War, refugees
and Labor
Carmen
Lawrence
Over the last few years, many
Australians have reported that they feel diminished, that Australia has become
less than it can be. I can’t count the number of conversations I’ve had in
which people have mourned the apparent disappearance of compassion and altruism
from Australia’s political landscape. Many are particularly disturbed by the
wedge political manipulation of the refugee issue and Labor’s complicity in
the manufactured “security” scare.
The spectre of a dark and
uncertain future, initially linked to the “invaders” from a strange culture
and now overlaid with the “war on terrorism”, is being used by the
conservatives to try to stampede Australians into supporting an attack on Iraq.
This time I think they’ll fail.
In the context of talking about
Labor’s policy on refugees, I was asked to reflect on my reasons for resigning
from the Shadow Cabinet. As I said when I resigned, I was disappointed with the
frequency with which contentious issues were discussed at the outset with an eye
on what the public reaction was likely to be, rather that whether any policy was
inherently good.
This was
particularly true of various pieces of legislation and policy relevant to asylum
seekers.
To develop good polices that are
consistent with our claims to be progressive, we have to start with a set of
values and yes - even ideals – to which we aspire as political activists.
These values shouldn’t just be for decoration either; not just a preamble to
the policy statements.
They should
be embedded in it – both in terms of the decisions and the language. And they
shouldn’t be abandoned at the faintest whiff of grape shot.
Using the example of the asylum
seeker policy, I think one of the mistakes we’re making is to play on
Howard’s turf – the language and the analysis are his. Treating desperate
people arriving in leaky boats as a threat to our national security is truly
bizarre, and should be challenged, not incorporated into our thinking.
We’re allowing him to define the
territory and the arguments, signing up to the Lilliputian world in which he
feels comfortable. It also engages the political contest entirely on his
territory and on his terms. As David Malouf pointed out recently,
“Howard is
a master of forcing on his opponents the terms in which a contest is to be
fought. If he can impose his tone and language on the debate, he will have
determined the range- everything practical and down-to-earth, nothing flighty or
fancy- to which all arguments will be restricted. Any deviation by his opponent
into the inspirational, the lyrical, the rhetorical, into big ideas - into any
ideas at all, anything of the mind or the heart or spirit- can be represented
then as suspect, as excessive, flaky.”
As long as we try to argue the
case on his territory, then he’s the one who’s dictating the terms about the
political contest and the way it’s played out. We played along, before the
last election, with the moral panic surrounding the boat people, instead of
getting out there and persuading Australians to a different point of view.
I hated our acquiescence on the Tampa, but a lot of poll driven compromises had been made before the Tampa loomed on our horizon. In a sense, Labor’s response was almost inevitable after so much acquiescence, month after month. Each small step was barely noticeable. But the end result was that we were pushed well beyond a position that our own members could endorse.
I thought after 12 months, we had
the opportunity to get our asylum seeker policy right.
The members of the Party through a series of resolutions and through
Labor- for - Refugees had provided the framework for a humane and workable
policy, consistent with our values and our international obligations. We had the
opportunity to rule a line under the past as we did with East Timor, and
successfully.
I concede that the policy is an
improvement over the Government’s. But opposition is the time to craft the
best possible policy, especially after so much debate and experience with the
destructive consequences of the current policy. Now is the time to signal that
we really want to head in a new direction; that we recognise that underpinning
the policy should be a recognition of the equal worth of all human beings and a
commitment to their agreed rights in international law.
The language, in my view, of toughness and of security and threat, is not an appropriate language to use in talking about a policy for asylum seekers. These are people who are asking for our help after they’ve been subject to persecution, a claim which, in the vast majority of cases, is validated. Why conflate the very serious question of our own national security and threats to the lives of Australians, with the issue of how we manage people who come here when they’re seeking asylum? They are not the same issue and yet Labor’s policy document appears to endorse the view that these are somehow all tied in together.
The policy also retains the linkage of onshore and offshore refugee programs. This is the device the Government has used to divide the migrant community and to create the myth of “queue jumpers.” All we need do is separate them to provide for an ongoing humanitarian program, which is managed and predictable, and at times of emergency, which it seems we are about to confront again, the opportunity for a more generous response.
The Labor policy also treats some
asylum seekers as more worthy than others – whatever gloss you put on it. The
Christmas Island option is a seriously diminished option relative to the onshore
option and yet there’s no difference in principle between the two groups of
people – one gets in a leaky boat that doesn’t make it and gets as far as
Christmas Island, the others get on a slightly less leaky boat and make it, as
they have in the past, to Broome. One gets the offshore processing, one gets
onshore processing. One gets legal advice, the other gets none. One gets an
independent tribunal – the other gets none. One gets the possibility of review
– the other gets none. Although the High Court decision last week may change
that.
