Poet or people smuggler?: Demetria Martinez and 'Nativity: For Two Salvadoran Women 1986-1987'

Mother, Father,  

there's no passing the cup,

I'm going to be a troublemaker

 when I grow up.

Demetria Martinez from a poem titled Troublemaker

The political activist, poet and author Demetria Martinez wrote a poem that the US Government tried to use to convict her on people smuggling charges.

In 1987, Martinez accompanied a Lutheran Minister who assisted two Salvadoran women cross the US Border, as part of the Sanctuary Movement, a movement that began in the US in the 1980's to provide safe-haven for Central American refugees fleeing civil conflict that was supported, funded and fueled by the US Government.

Although she was active in the Sanctuary Movement at the time, Martinez made the journey as a journalist, to write a story on the Movement and the Salvadoran women seeking sanctuary in the US.

Martinez wrote her poem Nativity: For Two Salvadoran Women 1986-1987 as a protest against the criminalization of immigrants

 A year later, Martinez was indicted by the US Government on charges of a conspiracy to smuggle people across the border, a charge with a 25 year prison sentence and millions of dollars in fines.

The US Government attempted to use her poem Nativity: For Two Salvadoran Women 1986-1987 as evidence against her in court. Martinez was eventually acquitted of the charges.

Martinez was born in Alberque of Mexican heritage and now lives in New Mexico where she is an author of novels and poetry, and remains an activist on immigrant rights and a journalist.

Nativity for Two Salvadoran Women 1986-1987
by Demetria Martinez

Your eyes, large as Canada, welcome
this stranger.
We meet in a Juárez train station

where you sat for hours,

your offspring blooming in you

like cactus fruit,

dresses stained where breasts leak,

panties in purses tagged

"Hecho en El Salvador,"

your belts like equators,

mark north from south,

borders I cannot cross,

for I am an American reporter,

pen and notebook, the tools

of my tribe, distance us,

though in any other era I might

press a stethoscope to your wounds,

hear the symphony of the unborn,

finger forth infants to light,

wipe afterbirth, cut cords. 

It is impossible to raise a child

in that country.

Sisters, I am no saint.Just a woman

who happens to be a reporter,

a reporter who happens
to be a woman,

squat in forest, 

peeingon pine needles,

watching you vomit morning sickness,

a sickness infinite as the war in El Salvador,

a sickness my pen and notebook will not ease,

tell me, ¿Por qué están aquí?

How did you cross over?

In my country we sing of a baby in a manger,

finance death squads,

how to write of this shame,

of the children you chose to save?

It is impossible to raise a child

in that country.

A North American reporter,

I smile, you tell me you are due

in December, we nod,

knowing what women know.

I shut my notebook,

watch your car rock

through the Gila,

a canoe hanging over the windshield

like the beak of an eagle,

babies turning in your wombs,

summoned to Belén to be born.

Demetria Martínez

Citizens taking action in Perth this weekend

A busy weekend of activity coming up for WA's citizen led sector and WA civil society groups with a number of important rallies and events in Perth this weekend worthy of support. I will be speaking at one of them.

Rally against Unconventional Gas Fracking  at 1pm this Saturday October 13th in Fremantle is part of a National Week of Action against unconventional gas fracking as called by the Lock the Gate Alliance. Here in WA the unconventional gas threat has grown more serious with full scale shale and tight gas fields planned for the Mid West and the Kimberley. Speakers include: Greens MP Alison Xamon, Jamie Hanson from Conservaion Council of WA, Greg Glazov from Doctors for the Environment, Marcus Atkinson from Nuclear Free Future, Fremantle Mayor Brad Pettitt and also a member of No Fracking WAy.

The Global Noise Street Festival to be held in the Perth Cultural Centre from 6pm to 9pm this Saturday October 13th forms part of the Occupy Perth celebrations and the Global Occupy movement.

The annual Reclaim the Streets March will commence at 2pm on Saturday 13th October from the Perth Cultural Centre.

Welcome Refugees is a protest against mandatory detention and Australia's offshore asylum seeker processing regimes organized by the Refugee Rights Action Network (RRAN) WA. The event will take place at 1pm this Sunday October 14th at the Wesley Church corner  on the Corner of Hay and William Streets in the Perth CBD.

Gerry Georgatos on Serco's ongoing contract failures

I have posted before (here) about Gerry Georgatos's pioneering approach to investigative journalism. As the WA reporter for the National Indigenous Times Gerry combines investigative reporting with PhD studies and human rights and social justice campaigning.

Gerry is the only journalist in WA and one of the few in this country willing to investigate the appalling record of the UK multinational Serco, who runs more and more of the nation and WA's public services.

Serco has highly profitable contracts with the Gillard Government to run Australia's controversial immigration detention centres and also runs many of Australia's defence and military bases, including overseas military bases.

