Media Releases 2004 (32)
NCCA-CWS supports victims of typhoons in the Philippines
Written byACT Appeal - Philippine floods (ASPH42)
Sydney, 23 December 2004 --The NCCA-Christian World Services (NCCA-CWS), donated $15,000 in response to the Action by Churches Together (ACT) Rapid Response Funding to assist victims devastated by floods due to the latest typhoons affecting at least five regions in the Philippines.
ACT reported that “four typhoons over a span of three weeks have wreaked havoc in at least five regions in the Philippines. Typhoons Muifa and Merbok battered Regions IV (Southern Tagalog), Region V (Bicol) and Region VI (Western Visayas). Tropical depression Winnie battered Region IV (Southern Tagalog), Super Typhoon Nanmadoe vented its fury on Luzon Island (Region III) and part of Region VIII (Eastern Visayas).”
“The fury of these typhoons has caused massive and widespread flooding, flash floods and landslides. By 2 December the number of dead or missing had reached 600 and affected around 6,500 families. Thousands of people have been rendered homeless and there is extensive damage to property, infrastructure and agriculture. Communication and power lines were broken, major roads eroded or blocked by mud and debris leaving the affected areas isolated.“
Donations from the Rapid Response Funding from ACT, channeled through the National Council of Churches in the Philippines (NCCP), will be used to “provide food, potable water, sleeping mats, plastic sheets, light blankets and clothing. Medical missions will also be conducted.”
NCCA-CWS expresses its sympathy to the victims of the latest typhoons to hit the Philippines and hope that the people affected will know that there are concerned people from around the world who are willing to assist them, most especially this Christmas season.
“Emergency appeals are an activity NCCA-CWS undertakes as part of its development and aid work in Asia, Africa, the Middle East and the Pacific. NCCA-CWS work is supported by Christmas Bowl gifts,” said the Revd John Henderson, interim Director of NCCA-CWS.
For Media Inquiries:
Contact: The Revd John Henderson 02 9299 2215
Amongst the achievements of the past decade, NATSIEC points to the development of education and the growth of the Reconciliation movement, highlighted symbolically by the Bridge Walks in 2000. Progress has however been slow on main key areas of concern, not least in relation to genuine land rights and self-determination, care for the land and sea, and the health-crisis and poverty of so many Indigenous Australians. Particularly shocking is the way in which, whilst health and age of mortality differentials have been narrowed between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples in the USA, Canada and elsewhere, in Australia matters have actually worsened. Whilst welcoming recent renewed public attention to Indigenous issues, NATSIEC hopes that this will therefore be no mere smouldering fire, nor dependent on tragic events such as those associated with Palm Island at this time.
One of the greatest gains of the last ten years has been the growing international partnerships across the world between Indigenous peoples themselves. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Christians have for instance been active participants in the work of the Encounter on Racism process of the World Council of Churches and in recently developed UN bodies such as the UN Permanent Forum for Indigenous Peoples. Such partnerships have raised key issues of human rights, and strengthened the efforts of Indigenous peoples worldwide in upholding and reclaiming culture, identity, language and ancestral land, empowering the movement to establish respect for Indigenous Peoples’ right to define for themselves their political, economic, cultural and spiritual development. Therefore, says Graeme Mundine, ‘on this International Human Rights Day, we call on all Australians to renew the partnerships begun. May our hearts burn ever more fiercely with the gentleness of God’s love and the strength of God’s justice.’
Contact:
Graeme Mundine
Executive Secretary
0419 238 788
“Over the last year we have seen several events which highlights this rise whether it be children tortured when people have taken the law in their own hands, Indigenous Australians still not receiving the same standards of service as other Australians, police not being investigated properly when their conduct has been brought into question or Governments which continues to single out and blame Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples for Government inaction.
We have seen that the law was very swift to take action against Aboriginal people after the events on Palm Island but has been very slow to act on those who were responsible for the deeds that lead to these events.
We call on all Australians to be ‘Alert’ against those within our community who carry out these racist acts against our fellow Australians and we should be alarmed that these acts are still occurring here in our lucky country in 2004”.
