BY SARAH STEPHEN
The Woomera Immigration Detention Centre, in the South Australian desert, has been the site of a series of riots, hunger strikes, suicide attempts and escapes over the last two years. The federal government, with the assistance of a compliant media, has used these incidents to demonise asylum seekers and turn majority public opinion against them, portraying them as violent, selfish and manipulative.
In June, for example, the media colluded with the government in uncritically reporting a stash of "dangerous weapons" collected in a search of detainees, which included a range of things which were not weapons at all — a broken door handle and a device used for making tea.
There are many more such stories behind the desperate actions of those imprisoned in a camp which is by far the largest in the country (capacity will hit 2000 in March) and which has the most appalling conditions faced by any asylum seeker in Australia.
In November 2000, at least three nurses who were formerly employees of Australasian Correctional Management (ACM), the private company contracted to run the immigration detention centres, revealed that child abuse and other crimes had been covered up at their former workplace, Woomera.
At the time, Amnesty International's Alistair Gee observed, "Every problem is dramatically heightened by the remoteness, the inaccessibility, the culture of the management and the lack of knowledge by asylum seekers of what is happening with their refugee claims. Almost all of the detainees in Woomera are asylum seekers and the vast majority of them are refugees."
'Degrading'
It was in early November 1999 that the government announced that 400 "illegal immigrants" would be the first to be detained at Woomera West. Journalist Peter Mares wrote in his recent book, Borderline, "They were to be housed in former military barracks, which were, according to [immigration minister Philip] Ruddock, 'not thought appropriate for air-conditioning'. He described them as having 'flow-through ventilation'. Guards are flown in and out of town on six-week turn-arounds."
The opening of Woomera detention centre, the third such desert prison, coincided with an increase in asylum seekers arriving on Australia's shores from the war-torn and ravaged countries of Iraq and Afghanistan.
For the first six months, there were no public phones for detainees to use to call friends or relatives, not even to let them know they were still alive. It was three-and-a-half months before there was any mail delivered in or out of the centre. Not only did this stop them contacting family, but it meant detainees also had no access to lawyers, no opportunity even to ring the ombudsman to lodge a complaint.
Mares spoke to the local priest, Father Jim Monaghan, who said, "It's degrading, and if there was some family of mine locked up behind there, I'd be very angry, I reckon. I'd be militantly against it. As it is, even with these people who I don't know from a bar of soap, it just looks wrong, it just looks how you would cage up stray animals."
Mares writes, "Some lawyers who worked at Woomera are mystified as to why the process of refugee determination had been taking so long, particularly for clear-cut cases. There are claims of a deliberate go-slow; allegations that the long delays were meant to serve as an additional form of deterrence to future boat-arrivals."
Jacquie Everitt, a lawyer and refugee advocate, spoke to 91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ Weekly about her experiences.
Everitt explained that, last year, lawyers went to court to win the right to get access to Woomera detention centre. She went there in late November as part of a legal team. Her main motivation was to observe the situation of unaccompanied minors, some as young as eight. At the end of November there were 53 unaccompanied minors out of 582 children in detention; some 40 of those were in Woomera detention centre.
Addressing an international conference on the future of the refugee convention at the University of NSW, Everitt shared some of her stories.
"The children I have come to know in detention have stories to tell that I previously would never have believed could happen in Australia. These children have witnessed suicides, self-mutilation by detainees, the desperate depression and powerlessness of adults.
"The youngest unaccompanied minor in detention, as far as outsiders know, is an eight-year-old boy from Afghanistan.
"When I first heard of this boy, I heard that he was wandering about aimlessly at all hours of the night, dirty and uncared for in Woomera ... then I heard that he had bonded with a family and was placed, with that family, in the minister's pilot scheme in Woomera township ... The family with whom he was living were granted their [temporary protection visas] and released. The little boy was not. Never mind, they found another family for him to live with. So now, he has lost his own family in [their] effort to keep him safe from the Taliban, then he bonds to another family and loses them to the outside world and he is now placed with a third family."
Immigration minister Philip Ruddock is apparently very pleased with the outcome for this child. Everitt is not so positive: "What I have described is likely to have a detrimental effect on this boy's future psychological, emotional and even physical development."
"One of my favourite families is from Iraq", Everitt continued. "The teenage children have not been to school since they have been in Australia. They left their home country six years ago seeking asylum from political persecution and have spent the last two years in detention. The 15-year-old is fascinated by Australian politics and discusses newspaper columnists and their political bias or fair-mindedness. He is a talented artist and has a wonderful sense of humour. His older brother has a sense of responsibility to his family rare in a 17-year-old. Yet their story is one of the worst of the child detention stories.
"They have been locked in solitary confinement cells. One of them has attempted suicide twice and been put in a psychiatric hospital, the other has sewn his lips together as his only form of protest against what he saw as unacceptable treatment of his family by authorities. The family's refugee claims have been rejected, but because the family is Iraqi, they cannot be sent back as Australia has no diplomatic relations with Iraq. This means this family must remain indefinitely in detention, watching their friends released while their lives dwindle away by the day."
'Shames me'
"Unaccompanied minors and their sadness, confusion and feelings of powerlessness shames me more than any other aspect of Australia's detention policy", she concluded.
South Australian lawyer Julie Redman, speaking at a December "Politics in the Pub" forum in Adelaide, shared the personal impact of her first visit to Woomera detention centre.
"As I approached the centre I couldn't help but feel sick at the stark contrast between the pleasant township of Woomera and the stark treeless compound of the detention centre. Millions of dollars have been spent at Woomera to make this one of the most high security prisons that I have ever seen. Double steel fences surround the compound with two layers of razor wire glistening in the sun. Outside the perimeter is a bright blue water canon ready for action, with another inside.
"Children wandered aimlessly behind the huge compound fences with not one ball or play thing evident. I saw no children laughing or playing freely... The contrast between the way we now provide for animals in our own zoo in Adelaide is far superior to the facilities provided to these families. There is not a blade of grass in sight, the children wander slowly through the dust. The only time that whole day I saw children smiling was when they came with their mothers to see us and had a degree of freedom without the ever-watchful eye of the ACM guards.
"The sleeping quarters are neatly placed, transportable buildings all cream, the same colour as the dirt the children play in. The 37 unaccompanied children live in three of these buildings, each cabin with 15 beds.
"The only detainees who were allowed to see us were those who requested legal advice. I was able to see four unaccompanied minors, aged 10 and 11. What struck me most was how flat, lacking in life and depressed they obviously were.
"One 11-year-old Afghan boy told me he was an orphan and had travelled from Afghanistan via Indonesia. His extended family had raised the money to send him to a safe place. He felt safe in the detention centre, it was so much better than the way he had observed at home. He did not know what was to become of him. He believed he's been in the detention centre for six months. He could not tell me who the migration agent was that was assisting the processing of his application for refugee status. He told me he spent most of his day sleeping."
While the government has remained immovable, uncaring, lawyers, caseworkers, concerned citizens and most importantly the refugees themselves are raising their voices more and more loudly for the veil of secrecy over this country's detention policy to be lifted — so that the Australian people can come to know just how brutal and inhumane it is.
From 91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ Weekly, December 12, 2001.
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