Refugees - flee their homes but are not forced

Submitted by Maggie (Australia), Jul 30, 2005 at 01:43

Mohammed,

I see more of the sophistry with cleverly constructed but inaccurate comments about the alleged plight of refugees. It is not true to state that refugees are forced from their homes. The majority choose to flee from their homes when they come under attack by thugs.

As a member of a nation that has had to deal with alleged refugees arriving by boat, and not always agreeing with government policy on the issue, I do happen to know a bit about the status of these people. The majority leave not in a time of war, but in a time of "peace". They pay people to help them onto a boat, and then they head for Australia. There is no force involved in the process. Their homes and villages continue to exist but they want to start a new life elsewhere. That is why my own government has been so harsh on these individuals.

The Vietnamese refugees were fleeing because the communist had taken over their cities, but there is no evidence to state that their homes were razed to the ground, or that they were rounded up and told to leave. Again, even though I have always support the Vietnamese refugees, their situation was no different.

The Palestinians were already illegal occupiers in the land that is now the state of Israel. Whilst I do not agree with all of the actions taken by Israel I can see that the neighbours of the Palestinians have done nothing to alleviate their situation. If any of them lost their homes as a punishment for violence they should remember that they knew what laws had been implemented and if they did not want to see their homes razed to the gound they should have acknowledged that the State of Israel is the controlling foce. However, Hamas has not been prepared to negotiate on these serious matters.

Let me turn for a minute to East Timor. This is clearly a situation where there was Islamic oppression of the people of East Timor in force. The East Timorese were Christian (Catholic) and their country had been taken over by the Indonesians. The members of the Indonesian army are overwhelmingly Islamists. The people of East Timor remained oppressed for close on 25 years. In that time they endured a lot of indignity at the hands of the Indonesian army. They were thrown out of their houses, and thousands were murdered when the referendum clearly went against the Indonesian rule and requested independence. Many of these East Timorese had already fled to Australia, and countless others lost their homes during that battles that took place. So here we have the paradox that Mohammed does not want to mention - a people who were being oppressed by Islamists were in fact forced to flee because of what they had already endured.

Now, remaining in Indonesia, we have an area known as Aceh province. A little known fact is that Aceh is predominantly Christian. It is also a province with mixed races, predominantly ethnic Chinese. Prior to the year 2000 the area of Aceh erupted into violence and thousands were slaughtered by the Indonesian "Islamic" army. The violence included the rape of young woman in order to put them to shame. This happened around the same time as the outbreak of violence in Bosnia. In Bosnia there were young nuns who were deliberately raped by the monsters who were behind the violence. It was also the period of the eruption of violence in Kosovo.

The only people forced from their homes during this violence were Christian, not people who were Islamics.

This is not the only issue in Indonesia, but I do need to pat a real Islamic martyr on the back. He was a young man, a member of the Islamic youth in Indonesia. He and his friends were asked by the president to guard the Christian churches. He discovered a suspicious package that turned out to be a bomb. It exploded as he was attempting to remove it from the church where it was found. This particular young man gave up his life for others and he will receive an eternal reward for his selflessness in giving his life to save Christians.

The argument that the members of Islam have been forced from their homes is totally wrong.

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