Ruddock sends refugees back to starvation

May 22, 2002
Issue 

BY SARAH STEPHEN

In response to the Easter protests outside the Woomera and Villawood detention centres, immigration minister Philip Ruddock declared that there were no refugees in Australia's detention centres, only "rejectees". They are not refugees, he argued, because they have had their claims rejected, are awaiting deportation or are appealing negative decisions.

The government has come under immense pressure to alter the conditions that have triggered scores of protests by detainees, including numerous hunger strikes, over the last three years. The detainees' courageous actions have helped inspire the rapid growth of a solidarity movement across Australia.

At the beginning of last July, the refugee prisons held around 4000 people. According to the immigration department, they now hold around 1500 people, while a further 1500 are held offshore. Woomera, which held 1000 people nine months ago, now holds less than 300. The numbers have been reduced by granting asylum seekers temporary protection visas or deporting them.

The government is eager to deport as many asylum seekers as possible once their refugee status claims are rejected, but there are a few "problem groups".

There are 330 Iranian asylum seekers in detention who cannot be returned to Iran because the Australian government has no agreement with that country. Similarly, asylum seekers from Iraq cannot be returned because there are no commercial flights to Iraq. The more than 100 Palestinian asylum seekers in detention are, by definition, stateless and have no country to be returned to. They remain in permanent limbo.

The Australian government is keen to send back thousands of asylum seekers from Afghanistan, the majority having already been recognised as refugees. According to the government, with the fall of the Taliban regime conditions have changed and the refugees should now return.

However, the vast majority of refugees from Afghanistan reject this claim and the deny that they are no longer refugees. Most Afghan refugees in Australia are Hazaras, an ethnic and religious minority whose persecution predates the rise of the Taliban. Despite offering cash and a one-way plane ticket to return to Afghanistan, Canberra has not moved to forcibly repatriate Afghan refugees.

The government's view that the political and humanitarian situation in Afghanistan has fundamentally improved is not shared by the United Nations of other agencies.

Jennifer Ashton, a UN officer based in Afghanistan, told the May 2 Canberra Times that "Afghan refugees in Australia should not go back until they are confident of their safety". "'The words we use is facilitated return — if people want to come back, we will help them, but we're not advocating or promoting return at the moment", she said.

Ashton explained that the country's infrastructure had collapsed. "Water has to be fetched from standpipes, electricity is erratic and schools operate three shifts a day with 50 to 100 students in each class", she said. Southern Afghanistan is in the grip of a crippling drought. "Agriculturalists say the country can't possibly produce enough food to support the current population and the returnees", Ashton warned.

Contrary to the Ruddock's that Afghanistan has emerged from chaos to face a new dawn of peace, Ashton the Canberra Times that there was sporadic gunfire in Kabul and the incessant drone of military helicopters. There is a 9pm curfew and the UN maintains no more staff in the country than can be evacuated in a day.

In recent months, fighting between rival warlords in the north and south-east of the country, as well as near Kabul, has taken the lives of scores of people. According to Human Rights Watch, the warlords that control northern and western Afghanistan have recently launched pogroms against the Pashtun minorities in those areas. Thousands of northern Pashtuns have fled to southern Afghanistan, where the Pashtuns are the majority.

The May 3 Washington Post reported that, since March 1, 451,000 refugees have returned, mainly from Pakistan and Iran. A spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees told the newspaper that the number was "phenomenal". "We had planned to assist 400,000 from Pakistan for the whole year", the spokesperson said.

"Lured by the presence of international peacekeepers and the prospect of work, as many as 40 per cent of the refugees are cramming into Kabul", the Washington Post reported. UN handouts to returning refugees amount to US$20, a blanket, a bucket, soap and a sack of wheat — not enough to start a new life. What's more, the UN will run out of funds for returnees by June.

Kabul faces a crisis in the coming months. Many Afghans are too afraid to return to their villages because of the lack of security. Shanty towns are likely to spring up on the outskirts of the city as people run out of money, cannot find work or a place to live. Aid groups anticipate that as many as 100,000 people will be stranded in Kabul without money or a home.

Ruddock's recent tour of refugee camps in Pakistan, and his visit to Afghanistan, will no doubt be used to peddle more lies that things are rosy in this devastated country.

The federal government continues to find technicalities to dishonestly deny Afghan asylum seekers refugees status. Afghan asylum seekers have repeatedly reported that Australian officials refuse to accept that they have come from Afghanistan. The officials say that they are really from Pakistan.

Riz Wakil, an Afghan refugee living in Sydney, told 91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ Weekly that many of the refugees that the Australian government claims are Pakistanis pretending to be Afghans are from the oppressed Hazara minority in Afghanistan.

"I know an Afghan refugee in Villawood who has had his claim rejected on the basis that he's supposed to be from Pakistan", Wakil said. "The government tried to get documents from the Pakistan government to confirm this... After 28 months in detention, he's so traumatised that he thinks it's better to go back to Afghanistan and face the chance of being killed, than stay in detention. But the Australian government will only deport him to Pakistan when he admits that he is Pakistani!"

"It gets worse", Wakil added. "To avoid granting them refugee status, the government is also alleging that some Afghans in the detention centres are from Iran, Syria or Kuwait! I know a man who was in Woomera detention centre for nine months because they alleged he was from Iran." He won his fight to be recognised as a refugee from Afghanistan and has been released.

Many asylum seekers whose applications have been rejected face persecution or death upon return to their country of origin. But if they don't fit the Australian government's narrow definition of a refugee, Ruddock and his department are not concerned about what happens.

The April 29 Melbourne Age reported that two Iranian men refused refugee status in Australia after spending two years in detention at the Woomera centre had been arrested by security police on their return to Iran.

"The men, one a converted Christian, said that since returning home they had been exiled by their families, their phones had been tapped, their movements monitored and they had been prevented from obtaining work or a passport", the Age reported. "'I deeply regret my decision to return, but the Australian authorities gave me no choice. It was either a life sentence behind razor wire at Woomera or go back home and take my chances', said one of the men... 'I am very afraid, Tehran is not safe for returning detainees, especially if they are Christian."

The Age report continued: "The latest US State Department's report on Iran says that citizens are not allowed to recant Islam and that 'apostasy, specifically conversion from Islam, may be punishable by death'. In recent years, a number of Christians have disappeared and are believed to have been murdered."

The Age also reported concerns within the Iranian community in Australia about the disappearance of two other asylum seekers who were returned to Iran.

Shamefully, Australia is not the only country to deport Iranian asylum seekers to face persecution and death. The Swiss government, in partnership with the International Red Cross, is to "facilitate" the return of asylum seekers to Iran by offering 2000 francs to each adults and 500 francs for each child that returns.

Karim Tuzalhi was forcibly returned to Iran in June 1998 — he was executed by the regime on January 24 this year. Khaled Shoghi, who was forcibly returned to Iran from Turkey and arrested in 1997, has been sentenced to death.

From 91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ Weekly, May 22, 2002.
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