merauke five
25 Jun 2009
Why Were The Merauke Five Ignored?
The Merauke five arrive home. Photo courtesy of the Torres News.
Five Australians detained in West Papua for nine months have been released — no thanks to the Australian Government and large parts of the Australian media, writes Mark Bousen
The "Merauke Five" — now the universal moniker for five Torres Strait residents who were detained in West Papua for more than nine months — have been home for 24 hours. They were released yesterday morning at 5:50am local time and by mid-morning had touched down on Horn Island, in the same plane they left in all those months ago.
Since arriving home, one of the five has gone back to work, another is restoring his home — a boat on which he lives — to full order, and another is taking a break, too emotionally exhausted to think about working. William Scott-Bloxam, the main player in the five’s detention, and wife Vera have set about resurrecting their aviation business.
But their guarded responses to questions about their period of detention are the most intriguing aspect of their return. Yesterday, all five were careful not to dump too heavily on the Indonesian Government. They thanked the Australian Government who, as everyone knows, did stuff-all to help them. And they thanked the Australian diplomats in Indonesia, who, as everyone knows, were the cause of their prolonged detention and described by William Scott-Bloxam during his detention as "papier mache diplomats".
The five were also full of genuine praise for the Merauke community, some of whom risked their safety to help the detainees by bringing them food and other items.
Politicians have been quick to take credit for the five’s return. Yesterday, local member for Leichhardt, Jim Turnour, issued a press release claiming he had been "working with the [Foreign Affairs] Minister, Stephen Smith, and the Department of Foreign Affairs on this case since the five were detained last September". In truth, a handful of journalists and editors are responsible for an unrelenting campaign to make the Australian and Indonesian Governments accountable, and the real villains during the nine months over which this farce has dragged on are the Australian politicians who perpetuate a decades-long policy of not upsetting the erratic Indonesians. Their collective behaviour should be the subject of an inquiry — but not by themselves.
The other interesting aspect of this case has been the luke-warm response by the media.
My newspaper, the Torres News, sent three journalists and one photographer to greet the five on their return, and they were joined by a reporter from AAP who arrived on the morning flight from Cairns, but only after the twin-engine aircraft from Merauke had landed. There were no other media present, and the Torres News — with the only photographs of the five, their arrival and subsequent actions — has received very few requests for photographs. This trend was apparent throughout the nine months that the five were detained. The case received very little media attention when compared to that of other Australians detained overseas.
Why did the media ignore the Merauke five? Possibly because they are middle-aged, middle-of-the-road people. They are not drug-runners or arms-traffickers. And they aren’t, with all due respect, sexy. Their crime was being stupid by visiting another country and not getting their paper work in order.
Boring, honest, old people may not make good copy — but they are still Australian citizens who have a right to effective representation from their Government when overseas.
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Frankly I’m sick of the knee-jerk and usually ill informed criticism of Australian consular services abroad. While I have no idea of what specific representations were made on behalf of this group, I doubt that Mark Bousen does either. Unlike him, however, I have a high regard for the professionalism and dedication of Australias consular operations, gained from personal experience and am confident that the Minister and DFAT staff did all that was possible under the circumstances.
Australian citizens abroad are subject to the laws of the country in which they break them. While Australian officials will be working hard through official channels to try and ensure a fair and speedy trial, these efforts are undermined by often near-hysterical campaigns launched by the media back home. That Mr Bousen is also critical of the comparative constraint shown in this case by the mainstream media is actually quite amusing.
Mr Bousen would be doing the public a greater service if his newspaper raised reader awareness of the risks involved in foreign travel; not a difficult subject to research, DFAT maintains an excellent website and I’m sure would be delighted to provide him with the additional specific guidance which is obviously necessary.
Once the new Australian film “Balibo” is released in August, Kevin “Softly Softly” Rudd might find himself under increased pressure from ordinary Australians to confront the Indonesian government about the murder of the six journalists in East Timor in 1975. There was appeasement then, and there’s appeasement now. Meanwhile the Indonesian military is free to rape, pillage and murder in West Papua while doing its best to destroy West Papua’s environment, and Australian citizens are arbitrarily arrested and jailed by corrupt Indonesian courts.
For what it is worth, I think the real reason the Merauke Five were largely ignored by the media and perhaps didn’t receive Australian diplomatic resort is something far more prosaic than Mark seem to have twigged to, despite the previous (equally lightweight) article in NM by one of his compatriots.
It is this.
Given the fact that all 5 lived in the Torres, were all relatively well known people in the Torres, PNG and West Papuan region and in some cases had considerable personal clout (including close ties with prominent ‘wontoks’), it simply beggars all description that they walked into this situation ‘eyes wide shut’.
Having a little familiarity with the region myself, I couldn’t find anyone of my contacts in the Torres who didn’t have some pet theory, crass or not, as to the real reason for their detention.
Whether any of those theories had substance or not the fact is of no concern now. However the fact remains remains that these are people whom anyone knowing them or of them would find it utterly implausible that they were detained simply due to elementary procedural oversights as this and the previous article persist in imputing.
All I get from this and the previous article on the subject is an overwhelming sense of journalistic idealism and naive amateurism.
econg: for someone who throws around allegations of journalistic idealism and nativity so readily, you supply very little FACT. what proof do you have for any of your own claims? This comment and the one you made on the last article smell a lot like conspiracy theory to me.
No conspiracy theory. That is just a straw man.
Please explain:
Given the fact that all 5 lived in the Torres, were all relatively well known people in the Torres, PNG and West Papuan region and in some cases had considerable personal clout (including close ties with prominent ‘wontoks’), just how/why they supposedly walked into this situation ‘eyes wide shut’.
Over to you.
The Mass Media were not interested because this five were just NOT PRETTY! Simple as that! The Media is a very simple minded creature, but very dumb also. Does any of them look anything like Schapelle Corby??? No!
And the Australian Government is getting a reputation all over the world for totally ignoring Australians in troubles in countries that Australia wants to grovel to. And Australia has been grovelling to Indonesia for decades. It is built into the Public Service, and Rudd will not upset anyone other than Australians. He sees himself as a World Leader and Player.
No one has ever been able to explain to me just why Australian Governments genuflect so low to indonesia, when it is absolutely obvious that the place is a Military play-pen, where the thugs can do much as they like, and never face any consequences, even run for President as they wish, and no one bats an eyelid.
The President now may be a reasonably decent man at first glance, but he nevertheless was a Military general, and has blood on his hands, and his authority does not even extend outside his own palace. The ‘Justice system’ is a sick joke with everyone knowing that all Justice is For Sale. The Military do just as they like.
The Police are also corrupt in general. The Kopassus are a gang of mass murderers, but we train them in Australia in ways to kill more efficiently.
This mob got blase, and found they were wrong. And paid a high price for it. But it could have been worse, they could have been put in the wonderful Indonesian prisons for 20 years, along with Schapelle. Like Schapelle, who may well be totally innocent, that would not matter one iota. Perhaps they had the money to get themselves released. Dazza.
Australians in West Papua? I thought it was off limits and under martial law.
I don’t recall this illegal detention being on Four Corners.
Is the ABC more interested in the antics of footballers?