This is very sad, but very important... serco-story.theglobalmail.org/ And this is a personal account given to me by someone who has worked in the system... Hope you are up for a bit of reading, as the news sources are limited now, and my bookmarks are out of date. So I decided a more personal approach would be best! So, firstly you might like to look up the following places on a map Christmas Island, in the Indian Ocean an Australian Territory Manus Island - Papua New Guinea, third world status Nauru - the smallest independent nation in the world, third world status. In recent years the amount of people seeking refugee status inAustralia and travelling by boat has drastically increased. Combine that with a media beat up and all these boat people are demonised. The fact that many more people seeking asylum come in by plane is ignored. Our main asylum seekers come from Iran, Iraq, Sri Lanka (Tamils and Singhalese) and a few other countries. From Afghanistan we get a lot of Hazaras who are under the threat of genocide. In 2012 the then government decided to implement again offshore processing as a deterrent and reopened the centre on Nauru in September and Manus later on in the year. Having used these centres before, the damage done to asylum seekers mental health was well documented. When these centres were reopened,people were selected on an unknown basis to be sent up there. This did not prove to be much of a deterrent so this year the government decided anyone arriving by boat would be sent up there. The asylum seekers who come by boat travel by various means to Indonesia. From there the people smugglers send them on rickety boats to Christmas Island where they are inducted. Some boats sink, and are absolute tragedies. From CI they are sent offshore. We can do this as the Australian government excised Christmas Island from the immigration zone recently. We have several other facilities around the country where asylum seekers are held until they are processed. They must meet the requirements for refugee status. If they do not then they are sent back to their homeland. If they meet this criteria they must then pass an AISO security check, ASIO being our secret service vetting agency. The problem arises when a person is deemed a refugee by fails the security assessment, as they cannot be repatriated but cannot be let loose on the Australian community. But they are not told why! Consequently we have people in detention for over 4 years, they are in limbo. Both Manus and Nauru were resurrected in haste, consequently conditions are not good. I was part of the second mental health team sent up to Nauru last year. The camp contained about 350 men at that stage. The army had erected tents for accommodation, the camp is gravelled. Temperature in Nauru is a constant 30 degrees centigrade humidity 80 %, with reflected heat off of the gravel. The Salvation Army was ill prepared for their task, sending inexperienced people off of the street to deal with the welfare of these men. When I arrived the men were on hunger strike. Then they would stop drinking and collapse periodically. So I was greeted by having to deal with mass casualty status, over 40 men/ day being brought up having dehydrated and working in MASH like conditions we were all hands on deck in a shed rehydrating and cooling them before sending them back into the camp. Several men were seriously on hunger strike and I watched 2 come so close to death it was appalling. One got flown off, we couldnt have a death after all, but was sent back in a couple of weeks which was a big blow for all of the asylum seekers. The serious hunger strikers stopped then. I can honestly say that all the service providers work well with the men up there and are kind. None of us would have tolerated anything else. The Nauruan people are just wonderful to be around. The men were well fed, had Internet and phone access to home, housed and clothed. But they had no future that they could see, consequently I saw their spirit being extinguished more and more on each of the 3 rotations I did up there. They had families at home, some of whom were being interrogated, imprisoned, tortured or gone missing. No support for their womenfolk and children. This too took its toll. The only control they had was over their bodies, hence hunger strikes, self mutilation and hangings. More than I would see in 10 lifetimes. I had days up there where I would go from one person who had cut their body to the next, usually the day ended up with an attempted hanging. Also sewing their lips together. Daily I listened to these mens stories of torture, and saw the physical injuries they had sustained. I wont go into that here, but I didnt know what cruelty human beings were capable of. Episodes of gastro went through the camp. In 15 months, only one person has been processed for refugee status on Nauru as their government was ill prepared to deal with this huge task. This is a huge cause of discontent for all. I was present one night last December when our clinical team went into the compound to retrieved a person who had attempted hanging. They came out without him as a riot occurred. When I saw the men rushing the gate, my body took off and we evacuated our staff. That was bloody frightening. I was on rotation for 6 weeks on 6 weeks off. I was halfway through my third rotation when I decided I couldnt take it anymore. I was flown off island the next day. I have PTSD from my time up there, and if dont know how I have got through some days. Imagine what the asylum seekers are going through. I was working in The Darwin detention centre in July this year when I heard on the news that the Nauru centre had been set on fire after a riot. I was on night duty and I was severely concerned for the welfare of my friends who were up there. At 4 am I got a text saying they were safe and I wept with relief. As the men had burnt down their new accommodation blocks that were put up in January, they were rehoused in marquees in much worse conditions than before. And now they have women and children up there. Since the new government came in less than four months ago, they implemented operation sovereign borders to protect us against the dastardly asylum seekers. Most of whom are persecuted human beings seeking safety. We just re traumatise them. They just want a quiet, safe and productive life for their families. So, with this operation we have a media blackout for operational reasons or as we believe, out of sight out of mind. We are spending billions on this exercise, its just crazy. It has to come to an end, and people are working towards that, but it is very slow progress. I try to do my bit by raising awareness by educating people. This morning I had to talk to my workmates about it at a meeting and ended up distressed and in tears. As well as flashbacks. But its not about me or anyone else who has worked up there and is suffering. It is about what a so called civilised society is doing to other people. And how it must be stopped. Victor Frankel wrote a book about his time in a concentration camp and how he got through it. Many of his experiences parallel the peoples experience on manus and Nauru. I have friends working on both islands and they will not talk about what is happening up there as they have been told not to. So this is just a snapshot of my time in Nauru. I hope you can get a picture of it from my lived experience. In the news a couple of months ago I saw that the uk was looking at opening offshore processing in Kenya I think. This is what it will be like. I was on site with the amnesty visit last year. They condemned it, nothing has been done. The Red Cross has been, same story. We know we are in breach of the UN refugee convention. Nothing done. It will be ditto for the UN visit. The United Nations refugee agency in November warned that asylum seekers being detained at Australias offshore centres were being subjected to arbitrary, mandatory and indefinite detention in unsafe and inhumane conditions. I think just google asylum Nauru to get some stories. The most descriptive ones are from the end of 2012 to beginning of 2013. Then the public got bored, and then the media blackout. A woman called Victoria Matin on Facebook is a refugee advocate, I find out a lot from her page. Sadly, the workers are not always portrays in the best light, which I cannot agree with. https://facebook/victoria.martin.790693?ref=ts&fref=ts This is also a good one that captures the news stories hazaraasylumseekers.wordpress So, thats quite an epistle and I hope you find it of interest! Please just dont mention my name if you talk about it due to secret squirrel clause! Have drunk with the intelligence men on Nauru, I know they get into our Facebook accounts! Oh, and I havent even started on what we do to them when they get into the community!
Posted on: Mon, 10 Feb 2014 22:55:05 +0000
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