Manus Island is a wretched place for those incarcerated and now it has become a national shame – Australia’s shame – with an Iranian asylum seeker’s death and many serious injuries in Monday night’s riot.
For the Abbott government, Manus is a literal and political nightmare, as immigration minister Scott Morrison admitted he was unable to guarantee that there wouldn’t be further disturbances.
Other countries, with much more serious pressures from asylum seekers, might wonder how Australia’s outsourced “PNG solution” has come to this. But there was an inevitability about it when detainees live in distressing conditions with no clarity about their future.
Morrison’s answer – that they should not have got on boats – is beside the point.
Following the second consecutive night of violence, this one with a fatality, Tony Abbott spoke with his Papua New Guinea counterpart, Peter O’Neill.
No doubt to his considerable relief, Abbott received assurances that PNG remains committed to the Manus detention centre and to resettling in that country asylum seekers found to be refugees. If PNG tried to go back on its deal, the Australian government would have more trouble.
In the wake of the violence, Abbott also called a meeting in Canberra of cabinet’s national security committee and the government put 100 security personnel on standby.
At morning and evening news conferences, Immigration minister Scott Morrison looked a little shaken but retained some of his usual defiance. Tensions had been there, he said; such a situation had been anticipated, security had recently been strengthened.
Top Comments
What some of you are having trouble with, and it doesn’t matter
what side of politics you’re from, is that boat people are people.
This fundamental fact is being ignored by every government since Howard. A
number of pro-detention proponents on this site and others use the Indonesia
Justification, claiming asylum seekers have no need to make the risky passage
across international waters because they’re already safe. They’re no longer
persecuted. They can have lives.
This is a highly flawed argument.
Yes, bombs won’t rain from the skies in Indonesia, but
safety and security are subjectivities. Refugees are not supported by
Indonesia, they have no rights or agency to participate in society, enjoy their
lives or further the fortunes of their families. They cannot work, they cannot
send their children to school, they cannot protest their ill treatment or find
help. They are often blamed for crimes they did not commit due to the embedded
attitude toward asylum seekers. They are essentially stateless. Additionally,
many refugees (including children) endure beatings, intimidation,
incarceration, horrible conditions and starvation. This is the world they flee
from still, and one a fair percentage of you insist is safe.
They are being persecuted for being persecuted.
The indignation regarding the lives lost at sea is highly
manufactured. If not, where is your empathy for those who flounder in
universally panned conditions in Indonesia and other camps? Does your humanity
only extend to those who have made the choice to risk their lives in order to
have a life that isn’t characterised by pain and social poverty? And only then,
to turn them back to a country that is not safe or sustainable? Must they lose
everything, including the wealth they collected in better times, for you to
give close to a damn? And why do you care about them only in the context of
Australian waters? If you care about children getting on boats, educate
yourself on what Indonesia does to the children who don’t.
The poster who said it’s not our responsibility to take them
so they can have a better life is incorrect. As signatories to a few very
salient and essential international conventions, it is our responsibility to
make their lives better and restore them to functioning members of the global
culture. I am disgusted with Australia and disgusted with both sides of
politics.
Let's put things in perspective here. Over 1,000 people tragically died trying to get here under the Labor / Green policy.
One person dies at Manus Island (which is tragic also).
The usual suspects scream at Abbott, yet were silent when women and children drowned on Labor's watch.
Makes no sense to me.
This explains it well
http://www.smh.com.au/comme...
Exactly, but it will never be read or acknowledged by those who don't want the 'boat people' here.