06-14-2017, 10:22 PM
*** 15-Jun-17 World View -- Australia will pay $100K each to asylum seekers in Manus Island immigration camp
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
****
**** Australia will pay $100K each to asylum seekers in Manus Island immigration camp
****
![[Image: g161110b.jpg]](http://Media.GenerationalDynamics.com/ww2010/g161110b.jpg)
Manus Island detention center in Papua New Guinea (AAP)
In a major victory for activists supporting refugees and asylum
seekers, Australia's governed settled a case by agreeing to pay
refugees detained on Papua New Guinea's Manus Island up to AUS$150,000
(US $113,248) each. The total bill will be AUS$13.7 billion (US$ ),
including AUS$20 million (US$ million) for the activist law firm that
brought the class action suit on behalf of 1905 refugees being
detained on Manus Island.
In 2013, Australia's prime minister Kevin Rudd announced that any
asylum seeker who arrives by boat without a visa will have "no chance"
of being resettled there as a refugee. Instead, they will be sent
directly to neighboring Papua New Guinea and its Manus Island
detention center. According to Rudd in 2013:
> [indent]<QUOTE>"From now on, any asylum-seeker who arrives in
> Australia by boat will have no chance of being settled in
> Australia as refugees. ... If they are found to be genuine
> refugees they will be resettled in Papua New Guinea — an emerging
> economy with a strong future, a robust democracy which is also a
> signatory to the United Nations refugees convention."<END QUOTE>[/indent]
There was a similar agreement with the island nation of Nauru. The
United Nations and pro-refugee activists have condemned the refugee
camps, saying that under international law, valid asylum seekers
should be resettled on Australian soil. Australian leaders responded
that this was the most effective way to save refugees' lives, by
discouraging them from taking a dangerous trip to Australia by boat.
The policy has accomplished its objective. There had previously been
tens of thousands of "boat people" per year arriving in Australia from
Sri Lanka, Indonesia, and other southeast Asian nations. This number
has been reduced significantly.
However, the policy has been extremely controversial, and opposed by
pro-refugee activists. The government of Papua New Guinea (PNG) was
paid by Australia for the costs of detaining the refugees, but there
have been numerous stories of beatings, torture, and sexual abuse at
the detention centers.
A major blow to the Manus Island policy came last year, when PNG's Supreme Court dropped a bombshell,
ruling that Australia's refugee detention center on PNG's Manus Island
is inhumane, and must be shut down. The result is that the Manus
detention center is scheduled to be shut down in October.
Now, the Australian government has been forced to a large settlement
with the Manus Island refugees. The settlement has roiled Australian
politics.
The Refugee Council of Australia says:
> [indent]<QUOTE>"Today should be the final nail in the coffin of
> Australia’s abusive warehousing of people who came to us seeking
> safety. This class action settlement provides an opportunity for
> our government to put an end to the destruction of so many
> people’s lives, to the damage it does to Australia’s international
> reputation and to the blank check our government uses to fund
> offshore detention."<END QUOTE>[/indent]
However, other activists are furious that the settlement wasn't a lot
larger, or that the case was settled at all, without a court trial.
The Refugee Action Coalition said:
> [indent]<QUOTE>"It’s not sufficient to compensate people for what
> they’ve been through. It would have been far better for the
> public to have heard the evidence from people on Manus Island, to
> see the thousands of pages of evidence of documents that reveal
> the scale of the mistreatment."<END QUOTE>[/indent]
Australia's Immigration Minister Peter Dutton, who was responsible for
reaching the settlement agreement, said that a six-month court trial
would have cost tens of millions of dollars in legal bill, and that
there was no admission of liability:
> [indent]<QUOTE>"Settlement is not an admission of liability in any
> regard.
>
> The commonwealth strongly refutes and denies the claims made in
> these proceedings.
>
> Labor [the previous government] imposed this cost on Australians
> when it handed control of the nation’s borders to criminal
> people-smuggling syndicates."<END QUOTE>[/indent]
Dutton blamed the mess on the previous Labor government, and on the
"ambulance-chasing lawyers" in the Slater & Gordon law firm. Guardian (London) and Peter Dutton's statement and Special Broadcasting Service (Australia)
Related Articles
****
**** The Manus refugees' future is still undecided - except for those coming to the US
****
It seems pretty certain that the whole project of offshore detention
centers is now dead for good. According to Amnesty International:
> [indent]<QUOTE>"While the compensation deal is important, it does not
> remedy the injustices visited upon the refugees and asylum seekers
> on Manus Island or change their present circumstances. The
> Australian government must finally face up to the inescapable
> reality that their offshore detention policies are unsustainable
> and bring all of the people trapped by them to safety in
> Australia.