Since the Barnett Government came to power Serco's power and influence in Western Australia has grown, thanks largely to their profound and deep conections within the Liberal Party and the Government bureaucracy.

Serco won a contract to run WA's largest hospital Fiona Stanley Hospital despite having no experience running hospitals in Australia. From November it will run WA's only juvenile prison. It already runs Acacia Prison. Serco took over the highly controversial prisoner transport contract from G4S.

Gerry's latest report which will appear in the National Indigenous Times this week describes Serco's continual and constant contractual failure in the prisoner transport contract.

Whistleblowers to National Indigenous Times correct, SERCO wrong says government arbiter

Gerry Georgatos

The multinational SERCO has been hit with a fine of nearly $600,000 and has been told to get its act together. Department of Corrective Services and SERCO whistleblowers to the National Indigenous Times had said that SERCO had been failing to meet its prisoner transport contract duties - and had failed to turn up to pick up prisoners for court appearances, had failed to provide staff for prisoners attending public hospitals and had taken prisoners to the wrong prisons.

SERCO is one of the world's wealthiest organizations and holds not only prison management and prisoner transport contracts, however lucrative immigration detention contracts, and is entrenched in the service delivery of public transport, human resource management and public welfare components and the public health systems.

The Contract for the Provision of Court Security and Custodial Services annual report noted that a performance improvement notice was issued and the reason for this was "persistent poor performance."

In May, a customer satisfication survey was conducted by a government arbiter and found a satisfaction rate of only 52.6 per cent. The annual survey referenced 32,000 prisoner transfers and movements 6,600 court sitting days.

Social researcher  and SERCOWATCH spokesperson, Colin Penter said that the fine and the one in two failures exposed by the survey and by whistleblowers evidences "a consistent failure of SERCO failing to meet targets" and that the underperformance impacts on the prisoners.

SERCO took over the prison transport and court services contracts from G4S, the company in whose care Aboriginal Elder Mr Ward died from horrific burns and dehydration in the back of a prison van on a 43 degree day during a 360km desert drive.

"SERCO has improved nothing, they are just as bad as G4S which killed Mr Ward," said UWA law student and former Deaths in Custody Watch Committee chairperson, Marianne Mackay.

"They are unfit to hold any tenders and contracts to do with the criminal justice system. Our people suffer in their hands."

"Nyoongar man Grantley Winmar died in SERCO run Acacia Prison after being neglected for days - he died of haemorrhaging."

The Australian Institute of Criminology in its 2008/2009 report noted that prison deaths in private company managed prisons died at three times the rate than those dying in government run prisons - 4.5 deaths per 1,000 prisoners in private prisons compared to 1.3 deaths per 1,000 prisoners in government run prisons.

Mr Penter said SERCO cannot be trusted with the profit motive appearing to be foremost. "In the UK SERCO was found to have lied 252 times, and the failures of the SERCO run prison in Christchurch are there for all to see - it comes down to gross neglect."

"To put everything in context SERCO's neglect leads to deaths." In the UK SERCO was slammed for the death of a 14 year old boy in their custody  

"What is disturbing for me is that the whistleblowers who were in a way the 'family', the support, of the prisoners are now gone from inside. They were right all along despite SERCO and the Department of Corrective Services saying otherwise."

In recent months there has been an outcry against the Department of Corrective Services push to use video-link and Skype technology for court appearances and in that prisoners were refused transport to funerals.

The annual report revealed that this is already in place and has reduced the attendance of prisoners to and from courts by nearly 30 per cent in the past year due the increased use of video-link technology.

"A son and daughter, despite being an inmate, should be allowed the dignity of attendance at a parent's funeral, it is both a customary right and the humane thing. Using money as an excuse to stop our people attending funerals well the line must be drawn and this not allowed," said Ms Mackay.

"Our people should also have court attendance in person, so they know what's going on and can speak for themselves and not be removed from their full set of rights and comprehension by being stuck in a prison room and in front of a camera where they can input very little - this should be illegal."

A DCS spokesperson said, "It is too early to assume any service delivery trends or issues from a single survey. DCS Commissioner Ian Johnson was reported saying that the DCS is constantly developing "practices that reduced the need for unnecessary prisoner transport" and that in fact he said "70 per cent of all appearances were now by video link."

When citizen protests saves lives

Last week I spoke at a protest attended by over 150 citizen activists  outside the Northam (Yonga Hill) Immigration Detention Centre.  

The protestors rallied against mandatory detention, recent changes to Australia's asylum seeker policies and the profiteering and human rights abuses of Serco, the UK corporation that has a $1.6 billion contact with the Gillard Government to run the immigration detention system.

Inside the Centre 600 asylum seekers are imprisoned by the Australian Government, the Department of Immigration and Serco.

The most powerful speaker was "J" a Sri Lankan man who had been imprisoned on the Christmas Island Detention Centre. His speech pointed to the importance of citizen protests for the health and wellbeing of people in detention. J suggested that protests  actually save lives as they push back against the harm caused by mandatory detention.

