Jakarta rules out Indonesian solution to Australia refugee problems

Jakarta - Indonesia said Friday that it did want to be a processing centre for asylum seekers trying to reach a third country and that its willingness to take 78 Australia-bound Sri Lankan boat people was a one-off humanitarian move. The Indonesian government has promised Australia to take the Sri Lankans rescued 12 days ago by an Australian customs boat in international waters in an agreement dubbed "the Indonesian solution" by the Australian media.

But the asylum seekers are refusing to disembark from the Oceanic Viking, which is moored off Indonesia's Bintan Island near Singapore.

They want the customs ship to sail to Australia, and some are on hunger strike to try to force Canberra's hand.

"We have never wanted our territory to become a place for the processing of refugees for placement in a third country," Indonesian Foreign Ministry spokesman Teuku Faizasyah said at a news conference.

"We have never entertained such an idea," he said.

Both Indonesia and Australia have promised not to resort to force to end the standoff with the Sri Lankans.

Faizasyah said the ship would be allowed to moor off Bintan until November 6 in light of an Australian request but insisted that it was up to the Australians to decide what to do with the Sri Lankans.

He warned that Indonesia would not accept any future requests to take boat people detained by Australian authorities.

"This is a unique case," he said. "Such a thing will not be repeated."

Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd held talks with Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono on October 20 in Jakarta, during which Jakarta agreed to Canberra's request to take the boat people.

Faizasyah said there was no such a thing as "the Indonesian solution."

"We are questioning the use of the term because we are not comfortable with it," the spokesman said.

The recent surge in arrivals - more than 30 boats have arrived this year compared with seven for the whole of 2008 - is proving a test for Rudd's 2-year-old Labor government, which has promised a softer approach to arrivals of undocumented migrants than the previous conservative government under John Howard.

Most asylum seekers arrive on small boats from Indonesia, where they have paid people smugglers to arrange their passage, but the latest boats have come directly from Sri Lanka, where the Tamil minority said they fear persecution from the Sinhalese majority.

A Tamil refugee advocate who claimed to have spoken by mobile phone to people aboard the Oceanic Viking told Australian broadcaster ABC that they fear being forcibly removed from the vessel.