From Nicholas Kerr, Friday, July 9
Just before he left Australia Dr Samuel Kobia issued two challenges to Australian Christians.
In a final interview shortly before catching a flight to the Pacific he appealed to Christians:
TO VISIT detention centres like Baxter Detention Facility, see the conditions for themselves, and be like Good Samaritans to the detainees held there.
TO SUPPORT Aboriginal people who feel their self-determination is being threatened by government moves to abolish the elected ATSIC (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission) and replace it with an appointed advisory council.
Dr Kobia, secretary general of the World Council of Churches, had been attending the National Council of Churches in Australia’s forum in Adelaide, South Australia.
Before the NCCA forum he spent a day with Aboriginal people in Port Augusta and detainees in Baxter, just outside Port Augusta.
“I appeal for as many Christians as possible to visit these centres and show your love and your care to the detainee,” he said.
“Many of those I talked with in Baxter expressed their happiness at being visited by ministers and priests of the Uniting Church, Roman Catholic Church and the Anglican Church.
“They also said that they would very much like to have more Christian people visiting them.”
Dr Kobia was visibly distressed by what he saw at Baxter.
“I’d read about the detention centres and I’d heard about them,” he said. “But I must say I wasn’t prepared for what I saw at Baxter.
“I was really shocked. I was shocked by the physical reality – the high fences, the forbidding gates. The people who are in there aren’t criminals.
“I couldn’t understand what it was that made the government detain these asylum seekers in a maximum security prison – because that’s what it looked like to me, a prison.
“That was one of the shocks I had.
“Then I looked at the faces of the detainees. Many of them crowded around me. They wanted to have a word with me, just wanting to whisper a few words.
“Almost without exception, they said, ‘Please, can you tell our story? And can you help to get us out of here?’
“Some of these people have professional skills. They’re mature adults. Hearing them talk like this, and looking at their faces and the depression so evident on them – it really moved me.
“They want to go back to a normal life – but they have no chance of doing so.
“I came out of Baxter with more that pity for these people. I felt that here is a group of young men whose lives are wasting away in detention.
“I left wanting justice done – but also with the compassion of a Christian and the feeling of how much these people need Christian hospitality expressed to them.”
Dr Kobia said he had talked with many church leaders in his four day visit to Australia.
“Many of them have read my comments in the media about Baxter and the conditions there,” he said.
“Most of them agreed with what I have said. I felt encouraged by that.
“I’d like to believe that many of them will continue to advocate with the government on behalf of these detainees.”
Dr Kobia said he was deeply concerned about the position of Australia’s Indigenous people.
“After all these years of tremendous efforts on their part – and after all the expressions of solidarity they’ve had from the Australia churches and the ecumenical movement world wide – it was very depressing to hear Aboriginal leaders say that they are now at their lowest ebb in terms of expectations of an improvement in their conditions.
“I was encouraged when I read about covenant between churches and Aboriginal people, the Sorry Day that’s being observed for the Stolen Generations and the memorial to them in Canberra.”
(The term “Stolen Generations” refers to Aboriginal children who were taken away from their parents.)
“For the government to now abolish ATSIC is the worst blow that could have been dealt the Aboriginal people at this time,” Dr Kobia said.
“I leave here with the strong feeling that, once again, we in the international ecumenical movement need to redouble our efforts in accompanying the Aboriginal people in their struggle for dignity and to be fully human.
“We do this in support of what the Australian churches have done already towards the process of healing and reconciliation.
“These efforts by the Australian churches will continue – and they’ll be strengthened by our solidarity.”
Dr Kobia said the churches had spoken out clearly on these issues.
“I was very encouraged by the words of (Rev Professor) James Haire, the president of the National Council of Churches in Australia, when he said that what the government should have done was not to abolish ATSIC but to fix whatever problems there were with its leadership.
“He also said that the government shouldn’t have taken any action against ATSIC without consultation with the Aboriginal people.