 His speech is posted below: 

Hi everyone, my name is P***11, that’s what I used to be called in the detention, P***11. Being next to this detention centre just reminded me of how I was in the Christmas Island Detention. I don’t know which words should I use to describe that experience...should I use terrible? It was really - very, very bad - extremely bad. Being in somewhere you’ve never done anything wrong, and you’re locked up...and you run away from your country, from the place where is your family - looking for freedom – then – when you - the first time you put your step in Christmas island, you say hey, I am free now, like you know, almost now I am free, then unfortunately you are locked up for a year or something like this there. And...it’s like prison, it is a prison, it is not detention.

Everything – everything is like, the doors are locked, you can’t go through any door if you don’t have an officer next to you, even the medical area. The medical area should be like for if someone is sick or he needs just treatment and...that door...I just remember very well - it was that thick. It’s very, very bad to be there even afterwards – I never had any problem, mental problem - even in Christmas Island - but I had um somehow a sleeping problem, I couldn’t like sleeping more than two hours, like continuously. So two hours, wake up, then do something, then another two hours. Afterwards when I came to Australia – the mainland –and I am free - I shouldn’t have that problem because I don’t worry about anything but still I have that problem for a while for like the first 6 or first 7 months there.

The main issue there is you’re locked up and everyone is depressed, you just see your friends go, you make friend today - next day is gone. You don’t know, he’s just in the midnight, suddenly he is gone, he’s just like, next day you are looking for him then suddenly, you can’t find him because he has been transferred somewhere else.

Every week or every couple of days you will witness someone hang himself and that will like bring you down and already the detention is like kind of hell – you know I never been to hell – but it is hell. You know if you are somewhere in the hell and you want to climb up, you want to get out, but somehow, who runs that detention say, get down, that’s your place, it’s not up. It’s like every time you try to be better healthier, somewhere to do something good they say get down that’s your place, up is not your place.

Um personally, I witnessed three people, they commit suicide, you know one of them they uh, Sri Lankan guy, poor guy, he is died. He commit suicide by his bed- um – his bed sheets, um and he make like rope or something and he hang himself up, with somewhere very high. Just ask yourselves what kind of motivation he had to go all the way up just to hang himself and kill himself. And he was one of my friends, he had like problem like staying there for long time and depressed and he ended with, why am I here? Like what’s the end? Let’s just finish it, let’s kill myself and that’s it.  

I never thought about these things in my life, but when I was in Christmas Island I thought about it once and thank god I didn’t do anything like this. But there are heaps of people who do it around you, all your friends think about it, all your friends are depressed, if you are trying your best to be like positive, you cannot because your friends who runs the detention, like total negative and racist. Totally racist...

I would say thankyou for every single man and woman who came here. I really, really, really appreciate it, appreciate it that you support my case and my friends case. And I just I talk you about one thing, I remember one of the time we did a protest at Christmas island and some people they did it in Sydney, we couldn’t see them because they are far away but we saw them, we saw some uh photos over the internet and we were so happy, we were so happy. Like okay, not all of them racist, there is some of them there, they like us, they want us and say okay okay, some of us say okay I’m going to like fight and stay healthy, maybe one day I get my visa.

And by the way, one of the first English words we have learned there is ‘racist’. Um so please, please, please show us if you are welcome us, show us. I swear to god you give us heaps of motivation to stay alive, we don’t hang ourselves, we don’t hang ourselves, we don’t commit suicide inside the detention. We say okay this country, the government don’t like us maybe, but the people like us. So and finally we will get in.

Another corporation set to make millions out of Australia's abuse of children and young people

The corporate takeover of Australia's human and community services continues.

Another multinational corporation is set to profit from Australia's immigration detention system and its abuse of children and young people.

The Gillard Government has signed a new contract worth $29 million with the US based Maximus Solutions to care for  unaccompanied minors held in Australia's immigration detention gulags. The contract was previously held by Life Without Barriers, an Australian not- for- profit organization.

The figure is the nominal amount of a new contract between the Department of Immigration and Citizenship and the US based Maximus Solutions to provide ``care and support'' to teenage asylum-seekers who arrive by boat without a parent or a guardian. 

The extract below is from Paige Taylor's report in the Australian (July 12 2012)
 
There are currently 168 such teens, mostly boys, living under guard in ``alternative places of detention'' at Darwin airport, on Christmas Island and at a camp in the West Australian northern goldfields town of Leonora.

 
In the costly context of Australia's immigration detention network, the department finds the $29m contract represents good value.

 
It is a tiny sliver of the size of the five-year contract between the Immigration Department and Serco for the management of Australia's immigration detention centres on Christmas Island and the mainland; in July last year, that agreement, due to expire in 2014, was valued at $1,032,827,276.

 
The contract is one of the measures the federal government has in place to meet its obligations towards unaccompanied minors.

