three nation tussle over his human cargo was getting "out of hand" and he needed to move closer to the coast of Australia's Christmas Island in the interests of his vessel and desperate passengers.
But Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said Australia was determined to protect its "territorial integrity" and would force the freighter Tampa back into international waters despite a flood of condemnation from human rights groups and Norway.
"It's important that we take this stand and it's important that we don't allow them in and we certainly are not going to be cajoled into changing our position," Downer said.
"We will take it out of Australian territorial waters if we have to," Downer added in an interview with Australian Broadcasting Corp television, declining to enter into "operational details."
The 434 Afghan, Sri Lankan and Pakistani illegal immigrants and four Indonesian crew have been marooned in empty containers on the deck of the Tampa since being rescued Sunday from a sinking Indonesian ferry.
Not only have they been rejected by Australia -- where anti-illegal immigrant sentiment has been coming to a boil -- but Indonesia, their last transit country, and Norway, where the Tampa is registered, have also washed their hands of the affair.
Conservative Prime Minister John Howard, who faces accusations of riding a xenophobic undercurrent as he prepares for a tough end-of-year election, last night tried to rush through legislation that would retroactively allow Australia to force the Tampa back to sea.
But center-left opposition Labor, which has backed the refusal to accept the migrants, said it would not give its vital support to the bill.
Howard said he would make parliament sit all weekend in an unusual feat of endurance if that was what it took to have the legislation approved.
He said unless there were exceptional humanitarian reasons, "it remains our very strong determination not to allow this vessel or its occupants ... to land in Australia."
By nightfall on Christmas Island, 350 km south of Indonesia but 2,000km from the Australian mainland, the Tampa remained a short distance offshore, with the captain refusing to get his ship underway.
Built to accommodate 40, conditions on the freighter were rough and getting worse, the captain said.
Christmas Island harbormaster Don O'Donnell said no one had left the ship since the Special Air Services troops in combat fatigues and battle helmets sped out in Zodiacs and other craft and seized control.
Australia flew out medical supplies after the ship's captain issued a distress call, saying several passengers were unconscious, two pregnant women were suffering stomach pains and one person had broken a leg.
Australia's single-minded stance, coming on top of increasing concern among aid agencies over its policy of locking up all illegal immigrants in remote desert camps and government rhetoric painting them as criminals, was blasted by human rights groups.
"It is horrible that these people -- we are speaking about human beings -- are being used as political pawns in this situation," said Amnesty International spokesman Lars Olsson, adding Australia had violated the 1951 UN Refugee Convention.
RSS