Free the refugees! Shut down Woomera!

BY ROB GRAHAM

ADELAIDE — “I’ve been reticent to express my support for refugees before, but after this weekend everyone needs to go back and speak to as many people as they can and join in any organised demonstrations. We can start really getting people to think about the inhumanity of it all.” — Janine Chugg, a refugee-rights protester at the Woomera detention centre, told Green Left Weekly.

In a fabulous display of solidarity, around 1000 people travelled to South Australia's far north between March 28 and April 1 to protest the federal government's treatment of refugees and show their support to detainees in the Woomera desert refugee prison.

“I'm here because there's an obscenity on our doorstep, and it's got to go”, Hugh, an activist from Adelaide, told GLW. Ray, who came to Australia as a Palestinian refugee, had similar reasons. “I want to show the detainees that there is understanding and compassion for their plight among the Australian public”, he said.

Woomera is Australia’s most notorious refugee prison — many of its inmates have been living in its blistering heat for years, suffering beatings, solitary confinement, denial of access to toilets as punishment for protest, widespread depression, and without access to education or broader community contact.

The first protesters arrived at the centre's outer perimeter fence on the evening of March 28. They resisted police attempts to force them away from the detention centre, into the township of Woomera, and set up camp near the fence.

Most protesters arrived on Friday, March 29, and that evening marched down to the detention centre. Approaching the outer fence, protesters saw detainees standing on the one of the centre's roofs, waving and shouting.

The heavy police presence protest organisers had expected didn’t eventuate. A few activists leapt onto the outer fence, bringing it down and the protesters swarmed towards the inner fence, where we could see and speak with detainees.

Writing for Melbourne Indymedia, Katie Dowling described what happened next: “Soon this energy was manifest in a way no-one thought possible. One moment, activists and refugees were akimbo on either side of the outer fence; the next, a gap had been torn between two of the palings that stood in the row of shiny steel teeth. The teeth were parted and a stream of detainees spewed forth.”

According to members of Melbourne’s Refugee Action Collective who travelled to the protest, the initiative for the escapes was taken by the refugees themselves, and was not planned by the protesters.

“For the first time in a long time [the Woomera detainees] had a chance to make a choice on Friday night”, No One Is Illegal activist Andrea Maksimovic wrote to the Australian Human Rights news group on April 4. “And just like the rest of us they made different choices. Some climbed the two barbed wire fences and escaped, some didn’t. If there is anything I bemoan about our actions on Friday night it is that we were not prepared, we underestimated their will for freedom.”

Some escaping detainees were caught and thrown into a police van, which was then surrounded by protesters chanting “Freedom!”. Mounted police forced the protesters to disperse and the van left. Some of the protesters were also arrested. Several refugees allegedly made it to the protesters' camp site.

The captured detainees were taken to Woomera police station, where, according to “Monkey”, a protester at Woomera, they gave Australian protesters they shared a cell with a note, which said: “We have made the world hell with racism, colours, religionism, ethnics and so on. Businesses and wrong diplomacy. ACM [Australasian Correctional Management] is bad, Australian government is bad, Australian people are good. Detention centre still continues day by day. You will see what is going on.”

The atmosphere back at the camp was very tense that night. Police set up a road block and checked identification documents of everyone leaving or entering the camp. They were also rumoured to be threatening to use tear gas to force entry to a tent, surrounded by protesters, that allegedly contained escaped detainees.

An anonymous posting to Melbourne Indymedia said: “It was strange spending a night in a camp surrounded on all sides by a police line. It must have been worse for the detainees that were with us, surrounded by a line of cops that wanted to put them back in a cage.

“They told us during the night of the beatings and suffering inside the camp. They told us of the endless wait — 24 months, 26 months — just to know whether they could stay in Australia on a temporary visa or whether they would be deported back to face persecution, imprisonment or death. All wanted to get out of the camp and to Adelaide or some major city.”

While some protesters were uneasy about the implications of the refugees' escape and there were different views on what to do next, the overwhelming sentiment was to assist the asylum seekers. “There is no choice”, another anonymous posting to Indymedia argued. “It was not a question of whether to help but how.” Maksimovic agrees, emphasising that the refugees chose to escape: “Let’s give [the refugees] some [credit for] political agency, let’s restore them some dignity”.

The latter Indymedia writer also claimed that he or she had spoken to one of the escaped refugees, who had been inside Woomera for a year, and hadn’t seen or heard from his family for more than 18 months. “[The detention centre] was like prison”, the refugee allegedly said. “There is nothing to do, all we do is eat and sleep, eat and sleep. I can’t go back inside.”

Inside the prison, ACM guards attempted a full muster of detainees to get a head count so as to work out how many and who had actually escaped. The detainees resisted and were met with tear gas and beatings.

On March 30, despite a “spokescouncil” decision not to engage in civil disobedience that day, protesters could not resist pushing aside the flimsy outer fence again. They attempted to deliver $3000 worth of toys to the prison for refugee children, but the police refused to deliver them until protesters “left the restricted area”. The action ended in a spontaneous celebration with music and dancing at, and on, the fallen sections of the outer fence.

On Easter Sunday, March 31, because protesters had been told that detainees had been moved to the rear of the prison, we decided to march around the main fence making as much noise as possible, and letting the prisoners know we were still there.

By the time the march reached the main gates, several detainees were already on the roof of a small building with a banner: “We are victim of politics. We refugees have request from Australian people for help.” Around 30 detainees climbed onto buildings and we were able to exchange chants with them like, “Where is human rights?” and “Free the refugees — out now!”

The detainees also chanted “Thank you, thank you” and “We love you, we love you”. The head cop tried to read the riot act (twice), but was drowned out both times.

The march moved off around the prison and we were able to speak to other detainees on the opposite side. When asked if the toys had been delivered, a woman said that they hadn't and then a man yelled “We don't want toys, we want freedom!”

Several paddy wagons had been brought up by this stage and eight protesters separated from the main group were arrested for trespass. When we heard that a water cannon had been brought out, we decided to move as a group back to our camp. Once again, spirits were high, even as an unmarked police helicopter circled low over the camp taking photos.

To help escaped detainees is an offence under Australian law. Nearly 30 protesters were arrested during the weekend. Around 20 of them are facing charges which carry hefty jail sentences.

No-one who participated in the Woomera protest will ever forget it, and the action was a big success in highlighting the gross violations of human rights that occur in Australia’s desert refugee concentration camps.

Over the Easter weekend, solidarity protests were held — from Maribyrnong and Villawood to Berlin, Edinburgh and New York. If we extend and deepen these protests, making them bigger and more inclusive, then we can end the inhumane policy of mandatory detention of “illegal” asylum seekers and free, not just a few refugees, but them all.

[Rob Graham is a member of the Democratic Socialist Party.]

From Green Left Weekly, April 10, 2002.
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