Graeme Mundine, Executive Secretary of the Commission said today.
Contact: Graeme Mundine 0419 238 788 / 02 9299 2215
By Nicholas Kerr, who was part of a Christian World Service delegation to Kenya in August to visit Sudanese refugees.
Rev Gregor Henderson has seen refugee camps before. But he was profoundly shocked by what he saw in Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya.
There are refugees from eight African nations in the camp but most are from Sudan.
Mr Henderson led a small delegation from Christian World Service, the aid and development arm of the National Council of Churches in Australia, to find out more about the situation of Sudanese refugees in Africa.
We spent 24 hours in Kakuma. We slept in one of the refugee camp huts. Like the refugees we were without food for 24 hours.
"I’m going home with a pretty awful feeling," Mr Henderson said just before we left Kenya.
"My overriding reaction is one of distress.
"I’m distressed at the circumstances that face these Sudanese people. They’re living in such dreadful circumstances in Kakuma.
"I’m distressed that it has gone on for so many years.
"And I’m distressed that we in Australia are not doing more for them, as churches and as a nation."
As well as distress, Mr Henderson feels admiration for the way in which the people of Kakuma seem to cope with their circumstances.
"We saw so many expressions of hope in God," he said. "We saw so many acts of friendship with us, without any sense of resentment towards us, who have so much when they have so little.
"We even saw their ability to celebrate their culture and their Christian faith in the midst all this poverty, hardship and suffering and heartrending stories.
"In such uncertainty we saw people who seemed to be able to find hope from deep down.
"I’m distressed that people have been there eight, nine, 10 years - and a few even longer than that.
"They’ve had no useful employment in that time. They’ve lived grindingly on one meal a day. There’s a sense of the world passing them by and leaving them largely uncared for."
Mr Henderson left Kenya determined to do what he can to try to improve the conditions in Kakuma.
"We can’t just leave it there," he said. "We can’t just tell their story and leave it at that. We have to do something more active - as a church and as a nation - to respond to their needs."
Sudan’s future is uncertain. There is the tragedy of Darfur. A similar tragedy is looming in the east. And the peace talks between the north and the south have stalled yet again.
There could soon be fighting on three fronts between the Arab north and the Africans in the west, south and east.
Mr Henderson said there is a great deal of uncertainty about the peace process between the Arab, Muslim north and the African, Christian south.
"We got such mixed messages about it," he said. "The people from the church agencies seem to be much more optimistic than the people on the ground and the refugees themselves.
"If there is a peace agreement within the next few months, that will create a whole raft of new needs. And the people will be highly vulnerable as they seek to re-establish themselves in their own homelands with all the difficulties they will face there, not only in the initial few months but also in the months to come."
Mr Henderson said he is proud that the churches around the world are trying help these people.
"I’m sure that the suffering Sudanese would be even worse off if it weren’t for the churches," he said.
"Their own churches are obviously doing a tremendous job in the camp, holding them together and seeking to provide what little support for them that they can.
"The wider church community, including the Australian churches through Christian World Service, is offering them some assistance and offering to walk with them."
Mr Henderson wants the Australian churches to look at how we can provide more help to refugees who have been approved for resettlement in Australia to get here more quickly.
Too many refugees get visas to Australian only to find that the Sudanese in Australia can’t afford to pay their air fares. So their hopes are dashed and they go back to refugee camps.
Mr Henderson said Australian churches have been making statements that congregations would be willing to support asylum seekers to live in the community, rather than in detention centres, while their cases are dealt with.
"We should be able to help Sudanese refugees to get a new start in life," he said.
"Could churches supply no-interest loans for those the Australian Government has accepted as genuine refugees so they can come sooner, rather than later, and not have to depend on the Sudanese community in Australia to muster the money for their fares?"
He also hoped Australia can generate some concern about the paucity of rations for the people in Kakuma.
"Apparently all they are receiving is three kilograms of maize, with a little salt and cooking oil, per person per fortnight, with occasional lentils thrown in," he said.