>
> This settlement is a long overdue but welcome recognition of the
> harm that refugees and people seeking asylum have endured on Manus
> Island. Now, the Australian government must dismantle its illegal
> offshore detention centre and safely resettle these
> people."<END QUOTE>[/indent]
However, the question of how they will be resettled remains to be
determined.
We do know where 1,205 of the refugees are going to be resettled --
they're coming to the United States. In November of last year,
President Barack Obama and Australia's Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull
signed an agreement to allow 1,250 refugees being held in the offshore
detention centers to be resettled in the United States.
Early in February, President Donald Trump called it "the worst deal
ever," but promised to honor the deal because he was bound by
agreements made by the previous administration. He confirmed that the
US will take in up to 1,250 of these refugees, after subjecting each
of them to "extreme vetting." An interesting wrinkle to the agreement
is that Turnbull and Obama also agreed that Australia would help the
United States deal with its refugee problem by taking refugees from
Costa Rica and resettling them in Australia.
With the forced closure of the detention centers, Australia must find
a way to deal with the thousands of refugees still in the offshore
detention centers. In addition, the collapse of the offshore
detention center system will undoubtedly encourage a new flood of boat
people from other countries. The plan is to pay the refugees, and
deport them and send them back to their home countries, but this will
certainly be fought in the courts by pro-refugee activists. Amnesty International and CNN
Related Articles
KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Australia, Papua New Guinea, PNG,
Manus Island, Nauru, Peter Dutton, Kevin Rudd,
Amnesty International, Barack Obama, Malcolm Turnbull,
Costa Rica
Permanent web link to this article
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
Contribute to Generational Dynamics via PayPal
John J. Xenakis
100 Memorial Drive Apt 8-13A
Cambridge, MA 02142
Phone: 617-864-0010
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com
Forum: http://www.gdxforum.com/forum
Subscribe to World View: http://generationaldynamics.com/subscribe
This morning's key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com
- Australia will pay $100K each to asylum seekers in Manus Island immigration camp
- The Manus refugees' future is still undecided - except for those coming to the US
****
**** Australia will pay $100K each to asylum seekers in Manus Island immigration camp
****
Manus Island detention center in Papua New Guinea (AAP)
In a major victory for activists supporting refugees and asylum
seekers, Australia's governed settled a case by agreeing to pay
refugees detained on Papua New Guinea's Manus Island up to AUS$150,000
(US $113,248) each. The total bill will be AUS$13.7 billion (US$ ),
including AUS$20 million (US$ million) for the activist law firm that
brought the class action suit on behalf of 1905 refugees being
detained on Manus Island.
In 2013, Australia's prime minister Kevin Rudd announced that any
asylum seeker who arrives by boat without a visa will have "no chance"
of being resettled there as a refugee. Instead, they will be sent
directly to neighboring Papua New Guinea and its Manus Island
detention center. According to Rudd in 2013:
> [indent]<QUOTE>"From now on, any asylum-seeker who arrives in
> Australia by boat will have no chance of being settled in
> Australia as refugees. ... If they are found to be genuine
> refugees they will be resettled in Papua New Guinea — an emerging
> economy with a strong future, a robust democracy which is also a
> signatory to the United Nations refugees convention."<END QUOTE>[/indent]
There was a similar agreement with the island nation of Nauru. The
United Nations and pro-refugee activists have condemned the refugee
camps, saying that under international law, valid asylum seekers
should be resettled on Australian soil. Australian leaders responded
that this was the most effective way to save refugees' lives, by
discouraging them from taking a dangerous trip to Australia by boat.
The policy has accomplished its objective. There had previously been
tens of thousands of "boat people" per year arriving in Australia from
Sri Lanka, Indonesia, and other southeast Asian nations. This number
has been reduced significantly.
However, the policy has been extremely controversial, and opposed by
pro-refugee activists. The government of Papua New Guinea (PNG) was
paid by Australia for the costs of detaining the refugees, but there
have been numerous stories of beatings, torture, and sexual abuse at
the detention centers.
A major blow to the Manus Island policy came last year, when PNG's Supreme Court dropped a bombshell,
ruling that Australia's refugee detention center on PNG's Manus Island
is inhumane, and must be shut down. The result is that the Manus
detention center is scheduled to be shut down in October.
Now, the Australian government has been forced to a large settlement
with the Manus Island refugees. The settlement has roiled Australian
politics.
