Not Welcome (2001)

Imran and Ahmed are 32 and 28 years old. When the Taliban captured their town in the Ghazni Province of Afghanistan they were arrested and tortured by being forced to put their mouths over a truck’s exhaust pipe while the engine was revved.

The reason for their torture: they were members of the minority Hazara ethnic group and their captors suspected their involvement with the anti-Taliban Wahdat party whose members the Taliban have singled out for persecution.

Whether they confessed or not, both knew the fate that awaited them. In the dirty war that has raged in Afghanistan since 1979, most sides have made extensive use of mines. One way of overcoming these obstacles when attacking enemy positions is to send a flock of sheep ahead of the attacking force to clear the minefield. But sheep cost money and the Taliban have found it more efficient to use human waves of Hazara men in their stead.

Realising they faced certain death at the hands of their captors, the two men escaped and hiked for six hours through the mountains until they found with a truck driver whom they bribed to smuggle them to the Pakistani border. From there they travelled to Karachi where they made contact with a group of people smugglers to whom they paid US$4,700 each plus airfares to get them to Australia.

The next leg of their journey took them to Indonesia where they were crowded onto a fishing boat with 52 other people. They were told the voyage would take 4 to 5 days. Much of the food they were given for the crossing was rotten and they had to share it with mice and ants.

After 9 days the captain stopped the boat and threatened to turn back unless each passenger payed him US$100 each. They couldn’t pay but between them they managed US$25 each. The captain sailed another 50 kilometres and then stopped again demanding another hundred dollars. They had no more money and the standoff lasted eight hours while the starving passengers sweltered in the heat.

The waiting game was finally broken by the arrival of an Australian patrol boat which escorted them to Darwin and what they thought would be the end of their ordeal. Their journey from Ghazni to Darwin had taken 28 days.

Although they knew little of Australia both men remembered an Australian film they had seen about a man who found an animal in the wilderness and cared for it. From this they had gained the impression that Australians were kind. Later they would ruefully remember the film when the guards at the Woomera Detention Centre taunted them that they wouldn’t treat their dogs the way they were being treated.

In Darwin they were put in the custody of Australasian Correctional Services Pty Ltd (ACS) (ACM) – a private prison company contracted by the government to detain refugees while their applications for asylum were being processed. Each refugee was then given a number which would be their identity for the months and years ahead.

From Darwin they were flown to the Woomera Detention Centre in the South Australian desert. The camp accommodates 1500+ people. It has 40 showers and 40 toilets. Each room contains 18 people with only enough room for them to sit on their beds. The rooms have no fans or air-conditioning and in summer they estimated the temperature in the rooms got as high as 55 degrees Celsius. In winter the temperature plummets but after 30 people use the showers there is no hot water.

At lunchtime the inmates queue for 2 ½ to 3 hours in the sun for food but lunch is only served for two hours, after which those who have not been served are sent away. The rice they are fed is undercooked. Meat is served twice a week and is also served partially cooked. Almost all the food used in the kitchen is passed its expiry date. When they eat the guards taunt them with questions like “Is it good shit?”

To supplement their diet the inmates are allowed to work in the detention centre, cleaning, washing dishes and performing other maintenance work. They do this work for eight hours a day seven days a week at the end of which they are paid $25. Some use this money to buy cigarettes. Others buy biscuits to feed themselves and their children.

At night there is a curfew from midnight and at random times between then and dawn the guards come round to shake the refugees awake and ask for identification.

The heat, the cold, their diet, their treatment by the guards and the effects of indefinite detention all take their toll on the asylum seekers and sickness is rife within the camp. When the inmates ask for medical care or to see a doctor they are told to drink water and sometimes given panadol.

Due to the camp’s isolation ACM has managed to keep the plight of its inmates at Woomera out of the public spotlight. When one man, driven to desperation by the delay in processing his asylum application, went on a hunger strike for 13 days the guards told him “If you don’t eat you will die and we won’t bury you until your application is processed.”

Close to the main detention centre is another camp. Although neither Imran nor Ahmed were sent there, it is known that conditions there are even worse. Those who make the mistake of asking too many questions or complaining about the food, the behaviour of the guards, the conditions in the detention centre or the delay in processing their asylum applications are sent there.

On June 7, 700 of the detention centre’s inmates broke out and staged a peaceful demonstration against their treatment. The response of the government was to charge 30 of the inmates with escaping from detention. A criminal conviction of a refugee makes it almost certain that his or her application for asylum will be rejected as they must have a character assessment as part of their screening.

On August 28 a group of refugees who had been at Woomera a year and had still not been interviewed for asylum rioted. The Immigration Minister, Phillip Ruddock, responded by blaming the Refugee Council of Australia for “spreading myths” about the treatment of refugees and threatened to cancel its funding.

Imran and Ahmed were among the fortunate ones. After thirteen months in Woomera they were released into the community on a three-year temporary visa permit in September. They left behind other refugees who had been there since August 1998 and whose applications for asylum were still being processed.

Upon release they were taken to the Vector Lodge in Kingston and given $220. The rent at the lodge is $22.50 a night. For nine days they stayed there on a diet of biscuits until they found shelter at a church hall in Queanbeyan from 11pm to 7 am each night.

While other migrants are entitled to 590 hours of English language classes, those on refugee permits are not. In spite of these disadvantages both men have found jobs and both are receiving English language training from the Afghan community.

Even so, neither man has heard from his family since leaving Afghanistan and neither have written to them for fear that the Taliban will intercept the letter and persecute them. Each hopes that at the end of his three year permit he will be granted permanent residency and be able to bring his family over.

Both men still have nightmares about Woomera.

And their attitude towards Australia? “We are happy with the kindness of the Australian people but the government could do better.” Ahmed says.

It may seem strange to many that having done so much to welcome the athletes and visitors from around the world to the Sydney Olympics, the government is acting with such harshness toward those who come here seeking asylum. Perhaps this contradiction is best explained by Phillip Ruddock himself. Imran and Ahmed remember a visit he made to Woomera while they were there. In response to a refugee’s plea that the Immigration Department consider his case, he replied “We never asked you to come here.”

(Imran and Ahmed are assumed names. They will not reveal their real names for fear that it would prejudice their treatment by the Immigration Department and that of their families by the Taliban.)

Where are the queues?

Let me tell members about the case of Sarwar Haiter, the 50-year-old brother of Dr Akber Alamyar, a doctor in my electorate at Oberon, a man who came here himself from Afghanistan in 1977. His brother, Sarwar Haiter, is a graduate of Adelaide University in dry land agriculture-one would think he would be an ideal immigrant to this country. He fled the Taliban regime to Pakistan, as I am told, and despite almost a decade applying for refugee status, he has been continually refused in applications through our immigration processes in Islamabad. He has been sponsored by his brother in Oberon throughout this period.

His brother is a well-respected and highly active member of the medical fraternity, the AMA and, indeed, the local community in general. It is said his brother has not proved the risk to his safety. He has recently worked for an aid agency in Pakistan dealing with Afghan refugees and has been told by that agency that he cannot enter Afghanistan because they cannot guarantee his safety. How frustrated and frightened is he at this state of affairs, this continued rejection, the disappointment and the sense of injustice, as he sees it? I am not passing unnecessary judgment on this, but it helps one understand the boat phenomenon a little better, whatever the rights or wrongs of his particular immigration application.

Peter Andren Independent MHR 28.8.01