“The churches should continue to insist to the government that it will be paternalistic if they simply go ahead and set up an advisory council instead of listening to the authentic voice of elected Aboriginal people.
“The Aboriginal leadership is very clear about what Aborigines want. The government should listen to that – and that’s what the churches should push for even harder.”
A gruelling schedule
Dr Kobia had a gruelling schedule in Australia. He arrived in Melbourne, Victoria, (Thursday, July 8) on an overnight flight from Hong Kong, caught a connecting flight to Adelaide – and joined NCCA leaders on a flight to Port Augusta in a light aircraft.
The trip from Adelaide to Port Augusta takes three and a half hours by road. Because of a strong headwind it took nearly two hours by plane. The flight back the next day took only an hour.
Port Augusta is in a semi arid area. It is seen as the gateway to the north – and the deserts of inland Australia.
There was a strong wind and light rain when the plane landed and parts of the ceremonial Aboriginal “welcome to country” had to be cancelled.
Dr Kobia lunched with Aboriginal elders, met Aboriginal leaders and gave a press conference.
He then spent close to three hours in Baxter Detention Centre. He visited Pika Wiya Aboriginal Health Service that had been founded with a $30,000 WCC grant 30 years ago. He spent a relaxed evening hosted by the Aboriginal Faith Community, which is run by the Uniting Aboriginal and Islander Christian Congress, the Indigenous arm of the Uniting Church in Australia.
His comments at Port Augusta made news.
First he spoke about Indigenous issues.
He said Indigenous people in Australia were going through a crisis and that Australian Government policies showed racist tendencies.
He condemned the Australian Government’s moves to disband the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC).
“The decision to abolish ATSIC is very unfortunate,” Dr Kobia said. “The Government wants to replace ATSIC with a hand picked advisory council.
“The Aboriginal people see this as a way of denying them their rights to self determination and what they see as the legitimate voice of the Aboriginal people.
“The commission was composed of people who were elected by Indigenous people themselves.
“To replace this with a commission of handpicked people – they think that would be undemocratic. It will not to provide them with a legitimate voice that will represent the aspirations of the Aboriginal people.”
Dr Kobia was asked if he thought that Australian Government’s policies were racist.
“When I consider the way the Aboriginal people are treated here, and listening to them, I would say that one cannot avoid detecting some racist tendencies,” he said.
“I wouldn’t, however, call the Australian people, or Australia as a country, racist in the same way I would have called South Africa racist in the apartheid period.
“There are very commendable initiatives and efforts that the Australian people have made, both the churches as well as communities of people here.
“But in any society like this you will find individuals, or maybe some extreme organisations, that would want to continue with racist attitudes.
“So it would be, I think, unfair to say ‘blanket’ racist.
“On the other hand, I can’t say the racist motivated treatment of Aboriginals has completely ended. There is still someway to go before you can achieve that level.”
His comments were widely reported. His comments after his visit to Baxter were even more widely reported.
Baxter is about 10 kilometres from Port Augusta. Like most places in Australia, Port Augusta has clear signposts and road signs – but there are no signs pointing to Baxter.
At a press conference in Adelaide the next day (Friday, July 9) he called on the Australian Government to abandon its policy of mandatory detention of asylum seekers.
He said the policy violated human rights and was totally unchristian.
“The image of Australia has been gravely damaged by what is happening in these detention camps,” he said.
“I think it’s a great disservice to Australia to have this kind of policy and to maintain the types of camps I saw yesterday.”
Dr Kobia said the high-tech detention centre was like a refugee camp.
He described how he felt going into Baxter.
“Walking through the gates of Baxter Detention Centre I got the impression of a maximum security prison,” he said.
“You have the gates opened and then shut behind you before you move to the next gate. This seems like a place for hardcore criminals, for people that would be considered as dangerous and therefore should be locked away completely.
