The Mail Mystery Unravels
from Dave McKay and Ross Parry, in Woomera, S.A.
Wednesday, 24 April, 2002
We received a very welcome call last night. Our main contact inside
Woomera phoned. He said that he has, in fact, received the eight
letters that we have sent him over the past three weeks. That much
made us feel bad for having presumed that ACM was destroying our
letters. The lawyers here tell us that it would be a criminal
offence for them to do that.
But then our friend said that he has written four or five letters in
reply to us. We have not received any. And herein lies the legal
problem.
If you've ever been to another country and had problems going through
the customs and immigration checks, you will understand something of
what happens. People entering another country have no rights as
citizens of that country, and none of the rights that come after you
have been passed and legally allowed into that country. There at the
airport, you are nonentities. Without search warrants, they can turn
your suitcases inside out if they so choose. They can ask you
personal and embarrassing questions, and you have no right to remain
silent. They can read your mail. They can force you back onto the
plane and send you a bill for the return flight, and you must pay it.
You have no right to a lawyer, no one to turn to for appeal. Every
decision is purely arbitrary and unassailable. It is the nature of
customs and immigration officials everywhere in the world. Take away
a person's rights and it affects the way that officials deal with
them.
So our contact staying at the friendly Woomera reception centre
cannot complain if his letters are being thrown out. They could be
thrown out because he personally is a marked man. But they could
also be thrown out because we are marked men. Just as the residents
of the reception centre were punished for the Easter demonstration at
that time (because they cannot escape, and because they have no
rights), so too they can be the ones punished for the on-going
presence of demonstrators like Ross and myself here at the refugee
embassy. After all, Ross and I have been banned from visiting them
because of our presence at that demonstration. Why not do the same
with regard to correspondence by mail?
We know for sure that some letters are getting out. Others have
written to tell us that they have received mail frominside. We also
know that some residents are not writing replies to our letters. Our
contact says that many of the other people that we are writing to
have difficulty with English, and so they trust him to speak on their
behalf. "So speak," I said, "but do it in their name. Send out
letters with other names and numbers on them. Let those people sign
them. We will see if the letters are being stopped because your name
is at the bottom or if they are being stopped because our name is at
the top."
Our contact has promised to call again tonight. His phone card ran
out last night. I asked if there was some way we could smuggle money
in for him to buy more phone cards, but he would have nothing of it.
"You must not concern yourself about that," he said. "You have done
too much already. I am working and I can buy one card a week with
what I make."
He was full of concern about my welfare. "What about your life?" he
asked. "You have left your family. You have left your job. You are
trapped out here in this desert. That is too much for us to ask."
"Trapped?" I asked jokingly. "You think I'm trapped? How would you
like to trade places with me?" And we both laughed together.
It is hard to believe that the man I was talking to is one of the
'hard cases", one of the "trouble-makers", so labelled because he has
been on a number of hunger strikes in protest against his
confinement. His polite concern for my own welfare after more than
two years of "reception" in our desert "reception centre". His
stubborn refusal to even consider a gift of money. His casual
conversation and many expressions of thanks when it was costing him
an hour's work for every minute that we talked. These were qualities
one finds only in the most civilised peoples of the world.
People I would dearly love to have as my neighbours.
Dave McKay & Ross Parry
The Refugee Embassy
Post Restante, Woomera 5720
Phone: 0407-238805
.
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