"Surely the international community can do better than that. Surely they’re entitled to more than one small meal a day and a bit more nourishment for them and their children."
Refugees asked the delegation to take up three points with the Australian Government. They would like Australia:
• To increase the number of refugees.
• To support education for refugees in Africa.
• To be ready to help in the reconstruction of Southern Sudan when a comprehensive peace agreement is eventually signed.
"There’s plenty for us to speak to the Government about - and there’s plenty we can consider as further assistance from the church," he said.
Mr Henderson said he was very glad that the delegation had been invited to share the refugees’ conditions for 24 hours.
"I’m pleased we accepted the invitation of the Presbyterian community to live with them for 24 hours as they have to live," he said.
"Knowing that we were there for only a night and a day meant it was no great sacrifice on our part. But I’m please we made that act of solidarity. We probably gained in credibility because of that.
"Even that taste says to us that they have one very poor meal each day, and each of those meals is the same - what you could call maize porridge - day after day, year after year.
"Eating would be no pleasure. Your body must accommodate to it somewhat. You would go to bed hungry each night and wake up hungry every morning."
The delegation slept in a mud hut with very little ventilation.
"We were sleeping only two to a room. They sleep eight, or 10, or even 15 to a room. I can’t imagine that being anything but unbearable, night after night.
"There’s a complete lack of privacy and the sanitation provisions are so primitive. So are the cooking facilities.
"And the heat - and we were at the cool time of the year!
"This small taste we had of life in Kakuma makes me admire the spirit of the people.
"They seem so uncomplaining about their lot. If I had to do it for three or four days in a row I’d be at my wit’s end.
"You wonder what it must do to your long term health. Many of them, of course, said they feel sick. That probably speaks of malnutrition and various infections.
"We weren’t given mosquito nets - and we were blessed that there weren’t many mosquitoes."
Mr Henderson said there is a high incidence of malaria and digestive infections. "The level of medical care is very basic," he said.
"We saw people who had had broken limbs that had never been properly set. We met people who needed operations for bladder and other problems. They can’t have them because the facilities just aren’t there.
"So the taste of their life was depressing. It makes you marvel that they can cope with it.
"We heard that every week children die because of inadequate facilities and lack of nutrition.
"I’ve been in refugee camps in the Middle East and Sri Lanka. These are the worst I’ve seen in terms of provisions and facilities.
"There’s no way that people can grow anything for themselves with that climate and the lack of water.
"The welcome we were given, as members of the fellowship and family of Christ, was extraordinary. We weren’t bringing any solution for them.
"I’m pleased we were able to share their conditions, rather than go off at night to somewhere a little better than where they were sleeping.
"It was a solidarity visit, not a spectator visit.
"The grinding hopeless of it all is terrible. It really turns your heart over. It’s appalling. It shouldn’t be."
• Rev Gregor Henderson, of Canberra, is chairperson of Christian World Service, the aid and development arm of the National Council of Churches in Australia. He is also national president-elect of the Uniting Church in Australia.
National Council of Churches (in Australia) expresses solidarity with Christian community in Iraq
Written byThe National Council of Churches in Australia (NCCA) has conveyed its sorrow to church leaders in Iraq in the wake of the explosions which killed 17 people and injured more than 50 people.
Most of the victims were Christians who had been attending Church services. However, some passersby were also killed.
NCCA General Secretary, the Reverend John Henderson, called for prayers for all Iraqis who, in struggling to resume their lives after war and rebuild their country, were suffering and dying at the hands those who engage in terrorist activities.
“It is a tragic sign of the precarious situation in Iraq that people of any religious persuasion should be targeted as they worship,” he said.
“The Christian community in Australia, and I’m sure all Australians, expresses deep sorrow to the families of those killed in these blasts and to the wider Christian community in Iraq.
“We also acknowledge and endorse the call of the Chaldean Patriarch in Baghdad for all Christians to forgive those who caused the blasts and not to seek revenge.”
Mr Henderson said NCCA member Churches and their affiliated aid organisations would continue to provide assistance to the Iraqi people.
