Project Safecom reminds us that the 4th Anniversary of the Tampa affair has not brought any relief from the ongoing violation of the rights of refugees. If anything, it is about to get a whole lot worse...but a time will come when the perpetrators will be held to account.
"It can't be more blatant. The very United Nations Convention for the Status of Refugees is the product of the shame that engulfed post-war Europe after the smoke and cordite smell had diminished in the late 1940's. The shame about letting down the desparate boatpeople, the passengers of the Struma, the St Louis, the Patria and the Exodus.
Boats, filled with Jewish refugees fleeing Adolf Hitler. And in an act with criminal intent, John Winston Howard and his ministers and MP's, greedy for another term of government, called the unannounced arrival of refugees fleeing the Taliban and Saddam Hussein 'illegal'.
It can't be more blatant. And we will remember."
Visit the Project Safecom website for some readings on the occasion of the fourth anniversary of the MV Tampa stand-off off the coast of Christmas Island. The day that captain Arne Rinnan picked up the 433 refugees from the Palapa, 26 August, has become known as Tampa Day.
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