http://themilitant.com/2017/8148/814851.html
The Militant (logo)
Vol. 81/No. 48 December 25, 2017
Australian, Papua New Guinea cops move
protesting refugees
BY RON POULSEN
SYDNEY — Under the direction of Australian Federal Police, Papua New
Guinea cops violently attacked and forcibly evicted some 420 refugees
from Canberra’s detention camp on Manus Island, in Papua New Guinea,
Nov. 23. This is the latest chapter in the long-running, brutal
treatment of asylum-seekers by successive Australian governments seeking
to prevent them from reaching the country.
The detainees, all men and mostly from Afghanistan, Iran, Myanmar,
Pakistan, Sri Lanka or Syria, had held a sit-in protest for over three
weeks after the compound was ordered shut by the PNG government. After
they refused to leave, all food, medical supplies, power and water were
cut off. The detainees met daily, Behrouz Boochani, a Kurdish journalist
detained for four years and a leader of the refugees’ sit-in, told the
Saturday Paper. They shared food smuggled into them by supporters,
including to their adopted stray dogs.
Thousands of protesters have mobilized across Australia in recent weeks,
demanding “Bring them here!” There also was a protest supporting them by
residents of Manus Island.
The refugees have been calling for Canberra to take responsibility for
their welfare after years of incarceration. They said they feared for
their safety if moved to another camp on PNG.
The PNG cops “kicked people’s legs, dragged and bashed us, swearing at
us that this was not our country,” Abdul Aziz, a Sudanese refugee at the
camp, told the Militant by phone Dec. 3. “The Australian Federal Police
were standing behind, directing the operation from outside.”
The cops stole refugees’ personal belongings, smashed bedding and other
furniture and destroyed food and water supplies.
PNG Police Commissioner Gari Baki claimed the eviction was done
“peacefully and without the use of force.” Australian Immigration
Minister Peter Dutton said reports of violence were “exaggerated.” But
photos on social media clearly show men with bruising and welts on their
backs or arms from beatings by PNG cops.
“None of us went voluntarily,” Aziz said. All the detainees were forced
onto buses for relocation to other sites.
The Australian rulers are determined to keep them confined indefinitely
in PNG to try to force them to give up and return to their war-torn
countries, or to resettle elsewhere.
Doctors from Australia and other countries who volunteered to examine
and treat the refugees were denied access to them. Australian Prime
Minister Malcolm Turnbull said, “We will not be pressured to let [the
refugees] come to Australia.”
Aziz said the new facilities they were forced into were not fully built;
many had no electricity, toilets or other basic necessities. Up to 65
people had no housing at all, with some told to sleep “in classrooms.”
In 2001, Canberra sent commandos to intercept a cargo ship, the Tampa,
with hundreds of refugees rescued at sea on board, to prevent it from
docking on Australian shores. Offshore detention centers were set up
with aid promised to the government of Papua New Guinea, a former
Australian colony, for holding the refugees. As refugees continued to
try to make the journey, Canberra made the same deal with the government
of Nauru, a small Pacific island.
In April last year, the Papua New Guinea Supreme Court ruled that the
Manus confinement regime was unconstitutional. The judges ordered the
PNG government to “take all steps necessary” to end the “illegal
detention of the asylum-seekers.”
PNG Prime Minister Peter O’Neill said the incarceration center “damaged”
PNG’s reputation. The onus was on Australia he said, to resettle the men
held there. Canberra, to the contrary, has always claimed the detainees
are PNG’s responsibility.
After the PNG court decision, Canberra passed laws preventing the
refugees from ever setting foot in Australia. Immigration Minister
Dutton said this would end “false hopes” given to asylum-seekers by
refugee rights supporters.
The Australian government has also resisted an offer by the new Labour
government in New Zealand to take 150 of the men.
Instead, Canberra says the detainees must wait for an existing
refugee-swap deal negotiated last year with former U.S. President Barack
Obama, a move that would get them as far away as possible. Under the
agreement, Washington is to take hundreds of Manus detainees in return
for Canberra accepting some Central American asylum-seekers held in U.S.
border detention centers.
In a January phone call with Turnbull, U.S. President Donald Trump
denounced Obama’s deal, but said he would abide by it. Since then,
Washington has begun slowly vetting refugees’ applications for asylum.
So far, only 54 have been resettled in the U.S. “We’re not going to give
up our protests until we get our freedom,” Aziz told the Militant.
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home