 
``As a signatory to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, the Australian government takes its obligations towards unaccompanied minors very seriously,'' the Immigration Department states on its website.

 
Immigration Minister Chris Bowen is the legal guardian of all unaccompanied minors seeking asylum in Australia; as of last Friday, there were a total of 310 -- almost half, 142, had been placed in community housing under the care of the Red Cross while the rest were still in detention. ``The contract is for care and support services to unaccompanied minors in the detention network,'' a spokesman for the department said yesterday.

 
``It is also for `independent observer' services on Christmas Island and in mainland Australia.''

Maximus Solutions is a subsidiary of the US based Maximus Inc.

Maximus Inc is a US based multinational corporation that works in the health and human services industries in US, Canada, UK and Australia. It wins Government contracts to provide services previously delivered by Governments or not-for-profit organizations. With a motto Helping Government serve the People Maximus employs 8800 people worldwide.

Maximus is embroiled in controversy wherever it goes. Maximus settled with the US Government over corporate fraud allegations after it (the Government) bought a lawsuit against Maximus for falsifying $30.5 million of Medicare claims.  The Department of Justice statement on the settlement is here.

Maximus was also found to have doubled billed for services in New Jersey.

Maximus makes heavy use of lobbyists and payments to politicians and political parties. Maximus was reputed to have won a $72 million contract after it donated funds to current Presidential candidate Matt Romney when he was Massachusetts Governor.

In the UK Maximus and other other corporate providers have massively increased sanctions imposed on  welfare recipients have developed grassroots campaigns targeting a range of corporations, including Maximus, accusing them of profiteering and exploitation of people on welfare.

Here in Australia journalist Elisabeth Wynhausen has investigated Max Employment's provision of employment support services on behalf of the Australia Government in 84 sites and 71 outreach locations.

The importance of the citizen sector in challenging unjust power and fighting for social justice

Western Australia has a long history of citizen led activism in support of the rights of people seeking asylum in Australian.

Since the introduction of the policy of mandatory detention by the Keating government in the early 1990's, WA citizens have been at the forefront of opposing mandatory detention and Australia's increasingly punitive policies toward people seeking asylum in this country.

Activism and collective action by ordinary citizens (what I call the citizen sector) has been instrumental in exposing the shocking and sorbid history of Australia's treatment of asylum seekers. Mainstream NGOs, particularly those who receive public funding, or those who place a high value on partnerships with Governments tend to be cautious about directly and publicly opposing and challenging Government policy.

I have written before about the increasing importance of the "citizen sector", which is the sphere of collective activity involving the ongoing efforts of committed citizens to create positive social, environmental, economic and political change. The citizen sector is very different to the mainstream, funded NGO sector, although they often collaborate on various campaigns and issues and some citizen action occurs through and in partnership with mainstream NGOs and groups such as trade unions.

The citizen sector holds Governments and corporations to account and makes democracy and society work. It is the citizen sector that attempts to expose, challenge and limit the misuse and abuse of state, economic, corporate and political power. The citizen sector mobilises and acts to protect the rights of citizens, individuals and communities.

The citizen sector is a fundamental plank in what is often referred to as "civil society". Citizen sector organizations and groups effectively mobilise and organise the voices and efforts of citizens to act for the common good. They take action to directly oppose and challenge the policies and actions of Governments and corporations, something mainstream NGOs are much less willing to do.

On Monday night I attended a forum organised by the WA based Refugee Rights Action Network (RRAN), one such citizen led activist and campaigning group that has worked for over a decade to expose and oppose Australia's regressive and cruel asylum seeker policies, including the policy of mandatory detention. RRAN provides a vehicle for ordinary citizens and professionals and service providers who work in the field to take action against mandatory detention and asylum seeker polices.

The forum looked at the historical and political basis of Australia's policy of mandatory detention and explored the political landscape surrounding refugee and asylum seeker policy and the role of citizen activism in challenging the policy.

RRAN is avowedly an activist group who takes direct action against Australia's detention system and directly challenges the policies and institutions responsible for implementing the Australian Government policy, including DIAC and Serco.

As part of its campaign RRAN is organizing a convergence to the Northam Detention centre on the 26th August. (more information here).

Coincidentally, this week another West Australian refugee activist has played a key role in mobilising over 200 academics to sign a letter of protest at Australia's treatment of asylum seekers.

Anne Pederson, an academic at Murdoch University, has spent the last decade pursuing justice for refugees and asylum seekers and as an academic has researched and written about asylum seeker and refugee issues. Concerned by the increasing hostile and punitive policy environment and critical of the solutions proposed by both political parties, Pederson drafted a letter of protest and gathered support from 200 of her fellow academics.


The letter argues that sending asylum seekers to neighbouring countries “will undermine Australia’s efforts to develop a viable regional framework, as it reinforces regional perceptions that Australia is interested in exporting its refugee ‘problem’ rather than collaborating in a genuine multilateral process".