These church aid organisations have been supplying drugs and medical equipment to hospitals in Iraq since the war last year. They have also been implementing development programs in Iraq which include a supplementary food program for malnourished children, as well as provision of water and sanitation.
**************
For more information contact Rev John Henderson on 0419 224 935.
Christian World Service (CWS), a commission of the National Council of Churches in Australia has announced that it has made an initial contribution of AUD$15,000 to a joint Action by Churches Together (ACT International) and CARITAS International appeal to raise financial support for 500,000 people in Sudan.
The appeal aims to raise US$17.5 million worldwide to provide shelter, water, sanitation, basic sleeping and kitchen materials for people in camps and burned-out villages in the Darfur Province in Western Sudan. The program also aims to provide supplementary food rations to 50,000 children under five and education for school-aged children.
The Darfur Province is home to some six million nomads and farmers. It is estimated that there are over two million conflict-affected people in Darfur in need of emergency support.
The UN and humanitarian agencies in Sudan have described the situation as one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises. Recent statements by the UN Security Council have described the situation as one of ethnic cleansing through the use of mass rape, summary killing and a “scorched earth” policy.
This is the first formal joint appeal between Protestants, Orthodox and Catholics in Darfur. Their goal is to help people affected by militia attacks maintain their basic daily activities with dignity and stabilise and then reduce environmental and health-related diseases. The CWS partner in Sudan, the Sudan Council of Churches (SCC) will be a key respondent on the ground in Darfur.
CWS has also announced that it is initially sending AUD$15,000 from its emergency fund to ACT International for families whose houses have been demolished in Rafah, Palestine.
CWS is a member of ACT and has been able to work with them to provide consolidated responses to emergencies in Sudan, Liberia and Iraq and Iran in the past few years. CWS seeks to assist those experiencing oppression and injustice during emergencies by working with partners throughout the world to bring relief and support.
July 2004
GIFTS FOR THE DARFUR EMERGENCY CAN BE SENT TO CHRISTIAN WORLD SERVICE
VIA WEBSITE www.ncca.org.au/give-christmas_bowl,
TOLL-FREE PHONE 1800 025 101 OR
MAILED TO LOCKED BAG 199 SYDNEY 1230 AUSTRALIA
Australian churches signed a covenant during the fifth national forum of the National Council of Churches in Australia (NCCA). The forum was held in Adelaide last month.
Church leaders have hailed it as one of the most significant events in Australia’s ecumenical history. “It’s an international benchmark,” NCCA president, Rev Professor James Haire, said.
“No one else, I believe, anywhere in the world, has been able to produce anything quite as comprehensive as this.
“It’s true that the US is working towards something similar – but that doesn’t include the Catholics.”
In different parts of the covenant:
ALL 15 member churches of the NCCA reaffirmed their commitment to one another “as partners on the ecumenical journey”.
ALL 15 agreed to join in common prayer with each other and care for each other.
ALL 15 also pledged that they would explore further steps “to make more clearly visible the unity of all Christian people in this country”.
TEN of the churches agreed to support initiatives for sharing physical resources and to consult each other before major new developments are undertaken.
SEVEN churches agreed to explore issues and strategies for mission together. This would make the possibility of common mission a priority.
NINE churches agreed to recognise each others’ baptism and to promote the use of the common baptism certificate.
TWO churches – the Churches of Christ and the Uniting Church – agreed to “invite and welcome members of each other’s church to share in the Eucharist according to pastoral need”.
FOUR pairs of churches agreed to “continue to work towards the goal of sharing with each other a mutually recognised ordained ministry”. These are the Anglican and Lutheran churches; the Anglican and Uniting churches; the Churches of Christ and Uniting Church; and the Lutheran and Uniting churches.
Full details of the covenant are on the NCCA website.
James Haire described it a “a covenant in progress”.
“In future we can add new pages, as it were, to the document.
“Some of it’s fairly standard – that we’d pray together, and so on. But it’s still important. In the past churches didn’t recognise each other. Some Protestants wouldn’t pray with Catholics. Some Catholics wouldn’t pray with Protestants.