And where is Christmas Island?
It’s a very long way from the mainland. Are the media going to be there,
watching what’s happening on Christmas Island? Will they report when things go
wrong, things like the fires that destroyed much of the existing facilities;
events like the death a couple of weeks ago of a young Afghani mother of three,
Fatima Erfani, had a brain haemorrhage and died after being transferred to a
hospital in Perth.
Let me tell you a little of her
story, one the government did not make public until the story was leaked by
friends of Fatima and Ali Reza. The family were sent to Christmas Island, post
Tampa.
Fatima had been treated for high
blood pressure for about seven months before her death on Sunday 18 January. The
week before her death she suffered terrible headaches and was given Panadol
after seeing a nurse in the detention centre who took her blood pressure and
recorded a level of 220/120, which is very high. A consistent blood pressure
reading of 140/90 mm Hg or higher is considered high blood pressure, which
increases the
risk
for heart disease and stroke. Careful monitoring and management are
always recommended. At this time she was also under added stress because she and
her husband were being pressured to sign documents agreeing to return to
Afghanistan. They eventually did sign them, because they were very worried that
they would be sent to Nauru, about which they had heard very bad reports.
When the headaches persisted,
Fatima was taken to see a doctor in the hospital who gave her stronger pain
medication for her headaches only. Ali Reza, who acted as interpreter (there are
none on the Island), said he couldn’t make the doctor understand that she was
really unwell. Fatima was sent back to the detention centre and the next morning
could barely wake and was very groggy. At 11.30 am, she collapsed into unconsciousness and was taken to
the hospital. Twelve hours later she was placed on a flight to Perth and was
operated on at Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital at 3.30 am after a brain scan
revealed severe haemorrhaging.
After such a delay, the operation
was not successful and she remained unconscious until her death. While her
husband and children had been brought to Perth, they were sent back to Christmas
Island the next morning.
After hearing this story, I wrote letter to Ruddock demanding an inquiry and urging that the records be secured, because records have gone missing in other coronial inquires. I have also asked the Minister’s office a series of questions about what has happened to Fatima’s body. When I last inquired, her husband is still unaware of where his wife’s body is and what the Department plans to do.
To return to
Labor’s policy. I was also very disappointed that even after members of the
ALP made it very clear that they wanted an end to mandatory detention it
remains, albeit in modified form, in the policy. Members told us firmly –
still tell us – that they wanted to see an end to mandatory detention while
applications for refugee status are being processed.
Everyone understands you need to detain people briefly, no matter how
they arrive, for health, security and identity checking.
The majority of
our own members, if not the wider community, want an end to endless detention,
which is cruel enough in itself, but when enforced in remote and hostile
environments where security is at best careless and at worst brutalising, it
smashes people’s hope and destroys their sanity.
Members told us
that they wanted an end to temporary protections visas because they’re
discriminatory, determined on the basis of how you come here, not on the basis
of the merits of your case. The policy document presents a cogent argument
against TPVs and then retains them. TPVs cruelly require people who have been
found to have genuine refugee claims to make them all over again.
You will all be aware of the suicide this week of an Afghani man faced
with this prospect.
And of course
the fact that TPV holders are denied family reunion, as well as other basic
services to help them settle into Australia, is the reason so many women and
children found places in leaky boats to try to join their husbands and fathers.
Why nearly 300 women and children drowned when the SIEVX sank or was
deliberately scuttled.
Why two
women drowned when another vessel broke apart and provided the photos for the
“children overboard” lie.
Many of these people left their homes in Iraq because of the
oppression and persecution they experienced and feared at the hands of the
regime of Saddam Hussein.
It leads me to ask, what will happen to the Iraqi people if
the United States (with the U.K. and Australian forces in tow) attacks Iraq,
with or without U.N. sanction?
Recent reports from the U.N., Medact, the U.K. equivalent of
the Medical Association for the Prevention of War here in Australia, and a group
of health workers based at Cambridge University have systematically documented
the past and projected health and environmental costs of war.
Medact estimates that if the threatened attack on Iraq
eventuates, between 48,000 and 260,000 people on all sides could be killed.
Civil war within Iraq could add another 20,000 deaths. They estimate that later
deaths from adverse heath effects could add a further 200,000 to this hideous
total.
The leaked U.N. report predicts substantial and wide ranging
impacts – as many as 500,000 requiring treatment as a result of injuries in
the face of severe shortages of medical facilities and supplies. It also points
to the likelihood that there will be food shortages and consequent starvation
and malnutrition affecting some 3 million people.