The letter calls for the Australian Government to:

• increase its yearly humanitarian intake to 25,000
• implement community-based detention
• increase UNHCR funding so refugees have “viable alternatives to jumping on boats”
• process asylum seekers in Indonesia “themselves” before transporting them to Australia.

The dark side of Australia"s refugee policies: Safe havens and the Balkans wars

Once again events of the past have been catapulted into our daily existence.

The arrest of former Bosnian Serb General Ratko Mladic is a reminder of the terrible events of the Balkans Wars of the 1990s.

Mladic will stand trial accused of the massacre of 8,000 Muslim men and boys at Srebrenica in 1995 and the deaths of 10,000 people (including 3000 children) during the 3.5 year siege of Sarajevo during the early 1990's.


Mladic led the Bosnian Serb armed forces during the Balkan Wars of the 1990's and was responsible for the worst ethnically motivated mass murders in Europe since WW 2. He was arrested in a small farming town north of Belgrade after Police were tipped off by a local source.

So while those events resonate around the world, they have a profound resonance here in Australia, particularly for people who fled the Balkans war and came to Australia under Safe Haven visas in search of sanctuary. Many found it, but others didn't, as Pamela Curr from the Melbourne based Asylum Seeker Resource Centre points out in this piece.

Pamela's piece reminds us that that some refugees from the Balkan Wars who came to Australia were treated appallingly by Australian Governments of both political persuasions, despite government rhetoric about safe havens.

Pamela's piece is a reminder that the "dark side" of Australian Government immigration policies and practices, something that is ever more evident by the day,  has a long history that should never be forgotten.

"It was dark and noisy in the Trades Hall Bar. The boy leant forward  as he told me about the day Ratko Mladic came to his village. The soldiers rounded up everyone then separated the men and the women. The boy stood beside his father at the back of the group.

Mladic called out for boys born in certain years to step forward. He was 17. His year was called. As he moved to obey, his father fixed his arm in a vice-like grip, wordlessly holding him back. The boy saw his friends marched around the side of the barn. Then the shots rang out. The father whispered to the boy- run- NOW. In the distress and confusion, he escaped into the hills.

This boy came to Australia in 1999 on a Safe Haven visa when the Australian government responded to a call to accept evacuees until they could safely return. He stayed at the Albury army camp and was welcomed by the local community who responded with generosity and hospitality to the Kosavars. Then overnight the Australian army left and the private security contractors took over and the open camp became a prison.

The boy and his friend escaped on the same day. They worked on farms along the Murray until betrayed and handed over to Immigration. Then they were detained in Maribyrnong Detention centre. There, they witnessed the terrible death of Viliami Tanginoa who dived head first off the basket ball post after being ignored all day. They saw his body lying in the rain for an hour. Then they were taken to the Melbourne Custody Centre and locked in isolation for six weeks. Then they were taken to the Fitzroy Police cells and locked up for 23 hours out of 24 for months. They were never charged with any crime.

Eventually they were released to report to the police station every day until they were deported."

Serco: profiting from failure, lack of accountability and a disregard for human life

Here are the results of privatization and Serco running public services. A complete lack of accountability for public funds, extreme profit gouging from the public purse, an obsession with secrecy, unauthorized use of force, poorly trained and under prepared staff and a disregard for human life that leads to self  harm, suicide and death of those in Serco's care.

Each day there are more exposures of Serco's shocking record in running Australia's immigration detention centres.

Detainees in Villawood  were forced to use a cigarette lighter to try to burn through a rope used by a detainee to take his own life. Serco staff were ill prepared and untrained to respond to attempted suicide. according to ABC Online which reports:

Detainees say they tried to burn through the rope 41-year-old Ahmed Al Akabi had used to take his own life.

They say they have borne witness to a string of suicides at the centre in the past year, including that of Iraqi-born teacher Mr Akabi.

The detainees, mostly of Kurdish origin, relayed numerous concerns over their indefinite detention, with several afflicted by illnesses related to stress and depression.
Tensions at the centre came to a head last month when riot police were called in during a night of rioting that saw several buildings destroyed by fire.

One of the men who found Mr Akabi says guards employed by Villawood's privately owned operator, Serco, were ill-equipped and not adequately trained to respond appropriately to the suicide attempt.

The man says the guards did not have a sharp instrument available to cut Mr Akabi down and did not know how to respond.

The detainee, who did not want to be identified, says he and others tried to hold Mr Akabi aloft in a bid to save him from suffocation until help arrived.

He says they were forced to use the cigarette lighter to try to save the father of three, but were too late; he was pronounced dead a short time later.

Serco declined to comment on specific allegations, but in a statement to the ABC said it runs a comprehensive staff training program that goes beyond its contractual obligations.

"Serco is committed to doing everything we can to prevent those in our care from coming to harm," the statement said.

