Woomera Convergence
 and Solidarity action at State Library
21-23 September 2001 		Return to Past Events index page

Message from Glasgow Campaign to Welcome Refugees

We in Glasgow, Scotland, are also taking part in the International Day of Action.

We are holding a demonstration outside our only detention centre in Scotland. It opened earlier this month and is about twenty miles outside Glasgow in a very rural area.

The Glasgow Campaign to Welcome Refugees sends solidarity wishes to you.

End detention now
Refugees are not criminals

Yours
Sheila

Message from 'Close Down Harmondsworth Campaign'

It is great to hear about all the activities which are going on this weekend. We have been following the predicament of the asylum seekers trying to land in Australia with a lot of interest and sympathy. Good luck with your protest.

In solidarity,
Ray Barkley
Close Down Harmondsworth Campaign

There is a detention centre at Harmondsworth near Heathrow. It currently holds 91 but they have built a new one on the same site which will hold 550, including families and disabled people.

This is the entrance and Oscar compound at Woomera Immigration Reception and Processing Centre.

The establishment of an Immigration Reception and Processing Centre(IRPC) was announced on 9 November 1999. It was opened later that month on Department of Defence property at Woomera West, approximately 3kms from Woomera town, 180 kms north-west of Port Augusta and 480 kms from Adelaide. ... The land was originally used as a defence and space program facility but has been converted into a detention centre at a cost of over $25 million.

Physically, conditions at Woomera are extremely oppressive. Situated on one of the most remote parts of Australia, there is treeless plain on the outside and gravel under foot. There are several levels of security fencing, including razor wire and barbed wire. Detainees are accomodated in bunk beds in 1950s vintage barrack blocks with flow-through ventilation and transportable units with air-conditioning erected in early 2000. The centre is expected to be able to house up to 2,000 detainees. The recently arrived detainess are separated from the others until they have been initially processed. The Department claims this is to minimise the risk of fabrication of stories, while more cynical commentators have suggested that the recently-arrived detainees might be able to find out something about their legal rights from the longer-term detainees and that the Department wants to avoid this at all costs.

Visiting journalists have described life in the camp thus: "When it's more than 50C in the sun, you're behind palisade and razor wire fencing, there are guards visible at every turn, you're in cramped digs, there's almost nowhere for your children to play and very little for you to do but wonder how long you'll be in this hell-hole, the feeling would not be great.

Detainees are assigned a number corresponding to the prefix of the boat they arrive on and the order in which they are detained. They become Yan 1, Don 27, or Rap 180. They are required to wear this identification number at all times, and are addressed by number. They are summoned by number over the loudspeakers...

Detainees are charged $150 a day for their stay at Woomera Detention Centre. If they are successful in their claim for asylum they start their new three-year temporary protection stay in Australia with a huge bill and a payment plan. If they are unsuccessful and are deported, the Australian government must pay ACM, and if the person ever wants to come to Australia again they must first pay back this amount to the government. A stay in one of the centres for 8 months will cost about $35,000.

Nursing staff at Woomera are given written instructions by centre management that they are not to embrace or farewell detainees who have successfully applied for visas. Nurses are also put on report for giving lollies to children in the centre. "We are not allowed to hug, to kiss, to shake their hand, to say goodbye to them or wave them off when they [leave]", a former nurse has said. "If we did we were threatened with dismissal. To me, that is totally inhumane."

The Australian [newspaper] has revealed allegations that fighter aircraft have made low-level passes over the Woomera detention centre, frightening children and reminding their parents of war-torn Iraq. A detention centre staff member, a former nurse at Woomera and a former detainee say the flights occurred at least twice in late August [2000] or early September, within days of guards quelling a riot with water cannon and tear-gas. "It was like Iraq, the same," said the former detainee. "The children were scared. The planes, they came right over the top." The detention centre staffer said many people in the centre had escaped from war zones, seeking safe haven in Australia. "They were just shitting themselves," the source said. "It was a very cruel exercise." Since the detainees' protests a water cannon has been permanently stationed in the staff car park, a threatening reminder of the response detainees can expect if they take further protest action.

Woomera is Australia's largest detention centre, it is where the worst of the numerous human rights violations have occurred and it is where the national campaign to Free the Refugees was launched by the protests of those inside. Buses will leave Melbourne at 4pm on Friday 21 September, arriving at Woomera for breakfast on Saturday morning. There will be protest activities at the Detention Centre into the afternoon, followed by a return to Adelaide for the night. On Sunday there is to be a public meeting in Adelaide before the return journey to Melbourne. This page will record the trip as material becomes available.
The buses got away only half-an-hour or so late, after the traditional chaos of such operations. Three coaches and two mini-buses left Melbourne in fine weather. We're hoping for equally fine weather here tomorrow for the rally at the State Library to mark the International Day of Action. People were generally too busy getting organised to have much time for photos, but here are some snaps. The party set off with plenty of banners.
Seeking asylum is not illegal

What happened at Woomera on Saturday has been largely ignored or misreported by the mass media. The following account comes from a letter written by one of the Melbourne contingent on his return to Melbourne. Many thanks to author for letting us use it.

