BY RYK MOLON
A young Middle Eastern woman sits in the middle of the room at the Port Hedland immigration detention centre. She is surrounded by women of differing ages, all admiring their earlier handiwork of dressing her up and applying make-up.
The display is for their eyes only. This is their time away from the men and children, a time for them to enjoy each other's presence and give support to each other. This is the same facility at which children, questioned by Australasian Correctional Management (ACM) officers about women missing in routine headcounts, enthusiastically reply: "Sex for phonecard", not fully realising the meaning of their own words.
"Life in Port Hedland is hell for everyone, not just the detainees", says "Allie", a former ACM officer who has worked at the centre. Allie, who did not want to be named in the media, spoke exclusively to Green Left Weekly. She recounted how different the actual work conditions were to the impression given to trainees during the six-week course arranged by ACM. The course is taken by those likely to end up working in one of Australia's notorious immigration detention centres — institutions of misery and mental torture.
"They were very sincere in the course", Allie said. "You got the feeling that everyone would look after each other's backs. But in reality it was all about back-stabbing, lies and management abusing the officers and each other."
"Two weeks into my posting at Port Hedland and I was at breaking point with stress and anxiety", she confessed.
She recalled various other policies and decisions that break down the guards' humanity and the detainees' spirits. One example was the constant changing of schedules at the last minute, so that life in detention never gets "routine". The only thing that is constant is the cycle of abuse and emotional torment.
ACM officers are constantly demoted and promoted for their actions so that the managers, who give orders by radio from a secure location outside the main detention compound, get what they want without having to incriminate themselves by asking for it directly.
The coldest and least compassionate officers get to the top of the ranks quickly and those like Allie, who refuse to let go what they know is right or wrong, are left without praise or commendation. Such officers are constantly harassed with verbal emotional abuse and sometimes even threatened with physical harm, emphasising their powerless situation.
Detainees are coaxed to "dob in" officers, and many do, thinking that they are listened to by ACM. But ACM only uses the information in order to reprimand officers who are being kind to detainees. This creates an atmosphere of distrust for guards and detainees alike, further aggravating the guards.
This atmosphere is already built by tactics such as encouraging ACM guards not to call detainees by their names, but by the first few letters of the name of the boat they arrived in, followed by a number. It is implied, or rumours are spread, that those officers who show affection or the slightest hint of care for the children are involved in sexual abuse.
As a result, officers are sent a clear message not to treat the detainees nicely. The detainees know this, and it's their sense of injustice that the ACM hierarchy plays upon as it subjects them to constant psychological warfare.
"Everyone ends up being pawns in their sick game", Allie said. "Some of the detainees are regularly bribed to inform both on their fellow inmates and the officers." Allie also told GLW how ACM would seemingly orchestrate riots for the press. "You can see a riot slowly build up, when something breaks down, like the air-conditioners. We are constantly asked by the detainees to fix it, when all we can do is make maintenance reports. Nothing is done for days on end until the last minute when it seems like all hell would break loose."
She noted how ACM management uses the mainstream press to its advantage, painting an unfair and unbalanced picture of the detainees — to the delight of current immigration policy makers like Prime Minister John Howard and immigration minister Philip Ruddock.
The public does not see the tremendous courage and occasional outbursts of humanity that occur in the detention camps, such as when officers like Allie get exhausted with keeping the cold posture that is required of ACM officers and decide to treat themselves by playing with the children or having a decent conversation with some of the adult detainees.
"I remember saying to one of the detainees that the only difference between them and us [officers] is that we get to go home", Allie recounted.
Throughout the interview, Allie's awesome respect for people of a different culture, especially those from Arab and Islamic countries, came through. She admires their different strengths, their fortitude and their sense of humanity: the same things the Australian government is now punishing them for.
From Green Left Weekly, November 20, 2002.
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