Wednesday, January 25, 2006

Papuan asylum-seekers to Australia moved offshore

To get them as far away as possible from support services the recent arrivals from Papua have been dumped on Christmas Island. The culture of punishment and macho brutality continues unabated in DIMIA, cheered on by a veritable who's who of Australian right wing troglodytes. It demontrates that Howard's changes to asylum seeker management trumpeted by Liberal renegades last year were merely window dressing (as I suggested at the time) and that the vile mess that is mandatory detention would continue to brutalise its victims.

Our history of appeasement toward Indonesia on the question of Papua's quest for independence is a sorry tale of aiding and abetting neo-colonialist repression. We and notable allies have had a starring role in averting our gaze from the systematic and persistent brutalisation of the Papuan people by Indonesian armed forces. Perhaps this is just another way to model good governance and citizenship for our melanesian neighbours. The hypocrisy and lies pile up like rotting carcases, to a point where one can only just manage to see the ongoing killings and wanton human rights abuses through the mist of rhetoric and mine dust.

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