The estimates of the toll of death and misery which might
result from an attack on Iraq do not include the use of nuclear weapons which
the U.S is said to be contemplating.
It is easy to be distracted by the
minutiae of the arguments for or against an attack, with or without U.N.
approval, but we sometimes forget to ask whether the arguments or the evidence
in support of them can justify the killing of tens or even hundreds of thousands
of Iraqi people. Or the flow on effects, including greater instability in the
region, and the probable generation of a new wave of anti-western extremism.
It is often those who have seen
war, who most revile the use of force. A war correspondent who has seen the end
result of “orders from far away” describes his experience in Vietnam and
anticipates the likely effects of the waves of B52 bombers which will be used in
Iraq. He remembers the “children’s skin folded back, like parchment,
revealing veins and burnt flesh that seeped blood, while the eyes, intact,
stared straight ahead.”
We desperately need a
peaceful resolution to this and conflicts like it. We have to ask, if containment and surveillance have worked
until now, why abandon them? Have we really explored all means less terrible
than war? Is it really beyond human imagination and intelligence to devise other
diplomatic and security solutions such as those proposed in recent days by
France and Germany? Is killing Iraqis really the only course of action open to
us?
I’ve
heard members of the Government, including the Prime Minister, justify an attack
in terms not dissimilar to those of the Bush administration - that because they
do not intend to kill children, they are somehow exonerated. Even if Bush and
Howard claim not to intend to kill innocent civilians, they are still using
military techniques which they know will inevitably result in the loss of
innocent lives. As Rediehs so eloquently puts it,
So,
although both sides in this Great Cosmic Battle employ similar techniques-
violence that includes the killing of innocent civilians – our doing this is
justified because we are good; their doing it is unjustified because they are
evil.
Like
many in the community, I’ve tried to make sense of what’s happening; to read
and think and talk, to gain some sense of control over the dark chaos we’re
confronting.
Like many, I cannot
help but to return again and again to the images of children dying. The face on
the poster advertising the rally this coming weekend is that of a child. And
rightly so, because children will be – already are – the most likely victims
of an attack on Iraq.
Of
the approximately 25 million people living in Iraq, 12 million are children,
with four million under the age of 5. Every time a bomb hits, on average, we can
expect half of the victims to be children.
Writing
in the “Guardian”, Jonathan Glover tells how in discussing medical ethics
with his medical and nursing students, it is clear that everyone agonises over
life and death decisions, for example, when discussing whether to continue life
support for a severely disabled child, never rushing the discussion.
He
is struck by “the contrast between these painful deliberations and the hasty
way people think about a way in which thousands will be killed… Decisions for
war seem less agonising than the decision to let a girl in hospital die. But
only because anonymity and distance numb the moral imagination.”
We
know that Iraqi children are already suffering as a result of the last Gulf war
and the sanctions that have been imposed since 1991. Several meticulous reports,
including from the U.N., attest to the already fragile state of Iraqi children.
The
most recent, “Our Common Responsibility” from the International Study team,
which documented the effects of the last war on the children of Iraq, has
assessed the vulnerability of Iraqi children today, forecasting a “grave
humanitarian disaster” should war occur. This independent group of academics,
researchers and practitioners used data from a wide variety of sources,
including the U.N., international and non-government organisations and more than
100 unaccompanied visits and interviews within Iraq, particularly in Baghdad,
Karbala and Basra.
They
concluded that “Iraqi children are more vulnerable to the adverse effects of
war than they were before the Gulf War of 1991”, in part, because they are
more dependent on food distribution programs which are likely to be disrupted by
war. If war breaks out the number of children who are malnourished will almost
certainly grow beyond the 500,000 already affected.
These
children are particularly vulnerable to infectious diseases that are likely to
increase with damage to water supply and sewerage treatment facilities, already
operating below capacity because of sanctions. The death rate among children
under five is already 2.5 times greater than in 1990, and has improved only
slightly as result of the Oil For Food program initiated after adverse publicity
on the devastating effects of sanctions.
Furthermore,
the health care system, formerly one of the best in the region, is in a run-down
state, with severe shortages of health professionals, many of whom have fled,
and some of whom are rotting in our own Gulags.
The
United Nations itself estimates that an attack on Iraq could force more that 1.4
million people to flee Iraq and another 2 million to within Iraq away from their
homes. It is clear that no one is prepared for such an exodus, least of all the
Australian government.
