Letters to the editor

Libya

It is good to witness the expressions of concern and empathy for the Libyans by so many people and governments around the world. The Libyan people need our support against the regimes brutality. People should be urging diplomatic, political and economic action by the international community. Even some limited military action to carry out humanitarian or peacekeeping roles under the UN control or other appropriate alliance, with suitable Arab or other independent leadership would be okay. But this should be restricted and temporary.

I have no problem supporting nations using their armies to bring humanitarian aid, or even limited military assistance to countries in conflict. But there’s a vast difference between UN and other peacekeeping missions to war torn countries and invasions and military occupation.

Long-term military/political intervention is often obstructive to the growth of real democracy, freedom and self-determination in these countries. One type of aid seeks to help, while the other seeks to dominate. Unfortunately, the wishes of the people are frequently overlooked by major powers when strategic interests, oil and other resources are involved. And then these powerful nations often stay around too long, interfere too much and impose their control over the fragile country.

People need to be free to determine their own destiny and let democracy from below flourish, rather than outside forces controlling and imposing a new leader from the top. That just leads to yet another unpopular foreign backed dictatorship and more oppression.

Steven Katsineris,
Hurstbridge, Vic

Refugees

There are over 6,000 asylum seekers detained by the government. More than 1,000 of them are children. We are the only country in the world with mandatory detention of our Asylum Seekers. A significant number have been in detention for two years. There are ten people on Christmas Island who are nearing two years in detention. Recently I met a former Asylum Seeker who spent three and half years incarcerated in detention and who is now an Australian citizen.

I am part of the Refugees Rights Action Network (RRAN) in Perth, a volunteer group of individuals from all walks of life, from tradespeople to mental health workers and teachers, from students to parents.

We spend our time advocating for an end to mandatory detention, for humane policies by our Government that welcome, rather than torture asylum seekers. Many of the volunteer advocates visit the detention centres to support the most basic needs of asylum seekers.

We are forever stunned by the comprehensive erosion of their full suite of human rights. We are stunned by the fact that they are confined for unreasonable periods of time in these detention centres. We are stunned that these people are neglected psychosocially, psychologically and medically, and some have to wait for medical injuries or ill health to get much worse before their ailment or symptoms are flagged for medical attention.

What surprised me most is the lack of onsite interpreters to assist these people. The Commonwealth has not provided bi-lingual dictionaries to our Asylum Seekers to assist them with effective communication. We have Farsi, Arabic, Urdu, Kurdish, Hazara, Karen, Chinn, Tamil, Sinhalese speaking Asylum Seekers. Instead the largest provider of bi-lingual dictionaries to these people, whether it be to the Perth, Banksia, Leonora or Curtin detention centres is RRAN.

Why should a volunteer group that needs to spend time supporting our detainees while consciousness raising community about the plight of asylum seekers also have to fund raise and buy dictionaries, the most basic courtesy and human right, and either mail or deliver them to detainees?

Why isn't the government, the Department of Immigration and Citizenship, or even the private management contracted to provide services to detention centres, SERCO, not funding and providing these dictionaries?

This is definitely un-Australian. What are their excuses for this? Ultimately, whether it takes one, two or three years of detention thereabouts at least 96% of asylum seekers will be granted refugee status. What sort of introduction to Australia is this for our future Australians?

Gerry Georgatos,
Harrisdale, WA, Abridged

Congratulations to GLW

Congratulations to all at GLW for doing what you do. For me, this is the “real” Australia, not the corporate aberration that thinks profits are more important than the atmosphere.

Every week GLW is a breath of fresh air, telling me about what I actually care about, not lifestyle twaddle.

I would like to congratulate the writer of one particular article in GLW # 871. “Something sick in the heart of Australia” says it all about the way it is visiting people in the Villawood detention centre.

There are nearly 7000 people locked up like this, about half on Christmas Island.

Incredibly, this is more than under the Howard-Ruddock regime. We know what Gillard and company think about refugees and indigenous people in Northern Territory. Their actions speak very loudly. So well done Ben Peterson on your article.

GLW with the demonstrations and actions it advertises, which I try and get to, gives me hope for the future.

What happens next depends on us much more than we know. We plugged away on East Timor for years, sharing the struggle of the occupied East Timorese. And then the situation changed, and our efforts turned out not to have been wasted at all. Sometimes you just have to keep on plugging on despite the media-led indifference of perhaps most people. Just keep up with the brilliant work GLW.

Looking forward to the day when GLW is the mainstream and they are selling the Australian on street corners!

Stephen Langford,
Sydney, NSW

Labor’s climate policy disastrous

The pro-coal, pro-gas Australian Labor government has proposed a Carbon Tax-ETS policy, which ignores agriculture and means climate change inaction by Australia, a world-leading per capita greenhouse gas (GHG) polluter.

Astonishingly, major climate activist groups have been seduced by neocon Labor political spin and are supporting this disastrous policy that promotes a pointless coal-burning to gas-burning conversion, scuppers science-demanded 100% renewable energy by 2020, institutes a counterproductive carbon emissions trading scheme (ETS) and ignores agriculture which is responsible for over 50% of GHG pollution.

Labor’s policy is a travesty and a tragedy because it pretends to “tackle climate change” but actually entrenches Australia’s world leading per capita fossil fuel burning and exporting. Spin and lying have won out over dispassionate scientific advice and have committed a climate criminal Australia to the role of international pariah. The worsening climate catastrophe, due to unaddressed human-made climate change, is set to kill 10 billion people this century and devastate the biosphere.

Dr Gideon Polya
Melbourne, Victoria

North Korea

In GLW #869, Phil Orchard, in an article on the World Economic Forum, writes "If you were writing a book on human rights, asking Kim Jong Il to write a chapter might undermine its credibility."

The article is otherwise excellent, and thoroughly exposes the hypocrisy of the world's global capitalist elite (corporate politicians and CEOs and executives) meeting to discuss the crisis which they caused. However, hysterical denunciations of Kim Jong Il and North Korea generally tends to undermine the argumentation in the article. I'm sure that almost to a CEO, the WEF would agree with Phil Orchard's criticism of North Korea for "human rights" abuses. So he places himself in the very company of those he is seeking to expose.

Paraphrasing Fidel Castro, if the North Koreans had not waged a heroic struggle against US imperialist intervention in Korea, there would be millions of Koreans who now would not even be alive, let alone have "human rights". The North Koreans have managed to set up a certain type of socialist economy and politics since 1948, in the face of virtually impossible odds. Sure, there are some distortions, but given the circumstances of ongoing civil war, and the very real threat of US/South Korean/Japanese invasion at any moment, it is unrealistic to demand a perfect socialist state.

This is not to say that North Korea should be immune from criticism. However, they are a part of the struggle against world (and specifically US) imperialism, and should be treated as such, rather than lining up with the world's CEOs and corporate politicians against them.

Adam Baker,
Nundah, QLD