CHRISTMAS ISLAND, Australia: Deep in the jungle on this small island lost in the Indian Ocean, Australia’s new $370 million refugee detention centre reaches its full power after its lights come on at dusk. Bracketed by rain forest, steep cliffs and the sea, it rises from the enveloping darkness and becomes visible from the island’s only inhabited corner, about 10 miles away.
The centre — opened a few days before Christmas but now nearly full with refugees from Afghanistan and Sri Lanka — has come to symbolise what many call one of Australia’s defining fears: the arrival of boat people from Asia.
All boat people seeking asylum in Australia are first brought here to Christmas Island, just 220 miles south of Indonesia but nearly 1000 miles from the Australian mainland, and most are now held at enormous cost within the centre’s electrified, 13-foot-high razor-wire fences.
But even as boats arrive every few days, advocates for refugees and even the government’s own human rights commission, are urging the government to close the place down and sort the asylum-seekers on the mainland. They compare Christmas Island to Guantánamo Bay or describe it as a reincarnation of the many notorious prison islands in Australia’s convict history.
A pretty accurate and insightful report.
Incredibly, Rudd has morphed into a little Howard when it comes to refugees and asylum seekers. He did do a good thing getting rid of the “billing system” that billed some of the people who had been in detention, for their time in detention.
But Rudd should never have said that illogical and inaccurate phrase “illegal immigrants” in relation to asylum seekers. They are very very different things. Everyone has a right to be an asylum seeker. Everyone. It is not illegal to flee oppression, war, poverty, persecution, etc. and look for something better somewhere else. And for countries that have signed the international treaties agreeing to every humans right to do this … well …. we need to take a long hard look at ourselves…
An illegal immigrant, on the other hand, is someone who has immigrated here and then done something illegal (like overstaying a visa.) Asylum seekers don’t have the luxury of being immigrants. There are usually no queues to “jump” back in their home countries. There is nowhere to put up your hand and say “I want to be on that queue please”. No. Nothing that advanced or reasonable.
A Jewish friend of mine commented recently: “I am so grateful for the people smugglers that got my grandparents out of Europe during WWII.” I suspect today’s people smugglers are not as noble as some of the WWII ones were. But I am sure there were people doing it back then too, for the money! Whatever their motivation, the actual people fleeing – they are victims, not baddies!