BY SARAH STEPHEN
The five-day hunger strike by 170 people imprisoned in the Woomera detention centre, which began on March 7, has received scant coverage in the mainstream media. This has made it difficult for asylum seekers to relay their protest message to the Australian people, and easier for the federal government to dismiss it.
Federal immigration minister Philip Ruddock alleged that all those involved in the hunger strike had had their claims for refugee status rejected. However, speaking on ABC news on March 14, South Australian director of Centacare Catholic Family Services Dale West challenged Ruddock's assertion. He revealed that of the nearly 190 Iraqi detainees in the centre, 173 are still awaiting a first decision on their visa applications.
"The people who are on hunger strike at Woomera, a large number of those people — perhaps even the majority — are people who've been waiting for an average of 10 months just for their primary outcomes to be considered", West noted.
According to Lyn Coleman, who spoke to a detainee in Maribyrnong detention centre, "all 77 detainees [there] have been on a hunger strike since March 12. They are protesting the continued infringement of their basic rights. They are protesting about the banning of more and more of their visitors. Australasian Correctional Management is not passing on faxes and documents to the detainees. Detainees are not allowed to have any food that has been given to them by visitors in their rooms."
On March 14, the Howard government introduced legislation aimed at barring asylum seekers from making refugee applications if they are in Australia for emergency medical treatment, if they are passing through Australia to their home country or to where they are being resettled, or if they are in Australia to testify in criminal trials.
The Labor Party, unwilling to oppose the legislation, proposed a number of amendments. The government rejected Labor's proposal to issue asylum seekers with short-term visas similar to those given to Kosovar and East Timorese refugees, but agreed to an amendment allowing asylum seekers on Papua New Guinea's Manus Island and Nauru who are brought back to Australia for deportation and detained for more than six months to have the right to appeal their cases to the Refugee Review Tribunal. The legislation is currently being debated and, if the government gets its way, it will be passed before parliament adjourns on March 21.
An indication that the government anticipates the failure of its "Pacific solution" as an alternative to processing asylum seekers on Australian soil, the government is planning a 1200-bed detention centre on Christmas Island. It will be able to hold 400 asylum seekers within six months, when Australia's agreement with Nauru to process more than 1100 asylum seekers ends. The centre will be fully completed by the end of the year.
This was news to the residents of Christmas Island. They first heard of the proposal on March 12 when territories minister Wilson Tuckey addressed a meeting on the island. According to the March 13 Melbourne Age, Tuckey said ultimately all "illegal" arrivals would be put on Christmas Island.
The March 13 Australian reported that the government had admitted that asylum seekers processed on Christmas Island would probably end up on the Australian mainland with temporary protection visas. Ruddock said it would be "unrealistic" to think that other countries would offer to resettle refugees who were processed on Australian territory.
As of February 5, the Australian government was overseeing the detention of 3301 people, more than half are in concentration camps off the Australian mainland: Nauru, Manus Island, Cocos Island and Christmas Island.
As the monsoon season comes to an end, more desperate asylum seekers will make their way to Australia. The human cost of detaining large numbers of vulnerable traumatised people, with fewer and fewer legal rights and options, makes the campaign to close Australia's refugee prisons more urgent than ever.
From Green Left Weekly, March 20, 2002.
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