REPORTER: David O’Shea
Two hours from Jakarta's hustle and humidity, the mountains of Puncak offer a more sedate way of life. Since colonial times, Jakarta's elite have travelled here for a relaxing getaway. But I've come looking for a very different type of visitor.
Puncak is now home to hundreds of refugees and asylum seekers waiting for their chance to come to Australia. Some have already tried. Mohibullah was only 17 when he arrived in Indonesia after fleeing Afghanistan. He boarded a boat, along with 240 others, bound for Ashmore Reef. After more than two weeks at sea they were intercepted by the Australian Navy.
REPORTER: What was the feeling on the boat when you saw the Navy ship?
MONIBULLAH: We were so happy, we thinking we get the life, yes? We get the life. We was happy because we think… The soldier is coming and already our boat was broken at that time. The engine was broken.
But the joy was short-lived. He says they were processed in Darwin and then towed back to Indonesian waters. Now 27 years old, he was finally recognised as a refugee by the United Nations and moved here just over a year ago.
REPORTER: "This is to certify that the above-named person has been recognised as a refugee by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees." In the photograph you look different.
MONIBULLAH: Yeah because… I don't know which time I give that photo.
REPORTER: Stressed?
MONIBULLAH: Very stressed, the pressure.
He's not allowed to work or study and time passes very slowly.
MONIBULLAH: Waiting for the phone, when the United Nations office want to give… have a call. We call and we are asking about our case, about our problem, but they say just only wait.
REPORTER: So this is one word you have heard a lot - 'wait'?
MONIBULLAH: Yeah.
Mohibullah says that he was recently told that he would be settled in Australia, but the delay since then is driving him mad.
MONIBULLAH: My head say I want to go to.. try to do like this, like this. But my body don’t want to. We are sick, the head’s sick. I think maybe I am head sick.
While Mohibullah and other registered refugees wait patiently, since last year everyone here has noticed many new arrivals - Afghans, Iraqis and now Tamils from Sri Lanka. He says some of them don't stay long.
MONIBULLAH: I see some people, but after 20 days, after one month, I cannot see that people. I think maybe they go by the boat.
I pay this local man to take me in search of the new arrivals.
SOLEH (Translation): He’s Pakistani, Iraqi. He’s selling bread. Iraqis used to rent houses here, and Pakistanis… There were Pakistanis too. They are not here anymore – they have gone to Australia.
My guess is that he means Afghans, not Pakistanis. And it's hard to differentiate the new arrivals from Saudi tourists and those refugees who've been waiting patiently for years.
REPORTER: (Translation): They’re everywhere?
SOLEH (Translation): Yes. They hide here.
REPORTER: (Translation): Do they move a lot?
SOLEH (Translation): Yes. They look for cheap houses to rent.
REPORTER: (Translation): Have a lot of people arrived in the last few months?
SOLEH (Translation): Yes. The old lot have gone to Australia.
This is the route the people-smugglers use to bring their human cargo to the coast before they board a boat to Australia. Last month, a group of recent arrivals from Afghanistan made this journey down the mountain from Puncak. In 1.5 hours, they would have passed through the capital, Jakarta, and then continued a couple of hours more to the west coast of Java.
This would have to be one of the busiest highways anywhere in the world. It's the main road through Java and on to Sumatra. And amongst all of this, it's pretty easy for a busload of would-be asylum seekers to blend in.
Turning off the highway towards the coastal resort town of Anyer would not have raised any eyebrows either. It's a popular spot for holiday-makers. They probably wouldn't have stopped to take a look at Anak Krakatau volcano, which has been erupting lately. Eventually arriving in Anyer, they turned into the Villa Trimurti. The district police chief has brought me here to help piece it all together. Kosasih says police throughout this region had been keeping an eye out for asylum seekers for the previous two weeks, following a tip-off from the Australian Federal Police. It was a call from suspicious staff at the Villa Trimurti that led to the arrest of the 70 Afghans on April 17.
HOTEL STAFF (Translation): They came in through this door and they all stood here…
They were shown to their rooms and then the staff helped them organise the bedding - five to six people per room.
HOTEL STAFF (Translation): This is where they unrolled mats – some of them slept on mats – they didn’t all fit in the bedrooms.
But by the following day, staff had become suspicious of the 'holiday-makers' who didn't seem to kick back and relax.
HOTEL STAFF (Translation): Other guests open this, because there’s a view. Yes, but they didn’t open it. It was always closed.
REPORTER: (Translation): They weren’t interested in the view?
HOTEL STAFF (Translation): They may have been interested but they didn’t want to see it.
The police tell me that the entire villa had been booked by a people-smuggler called Haji Ali.
REPORTER: (Translation): Do you know if he used an alias?
POLICEMAN (Translation): Ali Haddad - Haddad alias Boston.
REPORTER: (Translation): Did Ali speak fluent Indonesian?
HOTEL STAFF (Translation): Yes.
