By Mark O’Brien
Impunity Watch Reporter, Oceania

CANBERRA, Australia — With the first boatload of refugees expected to arrive as early as the end of next week, local resentment toward the Australian processing center on Papua New Guinea’s Manus Island is growing.

 

On Wednesday, the governor of Manus Island criticized the Australian government for not consulting with locals about re-opening the asylum-seeker processing center, which was abandoned in 2004.

“[W]e are still in the dark about Australia assisting us,” Governor Charlie Benjamin said in an interview with the Australian Associated Press regarding a government aid package.  “That is arrogance.”

Benjamin said the same situation happened in 2001, when contracts were signed without any input from Manus Island officials.  This time around appeared to be different, however.  Two Manus representatives went to Brisbane last week for negotiation with Australian leaders, according to Benjamin.  But when they arrived, the Manus representatives were told the contracts for Australia’s aid plan were already handed out.

“We have no problem with Australian companies being considered because you want a job you would be satisfied with,” Benjamin told the AAP, “but we have tried our best to be involved in this, but they have not even consulted us.”

Local property owners are so fed up, they are prepared to take matters into their own hands.

On Thursday, landowners said they would sabotage the Australian processing center if their concerns were not heard, according to Radio Australia’s Pacific Beat.

“They’re prepared to start considering things like cutting the services that flow through their land to the processing center, things like road access, electricity access,” reported correspondent Liam Fox.

Residents complained of having very little information from the national and provincial governments, much the same frustrations expressed by Benjamin regarding the Australian government.  But Fox reported that the lack of information only compounds the speed with which the center nears opening.

“In just over a month, the Australian Defence Force engineers have transformed the place,” Fox said.  “It was overgrown with weeds and bushes and very dilapidated, and now it’s ready to take around 150 asylum-seekers.”

Even the head of Australia’s Human Rights Commission has expressed concerns.

Gillian Triggs said on ABC Radio Australia this week that she would like to inspect Australia’s offshore processing centers, including the one Manus Island.  She would like to see how things would work at the centers.

“I’m hoping that the government will work hard to ensure that there is a proper and speedy process,” Triggs said, referring to the reported risk of asylum-seekers being held in these types of centers for half a decade or more.  “[T]hat is our most particular concern, along with the mental illness that seems to go very directly with the concept of unlimited detention in confined contexts.”

But the Australian government indicated on Wednesday that not everything is as set in stone as it appears to be.

“The Australian government is yet to be advised of the preferred location of the site for the permanent facility on Manus,” read a statement issued by the Australian High Commission.  It implied that there is plenty of work and collaboration yet to finish and that it all is subject to change.

“Once the site is agreed, an experienced contractor will be appointed to build the facility consistent with the consultative terms of the Memorandum of Understanding signed by both governments on the establishment of the Regional Processing Centre.”

For further information, please see:

Australia News Network — Manus Landowners Prepared to Sabotage Asylum Seeker Centre — 18 October 2012

ABC Radio Australia — Australian Human Rights Commission President Plans Nauru, Manus Inspections — 17 October 2012

The Australian — Manus Refugee Facility Opening Is Clouded — 17 October 2012

Sky News Australia — Manus Governor Says Australia Arrogant — 17 October 2012

Special Broadcasting Service Online — Manus Refugee Facility Opening is Clouded — 17 October 2012