“There are two particularly interesting parts to the covenant.
“One is those churches who have undertaken not to buy new buildings, or sell buildings, without consulting with other churches. That’s very significant.
“Then there are the churches that will not engage in mission – what Catholics call evangelisation and Protestants call evangelism – unless they consult with the others.
“Then, of course, the Lutherans, Churches of Christ, the Anglicans and the Uniting Church have agreed to work together towards the recognition of each others’ ordained ministries.
“That may appear very clerical. But you don’t get organic union unless you’ve agreed on the question of ordained ministries.
“Once you’ve agreed on that, organic union will come fairly easily.”
Rev Dr Dean Drayton, president of the Uniting Church in Australia, summed up his reaction with the words: “Thank God! And it’s happened in Australia!”
Sometimes, he said, an event can open up whole new horizons.
“I believe this is the first time in any country that all the Orthodox, Catholic and all the Protestant groups that have a national body – other that the Baptists –have covenanted together to move on the road to Christian unity.
“It couldn’t have happened anywhere else but in Australia.
“No other country I know of has even got the infrastructure like the NCCA.
“This is more than a formal structure. It’s looking forward towards the future and asking God to take us on the way of moving beyond our differences to work together, in the name of Christ.”
Catholic ecumenist, Bishop Michael Putney, said the covenant was “a most important step in the ecumenical movement”.
“Some people think the ecumenical movement has slowed down,” he said. “I don’t believe it has.
“In fact, we’ve achieved so much that the next major steps are more difficult and will take longer.
“Covenants serve the purpose of enabling us to harvest all that we’ve achieved and to use that as a platform for actually doing concrete things that are possible at this point of history – so that we can keep the momentum going and move the ecumenical movement forward.
“In fact we’ve reached much deeper levels of communion through our dialogues, our collaboration and our councils. But we’re not living as though we’d reached those newer levels of communion.
“Covenants enable us to name the new stage we’ve reached and to name what that ought to involve, practically speaking.
“Covenants play a very important role in this point in the history of the ecumenical movement.”
Signing the covenant was an historic moment for the churches of Australia, he said
“The churches did three things.
“They named the level of communion that they’re reached.
“They expressed a commitment to try to live out that level of communion.
“They named, therefore, a goal of carrying the ecumenical movement forward into the future for the churches in Australia.”
The Forum of the National Council of Churches in Australia agreed to incorporate its international aid and development agency, Christian World Service.
NCCA Christian World Service Limited, a public company limited by guarantee, will operate as soon as possible as CWS Australia (CWSA).
The General Secretary of the NCCA, the Reverend John Henderson welcomed the decision and said : ¡§Following many months of consideration the Forum accepted a simpler and more transparent structure for CWS, while retaining CWSA firmly within the family of the NCCA¡¨.
Incorporation will
„hoffer the security of setting CWSA at a legal distance from NCCA to give it greater integrity and identity
„hprovide ongoing accountability and compliance for fundraising and reporting to supporters and funding bodies, and
„himprove stewardship, and maximise the ability to generate resources to expand work with partners overseas and in Australia.
Every year CWS, mainly through its Christmas Bowl program, assists people who are struggling for lives of sufficiency, dignity and peace in Africa, Asia, the Middle East and the Pacific, and supports refugees and asylum seekers overseas and in Australia, through direct assistance, through collaboration with other agencies, and through advocacy with community and government. It also supports Indigenous community projects identified by the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Ecumenical Commission.
The Christmas Bowl program supports partnerships which put hope in the hearts of people through projects which address the big problems of our times: poverty and hunger, HIV/AIDS, education, health, child mortality, development, equality and empowerment, the environment and lack of safe water.
The Reverend Gregor Henderson, Chair of CWS, expressed his delight with the outcome : ¡§It will enable CWS to increase its profile in the Australian churches and community, whilst retaining CWSA as a key component of the ecumenical family in Australia¡¨.