The Refugee Council of Australia says:
> [indent]<QUOTE>"Today should be the final nail in the coffin of
> Australia’s abusive warehousing of people who came to us seeking
> safety. This class action settlement provides an opportunity for
> our government to put an end to the destruction of so many
> people’s lives, to the damage it does to Australia’s international
> reputation and to the blank check our government uses to fund
> offshore detention."<END QUOTE>[/indent]
However, other activists are furious that the settlement wasn't a lot
larger, or that the case was settled at all, without a court trial.
The Refugee Action Coalition said:
> [indent]<QUOTE>"It’s not sufficient to compensate people for what
> they’ve been through. It would have been far better for the
> public to have heard the evidence from people on Manus Island, to
> see the thousands of pages of evidence of documents that reveal
> the scale of the mistreatment."<END QUOTE>[/indent]
Australia's Immigration Minister Peter Dutton, who was responsible for
reaching the settlement agreement, said that a six-month court trial
would have cost tens of millions of dollars in legal bill, and that
there was no admission of liability:
> [indent]<QUOTE>"Settlement is not an admission of liability in any
> regard.
>
> The commonwealth strongly refutes and denies the claims made in
> these proceedings.
>
> Labor [the previous government] imposed this cost on Australians
> when it handed control of the nation’s borders to criminal
> people-smuggling syndicates."<END QUOTE>[/indent]
Dutton blamed the mess on the previous Labor government, and on the
"ambulance-chasing lawyers" in the Slater & Gordon law firm. Guardian (London) and Peter Dutton's statement and Special Broadcasting Service (Australia)
Related Articles
- Australia pays refugees cash to return home, as U.S. resettlement deal falters (03-Mar-2017)
- Trump will honor Australia refugee deal, despite calling it 'worst deal ever' (06-Feb-2017)
- Hundreds of Australian migrants to be resettled in the United States (11-Nov-2016)
****
**** The Manus refugees' future is still undecided - except for those coming to the US
****
It seems pretty certain that the whole project of offshore detention
centers is now dead for good. According to Amnesty International:
> [indent]<QUOTE>"While the compensation deal is important, it does not
> remedy the injustices visited upon the refugees and asylum seekers
> on Manus Island or change their present circumstances. The
> Australian government must finally face up to the inescapable
> reality that their offshore detention policies are unsustainable
> and bring all of the people trapped by them to safety in
> Australia.
>
> This settlement is a long overdue but welcome recognition of the
> harm that refugees and people seeking asylum have endured on Manus
> Island. Now, the Australian government must dismantle its illegal
> offshore detention centre and safely resettle these
> people."<END QUOTE>[/indent]
However, the question of how they will be resettled remains to be
determined.
We do know where 1,205 of the refugees are going to be resettled --
they're coming to the United States. In November of last year,
President Barack Obama and Australia's Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull
signed an agreement to allow 1,250 refugees being held in the offshore
detention centers to be resettled in the United States.
Early in February, President Donald Trump called it "the worst deal
ever," but promised to honor the deal because he was bound by
agreements made by the previous administration. He confirmed that the
US will take in up to 1,250 of these refugees, after subjecting each
of them to "extreme vetting." An interesting wrinkle to the agreement
is that Turnbull and Obama also agreed that Australia would help the
United States deal with its refugee problem by taking refugees from
Costa Rica and resettling them in Australia.
With the forced closure of the detention centers, Australia must find
a way to deal with the thousands of refugees still in the offshore
detention centers. In addition, the collapse of the offshore
detention center system will undoubtedly encourage a new flood of boat
people from other countries. The plan is to pay the refugees, and
deport them and send them back to their home countries, but this will
certainly be fought in the courts by pro-refugee activists. Amnesty International and CNN
Related Articles
- Australia to send 'boat people' to Papua New Guinea (21-Jul-2013)
- Papua New Guinea Supreme Court bombshell throws Australia's refugee policy into chaos (30-Apr-2016)
KEYS: Generational Dynamics, Australia, Papua New Guinea, PNG,
Manus Island, Nauru, Peter Dutton, Kevin Rudd,
Amnesty International, Barack Obama, Malcolm Turnbull,
Costa Rica
Permanent web link to this article
Receive daily World View columns by e-mail
Contribute to Generational Dynamics via PayPal
John J. Xenakis
100 Memorial Drive Apt 8-13A
Cambridge, MA 02142
Phone: 617-864-0010
E-mail: john@GenerationalDynamics.com
Web site: http://www.GenerationalDynamics.com
Forum: http://www.gdxforum.com/forum
Subscribe to World View: http://generationaldynamics.com/subscribe