The
newfound concern by the Government ministers and MPs for the plight of Saddam's
victims has not been much in evidence over the last few years – ask the poor
bastards who are still being brutalised on Nauru. Ask the more than 1000 Iraqis
who are still being held in detention. Ask their children, who are locked up in
contravention of every relevant UN Convention to which Australia is signatory.
These
are the same people for whom the Government felt such compassion that it
systematically denigrated them as greedy, wealthy queue jumpers, as illegals who
were prepared to manipulate the Australian people with their hunger strikes and
desperate acts of self harm.
These
are the people described as unworthy future citizens because they “threw their
children overboard,” a claim we now know to be a calculated lie of political
convenience. The Government so well understood the trauma they had already
experienced at Saddam’s hands that it refused them aid altogether, marooning
them on remote islands, trying to deny any responsibility for their wellbeing.
They sent over 600 desperate Iraqi people to rot on Manus and Nauru, where many
of them are still being held.
Just
yesterday, the Senate was told in the Estimates hearings of seven Iraqi women
and their children being detained on Nauru, despite the fact that their husbands
have been granted temporary protection visas. The Senate was told that the women
could not claim refugee status just because their husbands could. When asked
what would happen to them, the official said, in the bloodless language of DIMIA
and its minister, “The individuals on Nauru are free to return to their
homeland or any other country they may wish to travel to.” Alexander Downer
had just spent part of question time spelling out what women in Iraq can expect
when they fall foul of the regime – rape, torture and murder. Not to mention
the bombs that will fall. When challenged about the gross hypocrisy of this
position on radio today, Downer said, “We don’t send people back who would
be at risk. We send people back we think have been rorting the system.
The
government felt such pity for their plight that it turned its back on the
foundering SIEVX and allowed 353 of people to drown, victims of either
indifference or a deliberate strategy of sabotage, or in the chillingly clinical
language of this government, a “disruption” program. The majority of these
poor souls were Iraqi, 142 women and 146 children trying to join their husbands
and fathers here on temporary protection visas which cruelly deny them family
reunion.
There
are an estimated 4000 Iraqis here on these temporary visas, many now up for
review and renewal.
Like the
Afghani man who committed suicide this week rather than face return, many will
now be under enormous strain.
They
know that some of their compatriots have already been either forcibly returned
to the region or coerced into agreeing to their own deportation, although even
Syria is now refusing to take them.
Just
two weeks ago I helped organise the removal of an Iraqi asylum seeker from a
vessel where he’d stowed away. A political refugee, he’s now in the Perth
Detention Centre. He’d been held in a paint cupboard on board the ship for two
months as the vessel pled the coastal trade because the Australian government
has made it clear to all ship owners that they allow asylum seekers to land here
at their peril.
They risk
prosecution and the cancellation of their permits. Such sympathy for those
feeling the Monster of Baghdad!
To
return to the children of Iraq. The most disturbing reports contained in “Our
Common Responsibility” were those of the psychologists on the team. They
followed up children who were interviewed after the last war and found,
unsurprisingly that children “continued to experience sadness and remained
afraid of losing their family.” The described the increased stress on parents
from the effects of the last war and the sanctions - poverty, the death of
family members, disrupted sanitation, electricity and water supply and the
subsequent difficulty parents have in providing a caring and supportive
environment for the children.
We
all understand that losing people we love, particularly children, causes long
lasting grief and depression. These experiences can be devastating for children.
During the early part of the sanctions regime, childhood mortality escalated at
an alarming rate to reach 131 per thousand children below the age of five years,
meaning, as the report puts it, “that every second family runs the risk of
losing a child.” Think about it – and that before the planned attack on
Iraq. When these deaths are caused by shelling or bombing or shooting, the loss
is even more traumatic and will lead to lifelong mental suffering.
Is
it really a surprise that the researchers found that the imminent threat of war
was adding to this stress and preoccupied many of the children they interviewed.
Even the preschoolers were afraid and “possessed concepts of the real physical
threats of bombs and guns; destruction of houses, burning homes, killing of
people, and in the end referring to their own family: ‘we will all die.’”
One five year old boy said of the threatened U.S. attack, “They have the guns
and bombs and the air will be cold and hot and we will burn very much.”
Older
children, also fearful, were found to be in a state of fatigue, resignation and
sadness, many experiencing sleeping problems and nightmares, severe
concentration problems at school and, in some cases, feelings of extreme
detachment.
Nine year old Hana
said, “Often I feel nothing. Nothing at all.” This same feeling was starkly
revealed in the finding that almost 40% of the teenagers interviewed thought
that most of the time life is not worth living.
It
seems that Bush and Blair and Howard are about to confirm their fears and grant
them their implied wish.
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