¡§CWSA will continue to be a significant expression of Australian churches together responding to need in the world through the Christmas Bowl program and other initiatives ¡V incorporation will in no way diminish this mission of CWS¡¨, said Mr Caesar D¡¦Mello, National Director of CWS.
Further information : Colleen Hodge, Education and Communications, CWS
Telephone : 02 9299 2215/0419 6852 48
Australian Churches have received the recent Federal Government’s announcement about TPV holders with cautious optimism. They welcome any policy change that helps relieve the suffering of refugee and asylum seekers. They are concerned, however, that whatever their motivation these changes do not go far enough, and that Australia will continue to treat people who are not criminals as though they were.
“It’s good news that TPV holders can apply for migration visas and be granted 18-month ‘return-pending visas’ if they have no further need of protection,” said the Rev John Henderson, General Secretary of the National Council of Churches (NCCA). “We hope that the government will continue to adjust its policies to deal more humanely with people who arrive here seeking sanctuary. Building relationships of trust in our region and with the global community will do as much, if not more, to make Australia secure than building ever stronger fences to keep people out,” he said.
Leaders of the NCCA’s 15 member churches heard news of the Minister’s announcement while they met in Adelaide for the Council’s triennial National Forum.
“We accept that the government has the responsibility to manage Australia’s migration policies,” said Henderson, “but we ask that this be done in a way that respects the dignity and rights of each person. It is our moral responsibility as a nation, and in our best interests, not to demean, dehumanise, or cause unnecessary suffering and uncertainty to people who have already suffered great trauma.”
James Thomson, of the Council’s refugee programme, said; “We were concerned that recognised refugees judged to have no further need of protection might be re-detained and forcibly deported. At least now they’ll have 18 months to prepare. Allowing TPV refugees to apply for migration visas will also come as welcome news, particularly to refugees who have become a vital part of the rural workforce, but most of the 9,500 refugees with TPVs applying for ongoing protection in Australia are unlikely to qualify.
“On their own, however, these measures are not enough” said Mr. Thomson. “The strict criteria preventing refugees from obtaining permanent protection visas in the first place remains, and refugees who receive TPVs are still being denied permanent residence, family reunion and settlement services.”
Australia is the only country in the world that grants recognised refugees temporary protection. Usually, it is only used when a crisis overwhelms a state’s ability to cope. Australia’s system of mandatory, indefinite detention for every, man woman and child seeking asylum without a visa is also unique. Additionally, there are still up to 1,000 asylum seekers in the community who are forced to survive off charity because they have been denied work rights, Medicare and income support.
For more information contact: James Thomson on (02) 92992215 or 0402 67 55 44
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From Nicholas Kerr, Friday, July 9
Rev Dr Samuel Kobia visited Australian Aboriginal people at a time when Indigenous people are facing a crisis.
They say their right to self determination is under threat.
The Australian Government has introduced legislation to disband the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC).
The Government wants to replace ATSIC with a hand picked advisory council.
Indigenous people see this as an attempt to silence the elected Indigenous voice and a blow to self determination.
They have welcomed moves by the Federal Opposition and minor parties for a Senate inquiry into the right of Indigenous people to determine their own future.
“The Aboriginal psyche has been dealt a heavy blow,” according to Alwyn McKenzie, chairperson of the Nulla Wimila Kutju ATSIC Regional Council, in the north of South Australia.
Mr McKenzie was one of the Aboriginal leaders who greeted Dr Kobia when he arrived in Port Augusta.
“We’ve had these blows time and time again in Australian history,” he said.
“Some of the legislation that has been put into place over the years has been introduced by fair minded, well meaning people.
“But the laws have turned out to be detrimental because legislators didn’t consult Aboriginal people first.
“The Government tends to put Aboriginal self determination into the background – but self determination’s of the utmost importance.
“Only Aboriginal people can articulate our vision for Aboriginal people.
“Non-Indigenous people shouldn’t decide how Indigenous people live.
“The Australian government is being incredibly paternalistic. Once again they’re telling us what is best for us. Once again Indigenous people are being used as a political football.”
Mr McKenzie said this was happening with ATSIC.
