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Friday November 23, 4:41 PMIndonesia yet to take stance on boat people: spokesman
"The relevant Australian authority is still conducting investigations including into (the group's) motivations, why they were in Australian waters on that particular date," said ministry spokesman Kristiarto Legowo. Legowo said the Indonesian government had not yet received notification that the 16, including 10 children, were in fact Indonesian citizens. "We have to establish the facts first about the circumstances and then we'll be able to take ... the measures that should be taken up," he told a regular ministry press briefing. Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said Wednesday the group, who were dramatically rescued as their boat sank in high seas, appeared to be from Roti island off the Indonesian portion of Timor island, East Nusa Tenggara province. Separately, provincial police chief Marthen Radja said he had sent a team to the village where the boat people had lived. "The district head said the three families (in the group) had sold their house to fund their travel to Australia," he told reporters in the provincial capital Kupang. Director of the West Timor Care Foundation, Ferdi Tanone, who had interacted with the men in the past, told AFP that the three men in the group had been arrested once before by Australian authorities and had their boat destroyed. "They are heavily in debt and had been planning to travel to Australia for a while," he said. Illegal fishing has been a perennial irritant to Indonesian-Australian relations. The neighbouring nations were plunged into a separate diplomatic row early last year after Australia granted asylum to 42 separatists from the far-eastern island of Papua. |
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