BY SARAH STEPHEN
"The articles ... seek to erode the pride that we as a nation are entitled to feel about the hand we extend to those in such great need" — that's what immigration minister Philip Ruddock had to say about two feature stories in the Los Angeles Times on Australia's appalling treatment of asylum seekers.
"Bane of the Boat People", written by Richard C. Paddock, was published on January 4. It began: "Australia's tough policies to deter refugees have been met with equal determination by those risking the trip. Some learn the hard way that they are not welcome."
The article dealt with the consequences of Australia's denial of family reunion rights to those who arrive without authorisation. Paddock pointed out that many on board the boat that sank off the coast of Indonesia last October had no other option if they wanted to be reunited with family in Australia.
Paddock traced a brief history of Australia: "Founded as a British penal colony in 1788, Australia has practised racial discrimination during much of its existence. In the 1800s, the indigenous Aborigines were gunned down and pushed off the land much like Native Americans in the United States...
"During the first half of the 1900s, the government maintained a 'White Australia' policy that allowed entry only to immigrants of European descent. In recent decades, growing numbers of immigrants from Asia and other parts of the world have been accepted, but whites still make up the overwhelming majority."
The article recounts the Tampa incident and Australia's system of mandatory detention, noting with irony: "Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock says the refugees are free to leave detention any time — as long as they also leave the country."
Paddock ends with a chilling quote from Ali Mehdi Sobie, an Iraqi refugee in Australia who lost his entire family when the boat sank: "If I knew the Australian government would treat me and my family this way, I would have preferred to stay in Iraq and be executed by Saddam Hussein rather than be executed this way... By killing my family, they are killing me."
Another Los Angeles Times article penned by Paddock, "The 'crime' of being a young refugee", appeared on January 5. It included a number of interviews with children and young people in Australia's immigration detention centres, including with a boy aged 12 at WA's Curtain detention centre and with a girl aged 13 in the Villawood detention centre in Sydney. Both were from Iraq
Dr Aamer Sultan, an Iraqi doctor who has spent the last two-and-a-half years in Villawood detention centre, told Paddock: "By law you are not a criminal, but you spend the rest of your life in prison... We are not paying for what we have done. We are paying for who we are. I think we came to a very racist country. I think that we made a fatal mistake."
Mohammad Bedraie, the father of a six-year-old boy, Shayan, who stopped eating and talking after a year-and-a-half in detention, was also quoted: "People overseas still believe, like we used to, that Australia is a real humanitarian country... They will not understand until they are here, and then it is too late."
According to staff at the Los Angeles Times, the articles have created a lot of interest in the United States. They certainly provoked outrage from the Australian government.
Ruddock issued a three-page reply the articles on January 10 which was sent to Australian media, as well the Los Angeles Times, "in an effort to outline Australia's outward-looking and global approach to migration and its longstanding and generous humanitarian program".
Ruddock claimed the "articles were riddled with inaccuracies and distortions which seek to erode the pride we as a nation are entitled to feel about the hand we extend to those in great humanitarian need".
Ruddock is incensed, not because the articles contained inaccuracies, but because they were sympathetic to the plight of asylum seekers and critical of Australia's racist history, drawing a link between past and present policies.
Ruddock claims that the author made no effort to contact Ruddock's office for his side of the story. In fact, Paddock quoted Ruddock's views frequently throughout the articles.
Ruddock's rebuttal uses bizarre semantics to argue that "the Australian government does not 'lock up' refugees, nor does it detain people for seeking asylum. We do, however, place in detention people who arrive unlawfully until their asylum claims are determined... They need not remain in detention — they are free to depart Australia at any time."
Ruddock paints a glorious picture of life in detention. He lists the range of facilities provided at Villawood as an example: "There are 29 televisions for 323 people, 21 video recorders and DVD machines, two stereo systems, 18 computers, one Nintendo game system, four computer game consoles, board games and musical equipment. There is also a variety of sporting equipment including pool tables, exercise machines, bicycles and volleyball courts. There are reading rooms, a library, recreation rooms, an arts and crafts room and a women's centre."
Most of these facilities were introduced following a damning report on the ABC's Four Corners in August. At the time, Ruddock's office issued a 30-page media release which listed the facilities available in all the detention centres across Australia, as if to prove that these places weren't as awful as they seemed.
Green Left Weekly spoke to some detainees at the time, who confirmed that they had never seen some of this equipment, or that such facilities had been promised for some time but were still not available.
The point made by many detainees, as well as numerous doctors and psychiatrists, is that the availability of ping-pong tables, reading rooms and English lessons cannot compensate for the deep depression and hopelessness which detainees eventually succumb to as they wait for months and years with no information about the progress of their applications, always fearful of being deported and unsure of their future.
Ruddock asserted that "Australia is a nation that has a very proud — arguably unrivalled — record of assisting people in great humanitarian need." He lists the 600,000 refugees resettled since the second world war and argues that Australia's refugee intake is around double that of the United States on a per capita basis.
Australia was still an underpopulated country after World War II, and the need for increased labour fuelled an extensive immigration program, taking in large numbers of refugees from Europe. This influx was primarily driven by economic needs, not humanitarian concerns.
Ruddock is the master of deception when it comes to selective use of figures. Australia has a relatively smal population for its size, so any per capita intake is going to be higher than most countries around the world. In addition, Ruddock only deals with numbers of refugees resettled as part of predetermined quotas. Only 10 countries set a quota for their intake of refugees each year. Many more refugees are resettled in countries that don't have such a restrictive and bureaucratic mechanism, the United States included. The US had a quota of 85,000 refugees in 1999. It took in several thousand in addition to this. Switzerland doesn't set a quota, yet resettled 24,900 refugees in 1999. Canada has a quota of 9800 and resettled an additional 12,960 refugees.
Ruddock's rebuttal asserts that the "source of many of the distortions in the articles may be some of the small number of advocacy groups in Australia opposed to government policy. Simplistically, they think that people who come to Australia covertly and against the law should be treated like heroes and rewarded."
It is unlikely that Paddock was hoodwinked by Australian advocacy groups. He judged for himself that asylum seekers in Australia's detention centres are human beings with stories of terror and suffering which need to be told.
From Green Left Weekly, January 16, 2002.
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