JAKARTA, June 16 (UPI) -- The head of an Indonesian task force on human smuggling says a new crackdown effort will not stop people trying to get to Australia.
Immigration detention centers in Indonesia are overflowing with asylum seekers arrested by the task force, which is aided by $13 million in Australian equipment and training, the Australian Broadcasting Corp. reported Wednesday.
However, Brig. Gen. Saud Usman Nasution, the task force head, says they can't stop people trying to reach Australia by boat.
"When we interrogate them they say 'I cannot stay, I cannot live in my country because conflict area, because jobless' and so on," he said. "Their destination (is) only Australia."
Asylum seekers are recruited in countries like Afghanistan by a sophisticated chain of smuggling agents, the ABC says. They are sent through trusted intermediaries in places like Dubai and Kuala Lumpur, bound for Indonesia and, ultimately, Australia.
Some of the smugglers from South Asia are so established in Indonesia they have taken Indonesian wives and started Indonesian families, Nasution said.
"They come from Pakistan, from Afghanistan, but they stay in Indonesia," he said.
Australia is committed to funding the people-smuggling task force until 2014, the report said.