“Organisations that are supposed to be improving Aboriginal health and education, and finding Aboriginal people jobs, haven’t succeeded,” he said. “But it seems as though they’ll be rewarded and ATSIC will go.
“A lot of the ATSIC programs are going to be handed over to them on a silver platter.”
Mr McKenzie said there had been problems with ATSIC and reforms had been needed.
“But why get rid of ATSIC? Why not just get rid of the problems?
“It’s as if you had a Rolls Royce with two punctures. You wouldn’t throw away the Rolls Royce. You’d change the tyres.
“Most Aboriginal people believe that our Prime Minister has had a personal agenda for some time – to get rid of the Aboriginal voice.
“He’ll replace it with another sort of Aboriginal voice. There will be a council, picked by the Government. Aboriginal people will work in government departments.
“But it seems he wants to silence the authentic Aboriginal voice, the elected Aboriginal voice.”
“If the elected Aboriginal voice is silenced, who will evaluate what the government is doing? From time to time to government must be challenged. How can that happen if the aboriginal voice is silenced?
Mr McKenzie welcomed the Senate inquiry.
“The information it finds should be made available to every Australian,” he said.
Mr McKenzie feels the Government action could undo some of the achievements towards reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians.
“We must work together on the question of reconciliation,” he said. “We must use the experience, the wisdom and the knowledge of all Australians, working in partnership.
“Indigenous people have an inherent right to be recognised as the first people of this country – and that needs to be recognised in the proper fashion.
“Aboriginal people will not have a real sense of pride until that’s happened.
“We’re occupied people in our own country.
“The Australian Government seems to be doing its utmost to get rid of Aboriginal people’s pride in their inherent identity as the first Australians.
“There is no other country that Australian Aboriginals can call home. This is it.
“We recognise that others, our fellow Australians, have a love for this country – but they take pride in their ancestry and their heritage from other countries as well.
“The same respect must be afforded to our heritage, our culture and our traditions.
“This is our country. We must be allowed to feel proud.”
Photo: Sam Kobia with local children at Port Augusta (Kerr)
From Nicholas Kerr, Friday, July 9
Indigenous people in Australia are going through a crisis, WCC general secretary, Rev Dr Samuel Kobia, said at a press conference in Adelaide, South Australia, today.
And, he said, there are racist tendencies in the Australian Government’s policies.
Dr Kobia condemned the Australian Government’s moves to disband the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC).
Legislation to end ATSIC has been introduced Australia’s Federal Parliament.
Indigenous people have welcomed moves by the Federal Opposition and minor parties for a Senate inquiry into the right of Indigenous people to determine their own future.
“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.”
Dr Kobia said the World Council of Churches has had contact and a supportive relationship with the Aboriginal cause in Australia for many, many years.
“As far back as 1974 the WCC donated the first seeding money for the centre I visited yesterday in Port Augusta.”
Pika Wiya, the Aboriginal health service, was started with $30,000 seed funding from the WCC 30. The State and Federal Governments at that stage were not interested in funding an Aboriginal health service.
Now it is a large, mainly government-funded centre.
“I am not new to the Aboriginal cause here,” Dr Kobia said.
“I am greatly encouraged by the process of healing and reconciliation that has been initiated by the churches in this country, leading to the covenant (between the church and the Indigenous arm of the church).
“This, I think, is the right thing to do. It’s a good example of how to deal with the issues of Indigenous people, even in other parts of the world.
“But, then, listening to the Aboriginal leadership yesterday I got the impression that they are going through a crisis.”
Yesterday Indigenous Affairs Minister Amanda Vanstone said she was at a loss to understand Dr Kobia's criticism.
She says ATSIC was scrapped because the system was not working.
"The changes we are making to Indigenous Affairs will improve the value that Indigenous Australians get," she said.
"No one could say what's happening at the moment is the best we can do. And I for one am determined to do better."
Church leaders have agreed that there have been problems with the way ATSIC has operated.
Rev Professor James Haire, president of the National Council of Churches in Australia, said today: “ATSIC should have been fixed – not scrapped. And the Government should not have taken any action without consulting Indigenous people first.”
