Transcript
BILL JAYNES: They actually were living on a 'blue boat', the Vietnamese-style wooden boats, which was pretty awful, but now they have a couple of bedrooms and mattresses and couches, dining room table, kitchen, Their groceries are in a refrigerator and stored and whatever overflowed is actually stored at the Department of Justice, so they have plenty of supplies.
SALLY ROUND: They sound like they're being pretty well looked after. Who's paying for this?
BJ: As I understand it, the UNHCR is taking care of it. They had a visit that had been scheduled that kind of coincided with the time that the local attorney filed a writ of habeas corpus and they had been talking about the possibility of getting the guys relocated off of that vessel into some other organisation so while they were here they scouted around with the Department of Justice and found a home that was suitable.
SR: Do you have any inkling as to why they were left on that boat for that period of time? It sounded pretty sub-standard.
BJ: It was a difficult position, no question about it, but then again people haven't seen our jails either and they're not prisoners so they didn't want to put them in jail. I don't understand frankly what motivation the government had and still has for keeping them as separate as they insist they must do. They say it is for public protection but again I don't know what the reasons were for their refugee status having been granted. I've been told that their case has been fast-tracked which is pretty incredible if you think about it because there are millions of refugees a year and very few of them actually get relocated.
SR: So the court was told by the Department of Justice that they would be resettled within 60 days of that hearing on the 7th of June. Is that what you know?
BJ: I think that was an estimate. What concerns me is that if the writ is granted and it hasn't been yet, at least I haven't heard it has, the government may find themselves in an untenable position and the guys will have to be relocated to some other host country until they can be resettled in a permanent place and that's what worries me the most and seems to be worrying them too.
SR: And what do the local people there in Pohnpei think about this? Are they aware of these refugees?
BJ: There are a variety of responses. The expat community is, those I've talked to, is pretty much up in arms about the way their housing has been, whereas a lot of the locals comments that I have seen are 'yes, keep them separate', that kind of reaction.
SR: Is there some concern from the government, there could be a flood of asylum-seekers? You are that much further north ...
BJ: You know I can only theorise on that. No one's actually said that to me per se and I do have close contacts with the Department of Justice and the attorney who was initially dealing with this, but it is difficult here. We're certainly not unusual. Again 30 countries in the world accept refugees so that puts us in the majority of countries that don't really have any mechanism to deal with it and so if there was a flood of refugees, it certainly would be a big problem. Obviously it's been three years and we have had no idea what to do with them really.
