From the Churches (3)
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)
It's very cruel to be in detention without having committed any crime.
Some of us have been in detention four or five years or more.
We're here, locked away, unnecessarily, without just cause. It isn't a crime to flee from persecution. Locking us away doesn't solve our problems.
We're being kept in detention indefinitely. In this country if someone's sentenced for a crime, he's given a definite sentence. He knows when he'll be released.
Criminals know how long they will be in goal - but we don't know anything.
We don't know what will happen to us. We don't know anything about our lives or our situation.
This is a time of panic for us. We are very frightened. We don't know what is to become of us.
We're asylum seekers. We're here because of problems in our home land.
The Australian Government claims we aren't refugees. This is very frustrating.
Many of us are from Iran, or Iraq. It will never be safe for us to go back there.
The United Nations has condemned my country, Iran, for its violation of human rights.
The European Union has condemned my country for its inhuman acts to its own people.
In the detention centre, they make life very hard for us. We have no right to make any complaints. If we make any objections to what is happening to us here, we're put in isolation for long periods, up to two months - what they call correctional management.
This is causing great pressure on people. It's leading to psychological problems and mental illness.
People are confused. They don't know why they are being treated so badly, like criminals, and eventually they lose hope.
It seems they're making us mentally sick so that they can control us more easily.
It can make you very sick, so that you don't want to eat or drink, and it's a very cruel form of treatment.
Depression is very real in Baxter.
I would appeal to all Christian Australians to press the Government to do something about our problems.
Christian people are the only ones who seem to remember us and to show any interest in us.
This is why many of us have become Christians.
Christian people visit us and write to us and show us the love of Christ. It is their kindness that has made us interested in Christianity and in Christ.
But we will be persecuted if we are Christians and we are returned to our own countries where there are extremist Islamic governments.
Under Islamic law you are punished by death if you abandon Islam and turn to another faith.
The government in my country would not tolerate us. We would be seen as traitors to Islam - and that is punishable by death.
Many of the people who are in detention were already being persecuted for various reasons by their governments at home.
This would make them turn even more against us, because we are Christian now.
We would not have any life there - but what sort of life do we have here?
Christians are supporting us. Because of Christ's love they are concerned about their neighbours and the problems that their neighbours have, and they are very kind to us.
Christians feel not only for us, they feel for everybody. They're full of sympathy. They're kind people.
We can't understand the Australian government. Why does it find us such a problem? Why does it keep us here for such a long time?
We can't go to our own country. We can never go back. They can't send us to any other country.
I'm speaking out because I want people to know what the situation is and what our problems are.
Christians are concerned about peace and love and goodness. These things are very important to us.
Islam is being used to promote war and hatred and fighting - but Christians are concerned only about faith and love and helping others.
What can we do? We are powerless in here. Will there ever be hope for us again?
Photo: Sam Kobia with John Henderson and James Haire outside Baxter detention centre (Kerr)
Media Release - Australian's Shocked by Refugees' Conditions
Written byBy 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.