Photo: Sam Kobia accepting a painting during his visit to Port Augusta
From Nicholas Kerr, Friday, July 9
WCC general secretary, Rev Dr Samuel Kobia, has 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.
Dr Kobia said at a press conference in Adelaide, South Australia, he had never seen anything like Baxter Detention Facility, just outside Port Augusta, anywhere in the world.
“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.”
Dr Kobia said he had spoken to officers and administrators in the detention centre.
“I got the impression that it is a place that is very well managed, without any mistreatment.
“It’s a wrong policy well administered.
“Many of the detainees told me that they had been put in what I call solitary confinement but what the management call correctional management.
“I felt this was not a good thing to do. If you have a person you fear may endanger themselves, and then you confine them to a small place, closed in, except for three to four hours a day, that is not the way to treat them.”
He said he had not seen anything like this before.
He compared the way some asylum seekers are treated in Australia with the way asylum seekers are being treated in some African countries.
“The way asylum seekers are treated under this particular policy is unique,” he said.
“I compare this with Tanzania, for example, a very poor country, a country that handles hundred of thousands of refugees. They are put in communities where they have freedom, even to interact with the people. They are given activities, and so they are busy.
“Chad, which at the moment is handling over 350,000 Sudanese asylum seekers from Dafur. They don’t subject people to this kind of thing.
“I am aware that Australia does have thousands of refugees who have been admitted into this country. In fact, there are many of us who have previously cited Australia as the best model of how to receive asylum seekers.
“But this particular policy is what concerns me most.
“It is quite OK to say that the Government has to deal with national security. I didn’t get the impression that the people at Baxter are the kind of people who would pose a security problem for Australia as a country.”
Dr Kobia said the detention policy was a denial of human rights.
“When you have people locked up in that kind of a place for years, obviously you are denying them the right to be normal people in a situation, whether they are asylum seekers or not,” he said.
‘The people also complained of intimidation, blackmailing. Those who have decided to go on hunger strikes, for example, are clearly denied the right to do what they want.
“I think intimidation and blackmailing could be the case here.
“They are promised, if they stop (the hunger strike), they will be given better treatment. But of course this is not the case.
“This is a concern we have as Christians for people who are denied their rights, even to know what their future is going to be. That seems to me a violation of human rights and totally unchristian.”
The Australian Government maintains its policy of mandatory detention has been a success because the number of “illegal” arrivals has dropped.
“I don’t know whether the drop of the asylum seekers is a result of these draconian measures,” Dr Kobia said.
“If we could consider this as a success, it is really at the expense of the emotional, psychological and mental state of hundreds of people. I don’t think then we could call that a success.
“My recommendation to the Australian Government is to abandon this altogether and to resort to the normal way of handling asylum seekers.”
Dr Kobia was asked if he thought the detainees were getting appropriate psychiatric support.
“I talked with quite a number of them,” he said. “Certainly they are not satisfied that they are getting adequate support here.
“They are very pleased that churches have organised this whole event, to be visited, to be talked to, to be listened to, to participate in the Eucharist, as we saw yesterday.
“That’s very good for their spirits. But what is organised as psychiatric or psychological support for them is not sufficient.”
Towards the end of the press conference Dr Kobia was asked: “Can I just clarify – you have not seen anything like this in your travels anywhere in the world?”
“No, I have not seen anything like this anywhere else,” he said.
“Clearly, those of us from the international community have been made to look at the image of Australia, which has been gravely damaged by what is happening in these detention camps.
“It’s a great disservice to Australia to have this kind of policy and to maintain these types of camps that I saw yesterday.
“The Australian churches have done a commendable job, from my point of view, of campaigning and advocating for the detainees,” he said. “Whatever we do we will do it together.
“I will speak quite openly about this in the international community.
“I believe that, where a situation like this exists, it is not only the concern of Australian interests and Australian people who advocate for human rights. It is (the concern of ) the international community.
“I will be speaking about this quite openly internationally.”
Photo: Sam Kobia at Baxter detention centre (Kerr)
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)