“This reminded me of the pictures I have seen of Guantanamo Bay – without the chains and the uniforms.
“But then there is the electrical fence.
“I talked to the detainees there. They were attending service with the Eucharist.
“Looking at their faces you clearly get the impression that here are people who are depressed. Depression is written all over their faces. There is no question about that.”
About 60 to 70 detainees attend Christian services in the facility’s visitors’ centre every week.
“I could clearly see that there are people who are depressed.
“Many of them complained of psychological and emotional torture, because there they are, day in and day out, sitting there, not knowing what tomorrow will bring for them.
“They feel things are considerably better even for criminals who have been imprisoned. They know they are serving a sentence of, say, four years. But for them it is limbo really.
“This is one of the most depressing things for any human being.”
He returned to the theme when he spoke to the NCCA forum the next day (Saturday, July 10).
“Refugees and migrants have enriched Australian society and made it into a wonderful multi-cultural society.
“Australia also has a long tradition of supporting the international system of refugee protection, of supporting UN endeavours and international legal norms on refugees and asylum seekers.
“However, policies adopted by the Australian Government in the last five years have called into question this wonderful legacy and have damaged Australia’s reputation abroad.”
The WCC, he said, was particularly concerned about a number of issues.
“One is the Australian system of visa controls which is intended to keep people fleeing persecution at home from arriving at Australia’s borders.
“We are concerned at the continuing existence – although the number is decreasing – of detention centres in which asylum seekers are mandatorily detained for an indefinite period.
“Even children are locked up.
“We don’t know of any other country in the world which has detention policies as rigid as these.
“We are concerned at the policy of Temporary Protection Visas where individuals who are recognised as refugees by the Australian Government are only allowed to remain in the country temporarily.
“After long journeys and jumping over the bureaucratic hurdles they remain in limbo.
“We don’t know of any other country in the world that treats recognised refugees in this way.
“We are also concerned about the so-called ‘Pacific solution’ in which asylum seekers who were en route to Australia are ‘warehoused’ in Nauru.
“This has consequences most immediately for the asylum seekers waiting for a solution to their plight and also for the small country of Nauru.
“It also has consequences for refugees in other countries as other governments talk about emulating the Australian example.”
The next day (Sunday, July 11) he preached in St Peter’s Anglican Cathedral.
He preached on the Good Samaritan reading.
“There is something profoundly disturbing about the Australian Government putting asylum seekers in isolated detention centres.”
It was not right, he said, to isolate asylum seekers from the general public.
“It is easier to deport people when no one in the country knows them, when they have no friends as advocates.
“For churches and Christians n Australia, reaching out to the strangers in your midst or advocating with the government in an increasingly difficult climate is not easy.”
He said the backlash against asylum seekers was not something that was happening “out there”.
“It is also happening in the communities in which most of you live.
“It can be very tiring to always be explaining why refugees sometimes can’t enter through established channels.
“Nevertheless, if we are to be faithful to the gospel – to welcome the stranger and work for justice – we have no choice.
“It must be our task and responsibility to open our eyes to the uprooted among us.”
Dr Kobia said just before he left Australia that he had enjoyed being with Christians from around Australia at the NCCA forum.
“But if I hadn’t had the opportunity to meet Aboriginal people and to visit Baxter my visit would have been much the poorer.”
‘Continue to support Sudanese refugees’
Dr Kobia congratulated Australia on sending relief to the Sudanese refugees who have fled from the ethnic cleansing in West Dafur.
“There are a million refugees in Chad,” he said.
“Many of them will die of hunger and disease within the month if enough aid does not reach them.”
He congratulated Christian World Service, the relief arm of the NCCA on its special appeal for these refugees.
He also congratulated Australia for receiving many hundreds of Sudanese refugees in the last two to three years.
Photo: Rev Sam Kobia with NCCA General Secretary, Rev John Henderson and President Rev James Haire. (Kerr)