The staff tell me that once Ali had his clients locked in at the villa, he drove off with three Indonesians who were helping him - apparently they went to repair the boat. And this is the hulk that would have transported the 70 people to Australia. Like most of the fishing boats that smugglers buy for the voyage, the 'Mutiara' III is barely seaworthy. At the dry dock, security guard Syafawi was told the boat was heading for Sumatra, but started leaking and had to turn back for some quick repairs. The crack went all along the length of the hull and the boat will now be used as evidence by the Indonesian police, although, after all these years, people-smuggling is still not a crime in Indonesia.
While I am filming, the Australian Federal Police arrive. Their people-smuggling disruption activities in Indonesia are shrouded in secrecy, so they wouldn't have been happy to see me here. As dusk falls I leave them to do their work photographing the 'Mutiara' for their files. While the people-smuggler Haji Ali was away organising the transport, the police arrived at the Villa Trimurti to check on the strange holiday-makers.
HOTEL STAFF (Translation): As soon as they saw the patrol car out the front they panicked. So two of them jumped out of the window
Others ran away or hid in the ceiling space. They were all eventually rounded up. The police then tried to lure the smuggler back.
HOTEL STAFF (Translation): They rang him, “Okay, I’ll come back to the villa, I’ll be there soon.” “They are my responsibility”. He said. The police chief and his team waited for him… They waited here till evening for Ali to arrive, but Ali never arrived.
The police say they are searching for Haji Ali, although what they'll do if they catch him remains unclear - technically, he has done nothing wrong under Indonesian law.
REPORTER: (Translation): Is he still in Banten or somewhere else? He could be anywhere.
POLICEMAN (Translation): Given that there is an Indonesian woman involved, he could be anywhere.
Crucially though for Australia, the Indonesian police managed to stop the boat leaving. Relations between the Indonesian and Australian police, at least here in West Java, seem excellent. At the police headquarters I meet the deputy commander.
DEPUTY REGIONAL COMMANDER (Translation): We continue to cooperate with the Australian Federal Police, we coordinate with them, we analyse and apply the information they give us, we cooperate with the AFP and immigration.
REPORTER: (Translation): So you often receive information from the Australian police?
DEPUTY REGIONAL COMMANDER (Translation): Yes. We worked with them before making the recent arrests.
REPORTER: (Translation): How many people around here are waiting to cross to Australia?
DEPUTY REGIONAL COMMANDER (Translation): there could be thousands, we don’t know. But we arrested 70 the other day. They came in via Anyer and were to board the Mutiara.
This is central Jakarta. Like Puncak, it's another place where asylum seekers congregate. The area used to be full of Western backpackers. Now it's mostly Iraqis and Afghans. They meet up at McDonald's and stay in cheap hotels and boarding houses around here. Late one night I meet a young man from Ghazni, Afghanistan, who calls himself Habib. He has been in Jakarta for just one month. He doesn't want to be filmed so I pick him up and we go for a drive. He fears his people-smuggler has stolen all his money and disappeared.
REPORTER: It doesn't sound good. When was this? The first day?
HABIB: Yeah, the first day when we come to here.
Habib is now stuck in this sprawling metropolis. He wants to find the smuggler, but he doesn't know how.
REPORTER: How much money did he take from you?
HABIB: Around $6000.
REPORTER: So you paid $6,000 for what? To get to where? To Indonesia?
HABIB: No, no. Just try maybe to get to another country.
REPORTER: To Australia?
HABIB: Yes, maybe Australia.
REPORTER: And he promised he could do that?
HABIB: Yeah.
The asylum seekers stay in this area because it's close to this building which houses the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, or UNHCR. I wanted to talk to them, but the issue is so sensitive they refer me to their Canberra office. Regional representative Richard Towle would not answer questions about specific people. He did say, however, that 80 of the 600 cases they have in Indonesia have been confirmed for resettlement since last year.
RICHARD TOWLE, UNHCR, CANBERRA: Australia agreed to take 35 of those, Canada about 22 and, I think, New Zealand about the same number and a small number went to Europe. To put this globally, we've got about 500,000 who need resettlement outcomes because they can't stay where they are in refugee camps and roughly about 100,000 places. So there is a major deficit. In this, in some ways, explains the level of frustration and some of the reasons why people decide to keep moving, because they're not able to find solutions locally.
Despite boats continuing to arrive in Australia, relations with Indonesia are the best they've been in years. Kevin Rudd and Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono have even agreed on an important extradition exchange. The Indonesians want Adrian Kiki Ariawan, featured here on Indonesia's 'Tempo' magazine website. He's a corrupt Jakarta banker who embezzled hundreds of millions of dollars and is currently detained in Perth. The Australians want Hadi Ahmadi, a dual Iraqi-Iranian, for people-smuggling offences allegedly committed between 1999 and 2001. He will be the first alleged smuggler ever extradited to Australia from Indonesia. In the meantime, Ahmadi has been sitting in police detention for 10 months without charge.