"Our staff take this commitment extremely seriously and work hard to keep those in our care safe and secure."

The amount of public funds paid to Serco was secretly doubled by the Federal Government and is expected to reach $1 billion within months. This is despite the Federal Government claiming that Serco was only paid $370 million. This windfall has massively boosted Serco's Australian revenue by 30%:

Serco originally signed a five-year contract worth $370 million to run the facilities, including the Maribyrnong Detention Centre, until mid-2014.

But immigration industry experts said this figure was now likely to burst through the billion-dollar barrier.

Figures obtained from government tender records show the total size of Serco's contracts in relation to asylum-seekers was quietly doubled in November to more than $756 million.

But immigration industry sources are saying the latest contract amount for Serco is already six months out of date, and it stands to make hundreds of millions more from the taxpayers with continued boat arrivals.

One source said the asylum-seeker boom since November had already added up to $200 million to the total value of Serco's detention contracts. That would value them at up to $950 million as of this month.

Industry experts said Serco's bonanza was set to easily crack the $1 billion barrier if the Government's new "Malaysia Solution" does not work and refugee boats keep coming.
An Immigration Department spokesman refused to speculate on the Serco bonanza. A Serco spokeswoman said these were "questions for the Government".

 Serco is so fearful of exposure of its activities that it considers the unauthorized presence of media near a detention centre to be a critical safety threat- the highest possible threat level. This report found that:

The company running the country's immigration detention centres has upgraded how seriously it takes the unauthorised presence of media, putting it on par with a bomb threat or an escape.

The Serco document says "unauthorised" media presence at a detention centre is now considered "critical" - the highest possible threat level.

Accounts of events from within Christmas Island detention centres show that Serco's use of force, its under-staffing and ill preparedness and poor management were major contributors to recent riots and protests on Christmas Island. A full account of the claims can be read here.

Gerry Georgatos: Despatch from Curtin Detention Centre in Derby

This piece was written by Gerry Georgatos, human rights and social justice activist from outside the Curtin Detention Centre near Derby in the north west of WA.

 

Gerry is among 60 activists who are at this moment converging on the Curtin Detention Centre to express solidarity with the 1500 asylum seekers detained there. Gerry provides an update on events over the last two days.

(I have not had the chance to proof this article, it has been written on a laptop powered by a generator with a limited power supply, from nearby the Curtin Detention Centre as we are in grip of divisiveness between peoples.... please read and circulate widely. Please.)

60 human rights advocates and social justice activists made up of doctors, lawyers, mental health workers, nurses, teachers, social workers, tradespeople, academics, students and others, from various social justice organisations and campaign groups, and others not affiliated to anyone, have arrived this day, Easter Saturday, April 23rd, to Curtin Detention Centre.

 

We journeyed under the banner of the Refugees Rights Action Network from Perth in a hired bus and with a support vehicle with a trailer of food and camping equipment. The bus was driven by three of the advocates who recently acquired the licence, at their own cost, so as to ensure this journey. We left on Thursday, 7pm from East Perth, with fifty on board the bus and after 24 hours of driving camped at Eightly Mile Beach, arriving near midnight on Easter Friday.

 

We arrived at Curtin Detention Centre at 3pm on the Saturday. During the last month forty of us had submitted to the Serco managed Curtin Detention Centre therebouts 100 visitor applications. We have been in contact with hundreds of our Asylum Seekers for many months. They are despairing, many are at the brink of mental and physical despair. Their maltreatment in these illegal facilities which incarcerate them have reached a critical mass of rising self harm, depression, acute and chronic trauma, suicide and multiple suicide attempts, and suicide. There have been six Detention Centre deaths (in custody) during the last eight months and undisclosed numerous suicide attempts. Reports to us clearly describe self harm and suicide attempts as a daily occurrence.

 

Curtin Detention Centre today is on the brink of a pending crisis brought on as per usual by the Department of Immigration and Citizenship and Serco management. They are literally driving people into mental illness and literally killing people. Australian of the Year, in 2010, psychiatrist Patrick McGorrie described these Detention Centres as "mental illness factories". Australia has 23 Detention Centres and is now building another three Detention Centres. The budget for Detention and processing blows out every year, and is now up to 1.5 billion dollars per annum. How better could we spend this?

 

Our bus travelled down the beginning of the seven kilometre road leading to the Curtin Detention Centre where we were met by a gated blockade. Behind this gate stood Serco guards, federal police and an Australian Defence Force official. We were instructed that visits may not be possible, then we were told that some visits would be scheduled. We were then told that eight visits would be allowed and that we had to wait. We were lectured by the ADF and the AFP that we would be arrested if we proceeded unauthorised through the gates.

