Indonesia starting to show its true intentions.

Australia is obliged to resettle Rohingya refugees from Myanmar, Indonesia's foreign ministry says, despite Prime Minister Tony Abbott flatly refusing to consider the option.

From http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-05-21/rohingyas-migrants-indonesia-says-australia-obliged-resettle/6486590

Dear o sung wu,

I will leave this here for your morning perusal.

You wrote;

“You'd agree, a series of regrettable events have now transpired and very quickly supplanted those discussions.”

No I certainly would not agree. During one of the interminable discussions on OLO over this topic I pointed out the very horrific crimes some of the recent Scottish immigrants have perpetrated on innocent Australians. It was never addressed by any of the more shall we say strident on the forum. Unless you feel you can make a stronger case than I can perhaps we shall leave it as a given that we disagree on this point and forego a rehash.

I also recognise the intransigence of BOTH our relative positions, again hardly worth picking up the cudgels once more.

But the discussion is about compassion and about you getting defensive about people like Poirot engaging in a little stereotyping. You seemed to be genuinely confused as to why she would take the quite understandable stance she did.

Recognising you as certainly one of the less pugnacious on here it is worth looking at your responses during this thread.

The original post was about the crisis of “Migrants From Myanmar, Shunned by Malaysia, Are Spotted Adrift in Andaman Sea. They said that they had been on the boat for three months, and that the boat’s captain and crew had abandoned them six days ago.”

Your first post questioned why they might have chosen to flee but made no comment on the terror and suffering they were obviously enduring.

Your next post had you buddying up and deep in agreement with JOM and wondering “if many of these Refugees who 'flee for their very lives', before doing so, jump on their computers for the purpose of establishing which country has the best, and easiest to access, welfare benefits? “

Cont..

Cont..

You see I for one was wondering what ethnic violence would force these people to turn to such desperate measures but you seemed far more concerned they might be after 'our benefits'.

Your third post had you claiming victim status; “We've still got people like Ms HANSON-YOUNG constantly pillorying those of us who would wish to take a much harder line with certain types of immigrants and providing assistance to certain classes of Refugees.” and you had fired up JOM that he felt quite comfortable posting up inane videos about Swedish National Socialists. Yup that's right their version of Neo-Nazis.

This is when Poirot pops up and remarks “I thought I'd give this thread a wide berth - realising it would be swimming in odium.” and you took her to task over it.

There is an old adage about lying down with dogs and getting up with fleas. If you want to sit there itching and scratching and picking over the same old sores while a couple of thousand stranded and desperate refugees and being booted from island to island then perhaps you shouldn't be surprised if an unflattering appraisal is made.

For what it is worth I don't think you would normally have the likes of JOM as a bedfellow, perhaps it might be worth pondering that particular bro-mance.

Steele,
See this is exactly why I spin up the issue of the "Holocaust" every time it appears.
Your counter argument boils down to: "Don't listen to Jay, he has views I don't agree with on one issue and I can't debate him on this issue so if you're one of the good guys you shouldn't talk to him".
Calling someone a "Neo Nazi" is just weak, it's a cop out used by people who can't think for themselves.
The NSDAP had their reasons for treating Jews the way they did, the Burmese no doubt have serious concerns about allowing a troublesome Muslim group to settle and "calcify" on their soil.
Jewish Bolshevism and organised crime were a real threat to Europe in the 1930'sand all of the gruesome NS predictions about the consequences of a German defeat came true, the Burmese like everyone else on the planet with half a brain can forsee the consequences of allowing Muslims to settle among them.
In short some people and some groups of people are a menace to the societies in which they live, some people deserve to be persecuted and hounded out of a particular society and don't deserve to be admitted to another one of their own choosing.
I don't see many tears shed over the persecution and expulsion of the fanatical Calvinists and Puritans who were destabilising Europe 500 years ago, let the Rohingya drift and if it's their god's will that they survive their ordeal then so be it.

The federal government was given a very firm mandate by the electorate to stop the boats. It is going about the business of putting the international people smuggling gangs out of business, at least insofar as Australia is concerned.

Whereas the Greens have been quick to side with Indonesia, which is not a signatory to the UN Convention itself, but is telling others to do what it itself did not do.

The democratically elected Australian government's position is eminently reasonable,

<In South Korea, Foreign Minister Julie Bishop told Fairfax Media south-east Asian nations should abandon their reluctance to interfere in each other's internal affairs and tackle the issue of Myanmar's treatment of the Rohingyas.

She reiterated that Australia had "no plans" to take any of the Rohingyas beyond the current refugee intake.

Ms Bishop said the problem needed to be dealt with at its source, which stemmed from the denial of citizenship by Myanmar to the Rohingya minority.

Though she stressed Australia would not interfere, Ms Bishop said, "Myanmar is a member of ASEAN, and I would assume that this … would be something that ASEAN could have on its agenda as it's a regional issue affecting a number of ASEAN countries."> [SMH May 22, 2015]

As an exercise, perhaps the troublemaking leftists and Greens might also consult with a map. Because Burma is a hell of a lot further from Australia than they imagine and imply, and it is surrounded by countries who really ought to be sorting out their regional issues. By no means is Australia part of that region.

What next? Maybe some thousands lobbing on Australia's shores to claim their own State? They would have the support of the self-flagellating Leftist 'Progressives' aka the International Socialists, and the human headlines, the Greens Protest Party, especially the Watermelon faction.

The bottom line in this whole story is that there are several thousand people drifting around the ocean, on severely overloaded rickety old ships. The only people who were willing to help them were some poor Indonesian fisherman. A compassionate society would send an ocean liner and pick up the lot in a matter of a day or so.The international community was very prompt in its reaction to the earthquake in Nepal so why when we have a large number of people in peril on the sea are we happy to ignore the problem ! I can only see a basic lack of empathy by our government and some of the others in the region.

Aside from that I agree that massive pressure should be applied to Burma to threat their inhabitants fairly.