Dear Anne

I have just spent the weekend doing about 32 hours on buses and visiting the asylum seekers in the hell-hole called Woomera - about 500 kilometres beyond Adelaide, in about the most inhospitable part of this dry continent you can imagine.

We were about 250 people, 150 or so from Victoria and numbers also from Sydney, Adelaide and Canberra. What we had in common was an abhorrence of the detention centres for asylum seekers. We arrived, got stopped about 550 yards from the razor-wire fence, and set up our banners saying, 'Welcome' 'Salaam'u aleikum', hos geldiniz' and the like - in Dari (Afghani), Farsi (Persian) Arabic, Somali, Turkish and Vietnamese. In the Australian press that was called 'incitement'. We did not put up flares, as claimed by the Minister for Justice, Senator Elliston.

We put up kites and balloons, and we played Afghani and Persian music on a very good sound system we had. People appeared behind the razor wire in large numbers -- perhaps 200, including kids and women with babies in arms -- and started dancing and waving. It was a delicious moment that I will never forget. To further enjoy the festivities and to try to send back messages of solidarity they prepared some banners of their own (very hard to read, but we picked up "close the camps" and "Muslim people support ....". That was called 'riot' in the media.

Then the water cannons arrived and directed their attack at very close range through the razor-wire fence at the detainees. That was called 'containment' in the media.

Then a bar was removed from the fence by some very resourceful people inside, apparently by using an iron bed-head as a lever, and a man dressed in black slipped through the hole. He didn't try to run away. He stood his ground and started throwing rocks at one of the water cannons.

The assault by the cannons continued.

Then a man dressed in red and black slipped through the same hole in the fence and started running towards us. We were about 550 yards away, but he was a good runner and made it to at least 250 yards before being apprehended. He was, as far as we could see, not attacked, simply 'walked' back by the men in blue. That was called 'attempted escape by three detainees'.

We were shocked and appalled. Many of us were crying. In response to the repeated use of water cannon and tear gas a number of us linked arms and started walking slowly towards the line created by the South Australian police. Until then the SA police had been very disciplined and thoughtful. They had 'held the line' quite gently and were in conversation with us. They had retrieved for us all day our footballs and frisbees that had accidentally crossed the fence line. Even after things got ugly they were disciplined and agreeable. But the federal goons in blue uniforms arrived in considerable numbers, some in full riot gear, and that was a sign.

Then suddenly the tear gas attacks started in earnest on the people inside the razor wire. There is a theory that they had refused to go to lunch because they were enjoying the communication and the chance to see real people who regarded them as human beings. Anyway, there were five or six canisters of tear gas thrown at them. There may have been more, but I was crying and someone had borrowed my binoculars, so I can't be sure.

Most of the people behind the razor wire, including the mums and the kids, did not go away. There was a strength in the moment that I cannot describe. We were face-to-face with the goons in blue, and we were demanding that the water cannons and the tear gas stop. Someone said we would stand our ground until the water cannons moved off. It was a time of stalemate.

Then a young Koorie woman representing the traditional owners of the land took the microphone and said, 'What you are doing is great; but we know the officers and the detainees better than you do, and we say you must go back behind the fence. There must not be violence. You are safe and they are not. Just don't forget to do this again soon and often'.

We were people of many political persuasions, some never having had such an experience before, so we dithered and formed groups, and many democratic and highly charged discussions were attempted. But we moved behind the fence as requested, and the bus drivers gently directed us back into the buses.

That's when we got the news (via a mobile phone link from a detainee to Sydney) that the people inside wanted to thank us for giving them the best day they had had in months! They thanked us for reminding them that they are human beings after all; they assured us there had been no riot and no-one had been seriously hurt; and they hoped we would come back soon.

Love, Robert
Saturday, 22 September
Solidarity action at State Library
Over three hundred people attended the support rally at the State Library, and after hearing the news from Woomera, about two hundred of them marched to the main office of DIMA at the end of the rally.

Before the rally started

The Mobile Detention Centre played its part,
with some posters from the children.

One of the speakers was
Victorian ALP Senator Barney Cooney.

Jackie Lynch of Socialist Alliance read a message from Jorge Jorquera, SA candidate for Gellibrand, who is on hunger strike at Maribyrnong Detention Centre.

After receiving the news from Woomera, the rally voted to march on DIMA.
Protest at DIMA (Dept of Immigration & Multicultural Affairs)

Socialist Alliance candidate for Gellibrand, Jorge Jorquera, holds a hunger strike vigil outside Maribyrnong Detention Centre from 12 noon Friday 21 Sept to 2pm Sunday 23 Sept. Above is how the encampment looked before it was forced to move following an unprovoked attack.
There will also be actions in Sydney, Perth and Darwin. At the same time groups in the UK are staging rallies and marches at detention centres in several cities on Saturday, making this an International Day of Action.

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