 

As the afternoon wore on it became evident visits would not be enabled and that we were being lied to. We soon learned from an Asylum Seeker who we made contact with by phone that the detainees had been told by Serco management that we were 'not coming'. They did not believe this and despaired. Some fifty of the advocates civilly approached the fence and we spoke with the Serco frontline employees. Conflicting explanations and depictions were deployed on behalf of Serco management. I phone the Centre manager on his mobile from outside the gate however on this occasion someone else answered. I asked that Michael Puglisi, the Serco employed Centre manager come to the fence to discuss the situation rather than exploit his personnel whose job it was not to defend Serco management decisions. Prosocially I argued this case with the Serco staff at the gates who most appeared to be in a drone like state bar one individual who expressed his ethos of care for the detainees and who appeared to well with tears.

 

Eventually Michael Puglisi, Curtin Detention Centre manager drove to the fence to meet us however remained on the other side of the barricade, and did not unlock the gate. Throughout the discussions with many of us he often contradicted himself and clearly demonstrated an agenda to inhibit the visits. At times Serco officers had explained to us that they had not received our visitor application forms however Michael could not speak in this light as I had scanned and emailed forms to him and had spoken to him over the phone and had his acknowledgment of the forms in writing. However he disgraced himself by declaring that it was not possible for any visits to occur on the Saturday. This outrage incurred the frustration and disappointment of the civil advocates. Unperturbed Michael used a number of excuses, that appeared concocted, to describe why this could not happen, this including that new constructions were underway and one on one meeting rooms were not available and that evening visits were not possible because of the onset of poor lighting issues. However these were disproved as we learned visits by others who they did not know knew us and were part of us, however they had joined us from the eastern states, arriving earlier, were occurring and continued into the evening.

 

I explained to Michael that they were only exacerbating tensions in the Detention Centre and that these lies would backfire however at the price of human life. Ultimately he insisted that some visits would be scheduled for Sunday and Monday however he would make us aware of them on the Sunday morning and not before.

 

I asked Michael if he had been instructed by the Department of Immigration and Citizenship to inhibit our right to visit our Asylum Seekers and therefore their right to be met by us. His body language indicated this was the case however he remained silent on the question insisting that he would organise some visits. He then changed his language to as many visits as possible. I asked him if it was true that Serco management, of which he is the Manager, told the detainees that we were 'not coming'. He seemed startled by this revelation however he firmly denied any knowledge of this. However we have it evidently that this is the case.

 

The detainees urged Serco officers and management for the visits to be upheld. They even organised today (Saturday) for a petition for them to proceed signed by 700 Asylum Seekers trapped, incarcerated in the Curtin Detention Centre. There are now 300 Asylum Seekers protesting at Serco's and DIAC's actions with a Hunger Strike. Serco's and DIAC's deliberate mismanagement has created an unwarranted and unnecessary situation and has directly led to a Hunger Strike and the potential for protests.

 

Some of 50 of us have camped nearby, and will arrive at Curtin Detention first thing in the morning, 7am for the visits. The visits must occur so we can continue to shine the light on the plight of those wrongly, immorally and cruelly incarcerated in these concentration like camps. The world must know what we witnessed and endured today and what our Asylum Seekers are enduring in these facilities, which are wrapped in cultures of secrecy and silence. You had to be here to see it to believe it. We do not know what Easter Sunday holds however we hope that a significant number of visits eventuate. We will not go away, and we will come again and again.

 

We have arrived at Curtin Detention, a place that wrongfully incarcerates 1500 souls, armed only with 1500 Easter eggs, bi-lingual dictionaries, books and gifts. We have been treated by Serco, DIAC, the AFP and ADF with a disregard for humanity. Their conduct is a threat to a civil and just society.

 

Australians are a caring people and we need to unveil our racial layers, end our racism, refuse to be hostile to those seeking Asylum and allow the caring that is in Australians to not be hindered by ignorances, prejudices, biases and other evil. We are better than this.

 

Our journey of 2,500 kilometres pales to a mere raindrop when compared to the Homeric Odyssies of our Asylum Seekers.

Serco and a privatized system in crises

So another privatized detention centre burns. Only weeks after the Christmas Island detention centres erupted in protests, riots and fires, the unrest has spread to Sydney's Villawood Detention Centre.

Former staff of Serco, the UK multinational corporation that runs the privatized detention centres, are already pointing the finger directly at the corporation, claiming that it contributed to the crises. Serco whistle blowers claim that at Villawood (like Christmas Island), Serco's incompetence and mismanagement were a primary cause of the riots.

The whitleblower claims that:

• Serco management threw raw and untrained recruits into the detention centre without proper training
• Training courses for new staff were dropped
• Serco staff lack basic training and are forced to learn "on the job" 
• Serco management constantly understaff the centre
• Serco has no effective emergency management procedures for such events.

These are precisely the claims made against Serco at Christmas Island; claims that are now the subject of multiple investigations into Serco's management of the Christmas Island Centres, and it looks likely that the investigations will be extended to include Serco's management of Villawood.