JOEL TANNOS, LAWYER: This is extradition case - whether he should be extradited or not.
His lawyer, Joel Tannos, says it's an outrageous miscarriage of justice, all in the name of improving bilateral relations. As I was talking with him and before I knew what was happening, he had Ahmadi on the line from his prison cell.
HADI AHMADI: They said that I did smuggle people in 2000 and 2001, so how they can meet me in 2003? I never can do that thing – they just lie. They just killing me, So I’m ten months already for nothing here.
REPORTER: Why would the Australian Government waste so much time and energy chasing you if you didn't do something to help facilitate the people-smuggling trade?
HADI AHMADI: I’m also not sure because last year, because I was here in 2007 in the immigration office. The Federal Police came to me, he offered me some work, he asked me to do something, I said I couldn’t do it. He gave me last chance, he say “If you want to help us, we can help you, we can work together.” I say “That’s a dangerous thing - I don’t want to do it.” He say “Okay. So you will be in big hole, you can’t go out.”
If it's true, Ahmadi's claim that the Australian Federal Police asked him to spy for them, it would appear to shed more light on the secretive people-smuggling disruption program.
JOEL TANNOS: I would like to show you a letter from ****, who is an AFP Police officer who came to see Hadi, who approached Hadi for quote and unquote 'cooperation' - offering him a job, actually. And in return for the job Hadi Ahmadi would get, according to him, citizenship, money and other enjoyments. "Hadi, you have the chance to change your life. If you don't take it, I wish you luck in future. Regards, ****."
REPORTER: What did Hadi tell you the Australian Federal Police offered him?
JOEL TANNOS: I don't know what AFP wanted to know or to get from him, but that was an offer, offering citizenship, offering money, offering him a job, so giving him enjoyment, life enjoyment. In return, Hadi Ahmadi had to work for them. In return, Hadi Ahmadi had to inform them everything… about the activity of the people-smugglers And Hadi Ahmadi rejected this. He said "No, because I didn't want to betray Indonesia."
HADI AHMADI: I don’t know what is going on , someone is looking for some point, they are using me. A lot of people working now, many smugglers, real smugglers, working now, they’re sending ships to Australia, every month they are sending, nobody touch them. They are free in Jakarta, many smugglers are free in Jakarta now. They are working. Nobody touch them, even if the police arrest them, they pay money and get free.
REPORTER: Why do you think nobody is getting them and they are concentrating on you?
HADI AHMADI: Because they have money, they can pay. When they arrest you, I have nothing. I don’t have money, I have nothing to support myself.
This document obtained by Dateline from the South Jakarta court outlines the public prosecutor's case for the extradition of Hadi Ahmadi. According to the document he has nine aliases. Ahmadi's lawyer says Ahmadi has no aliases and will fight his detention and extradition.
JOEL TANNOS Say Australia has law, people-smuggling law, so that means it is a crime. Indonesia has not that law. In fact, Indonesia doesn't have that law, extradition cannot happen. So Hadi Ahmadi cannot be extradited, should not be extradited, because we dont' have that law - only one country has that law. So if they do send, it's against the law.
REPORTER: So you're saying that the President would be breaking his own laws if he agrees to this extradition?
JOEL TANNOS: Yes, that's right. That's right.
REPORTER: So if you had the chance, if you had the opportunity to speak to the Australian Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, what would you say to him?
HADI AHMADI: I just want to tell him that “Please, you do your best to get success in your own life, in your job. But please don’t use me, I am very small person, I’m nothing.”
REPORTER: But he calls people-smugglers 'the scum of the earth', so you have a bit of a problem with him at the moment.
HADI AHMADI: I’m sure that he has wrong information about me, they just make me big but I am nothing. They just make me big. Yeah, please, please, please. I beg everyone who can help me. Mr Prime Minister or Mr Ambassador here, I’m tired from this condition, maybe in just a few months I will kill myself also. I don’t know what is going on with me. I’m a bit tired, very tired.
REPORTER: You didn't say you would kill yourself, did you?
HADI AHMADI: Some time I will do it.
REPORTER: Oh no, you don't do that. You have to wait for the opportunity to explain your situation. You don't want to be talking about suicide. Forget all that.
HADI AHMADI: I’m living in that condition, a very difficult situation I’m living in now.
Back in Puncak, Mohibullah too is hoping his difficult situation will soon come to an end. If, as he says, the authorities have decided on his case, then sometime in the future he will be coming to Australia, but not in a leaky boat.
GEORGE NEGUS: Seriously good work. David O'Shea filming and reporting. Needless to say, we approached the Federal Police about the allegations in David's story. Their response? A firm "no comment".
Reporter/Camera
DAVID O’SHEA
Researcher
MELANIE MORRISON
Fixer
AGUSTINUS DA COSTA
Editors
NICK O’BRIEN
ROWAN TUCKER-EVANS
Producer
GEOFF PARISH
Translations / Subtitling
ROBYN FALLICK
Original Music composed by
VICKI HANSEN