This week's stories: Detention Centre Worker Fired For Refusing To Beat
Refugees...Government Against Some Terrorism...Government Lied About
Refguees To Win Election...And Here We Go Again...
A gym instructor working at a refugee detention centre has been sacked
after she refused to beat a detainee, according to Marion Le from the
Independent Committee for Refugee Advocacy.
(news.com.au website, November 7).
Australian ships are currently helping with the American fleet in the
Persian Gulf enforcing an embargo against Iraq which, according to the
United Nations Children's Fund, has led to the unnecessary deaths of
more than 600,000 Iraqi children.
In Indonesia, Australians, together with their American counterparts,
have restarted training the Indonesian military, who carried out many
human rights abuses, especially in East Timor.
For almost 40 years, Australian governments played a significant role in
helping the Indonesian government commit acts of terrorism against their
own people. In 1965, the then prime minister Harold Holt joked about
the mass murder that accompanied the seizure of power by General
Suharto, the west's man. "With 500,000 to a million communist
sympathisers knocked off," he said, "I think it's safe to assume a
reorientation has taken place."
During the Suharto dictatorship Australian prime ministers ignored the
acts of the Indonesian government, mainly because of Australian
companies' investments there. Indonesia's invasion of East Timor, which
cost the lives of a third of the opulation, was described by the
foreign minister Gareth Evans as "irreversible". As Evans put it, there
were "zillions" of dollars to be made from the oil and gas reserves in
the Timor Sea.
(John Pilger, October 17).
Australia's government deliberately lied to the public during last
year's election when it said that refugees had thrown their children
into the sea to attract the attention of an Australian naval patrol, an
inquiry has found.
An Australian senate report said that Peter Reith "engaged in the
deliberate misleading of the Australian public concerning a matter of
intense political interest during an election period".
He claimed that refugees on a ship off the country's northwest coast had
been throwing their children overboard, in an attempt to force the
Australian navy to recover them and allow them to claim asylum.
Photographs of Australian naval officers attempting to save refugees
after the sinking of the boat were released to the media and presented
as images of children thrown into the water.
The claims were repeated by leading members of the government including
John Howard.
It said that the children overboard story had been propagated for
political reasons. The way it was handled was to be "a public show of
the government's strength on the border protection issue. The behaviour
of the unauthorised arrivals was to be a public justification for the
policy."
(The Guardian, October 24).
A viedotape of an incident at a detention centre where detainees were
allegedly beaten by guards would not be publicly released, Immigration
Minister Philip Ruddock has said.
Asylum seekers in the Baxter facility in South Australia alleged they
were savagely beaten by guards in full riot gear last week after a
detainee, who was denied medical help, broke a window in frustration.
Mr Ruddock said the tape would be given to the Commonwealth Ombudsman
who was investigating the allegations.
However, he said it could not be publicly released as it would breach
the detainees' privacy.
(news.com.au website, November 7)
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www.dolearmy.org - information for unemployed people.
www.activate.8m.com - anarchist magazine aimed at teenagers.
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