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Kids dumped under guard offshoreG'day. West Papua has been in the media a bit lately, and here it is as a refugee issue, once again. Thanks Kaye for sending us this press release. Kaye is a Webdiarist. I'm still very interested in the claim made by John Wing, author of Genocide in West Papua, that the security agreement has a clause that forbids the Australian government from commenting or protesting about human rights abuses in Papua, or criticising Indonesian policy at a government level. Thanks to Robert Ekins for bringing this to our attention, but we're still after some independent confirmation that this clause exists. Hamish Refugee Advocates say that the recent transfer to Christmas Island of a group of 43 West Papuan asylum seekers is a giant leap backwards for the Prime Minister. "At the moment all the asylum seeker children are held under guard and isolated
as a direct result of a sharp degree of inflexiblity by the Govenrment,
reminiscent of the day's before a three year old born in detention named Naomi leong
coupled with the Vivian Alvarez and Cornelia Rau tragedies that blew open the
problems with the implementation of a bad set of Immigration laws." said Mrs
Bernard Mrs Bernard said "The only dumping that needs to be done by Australia is the Goverment's expensive offshore detention policy that only prolongs the processing of Refugees and simply costs too much." From The Age, Howard defends Papuan refugee transfer Postscript: here is Webdiarist Tony Kevin's take on this issue: What now that West Papuans got under our guard?
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West Papua and Senator Kerry Nettle
Senator Kerry Nettle will be flying back from Christmas Island to Perth tonight and will be speaking in Fremantle tommorrow night at:
Free West Papua - Free the Refugees... Freo forum
about her time with the refugees held in detention on the remote outpost.
Howard govenment turning blind eye to Genocide in West Papua.
Hamish, this is a transcript from his lordship's own website, not a confirmation that this clause exists but gives you some indication as to what they’d like to put in it.(18 March 2005).
http://www.foreignminister.gov.au/transcripts/2005/050318_jaipc.html
MINISTER ALEXANDER DOWNER: But what we're looking at is some kind of a framework agreement that would bring together different aspects of our, what in English we would call our security relationship, so looking at bringing together areas of cooperation such as counter terrorism, dealing with people smuggling, cooperation between the two, between our respective police forces, cooperation between our defence forces, and taking into account some of those issues of some sensitivity - for example, making it clear to each other we both respect each other's territorial integrity.
And Indonesians will be reinforced in their confidence in Australia, knowing that Australia supports Indonesia's territorial integrity, and by that I mean we do not support secessionist movements in Indonesia.
Alexander Downer criticized the Keating Government for negotiating its 1995 security treaty in secret. This time, he reckons, the agreement with Indonesia will be examined by the Australian Parliament. Yeah right.
There has been given an undertaking
"Senator Vanstone says the single men will be held in a detention centre, if they apply for asylum, and the women and children will probably be housed in the community."
- ABC Radio Australia
Hamish: "I'm still very interested in the claim made by John Wing, author of Genocide in West Papua, that the security agreement has a clause that forbids the Australian government from commenting or protesting about human rights abuses in Papua, or criticising Indonesian policy at a government level. "
I'm not holding my breath, Hamish.
Rally in support of West Papuan refugees
Midday Today (Wednesday 25 Jan)
outside Department of Immigration
313 Adelaide Street, Brisbane City