The ABC reports that:

The detention centre was set on fire, while asylum seekers overwhelmed staff from the detention centre service provider, Serco.

The former guard says there would have been 11 staff members rostered on the night the asylum seekers rioted. 

He says his former employer, Serco, does not train staff properly and would not have known what to do when trouble starts. 

"From what I've seen, new recruits are basically put on the floor with no training whatsoever," he said. 

"They were told that they would be trained as they worked and that also has never happened before. Basically what is supposed to happen is, they go through at least a six-week minimum course and then have a year of on-the-job training. 

"Serco basically got rid of the six-week course using staffing levels as an excuse and basically threw the staff onto the floor and expected experienced staff to train them as well as do their normal jobs."

He says Serco has never emphasised emergency response training for incidents like fire and riots experienced on Wednesday night. 

"I am led to believe they still don't have any real effective emergency operational procedures. So basically (Wednesday night) would have been every man for themselves," he said.

In a statement, Serco acknowledged an increased number of arrivals and longer periods of detention have placed significant pressures on their operations. 

The company said its staff training program meets it contractual requirements and that it has provided additional training beyond what is contracted and has invested $1.5 million in staff training.

This is the second Australian immigration detention to be set on fire this year. Riots at the Christmas Island detention centre in March led to tear gas and bean bag rounds being fired at asylum seekers.

The former Villawood guard says the Federal Government should review Serco's contract. 

"They've had pretty poor performance. Basically the spate of incidents, major incidents, under Serco's control have been ... there's just been too many. So I really think that the contract should be reassessed," he said.

When mandatory detention kills people protest is a necessary moral act

On Monday night I attended a public seminar on Australia's refugee policies and the unfolding crises in immigration detention. Not surprisingly much of the discussion focused on recent riots, protests and property destruction at the Christmas Island Detention centres.

A number of speakers and audience members expressed the view that whilst they understood the reasons behind the protests, such action was harmful to the cause of the asylum seekers themselves and to those working on behalf of asylum seekers and refugees.

Although the argument is understandable (and common), it is in my view limited and fundamentally flawed.

In fact, it could be argued that opposition and resistance to mandatory detention by detainees (and civil society) is a necessary moral action to prevent the death of asylum seekers, to protect the human life and well being of detainees, and to make visible and highlight the reality of state-corporate crime.

The Australian lawyer and academic Michael Grewcock argues that resistance and protest by detainees is a legitimate response to state inflicted harm and to a criminal system based on violence and abuse and denial of humanity. Grewcock argues that Australia's treatment of asylum seekers should be regarded as a state crime. Protest is a claim to legitimacy and visibility by those whose humanity has been systematically denied or challenged:

" resistance makes detainees visible; it can highlight the contemporary reality of state organized abuse".

The death on Monday of another asylum seeker at the Curtin Detention Centre (the 6th death in immigration detention in 7 months)  is further evidence that Australia's system of mandatory detention is increasingly killing people.

As Ian Rintoul from the Refugee Action Coalition and Pamela Curr from the Aslum Seeker Resource Centre point out mandatory detention for many asylum seekers has become a death sentence. As Pamela Curr points out if these were deaths of people other than asylum seekers there would be a public and political outcry.

In addition to causing deaths, the evidence is clear that mandatory detention is a form of state sanctioned violence and abuse. It traumatizes people, abuses children and destroys the mental health and the physical and psychological health of thousands of detainees. Incidents of self harm and suicide continue to grow exponentially. Ian Rintoul writes that in just one detention centre:

"Self-harm in Curtin is at epidemic proportions. There is an incident almost every day"

Mike Grewcock argues that Australia's refugee policies, including mandatory detention and border policing, are "crimes" committed by the state ( in conjunction with corporations such as Serco). Grewcock argues that in criminalizing and demonizing asylum seekers, the Australian state has systematically employed criminal strategies to achieve its ends.

For Grewcock various features of mandatory detention that make it a form of state crime include:

• alienation (lack of lawful status, restricted access to legal redress, physical separation from civil society, ideological construction as illegal and dangerous outsiders)
• systematic and intentional breaches of human rights and legal obligations
• the infliction of systemic abuse, death or harm on children, men and women (psychological impact of detention, mental illness and depression, self harming and destructive behavior, suicide).
• forceful denial by the Australian state of the legitimate expectations of asylum seekers and unauthorized arrivals to free movement and protection and due process before the law
• use of illegal  and criminal regimes (incarceration, regimes of force.

Grewcock's work demonstrates that a system that uses criminal strategies to inflict death, harm, pain and suffering  upon children, men and women, all to serve political ends, is frankly illegitimate and acting criminally. Opposition, resistance and protest are not just legitimate but necessary. As Grewcock argues those who fail to oppose or resist these policies are accessories to a crime.

So rather than criticize and vilify those detainees who protest and demonstrate inside (and outside) detention centres we should support and applaud their courage and willingness to take a stand against  what is fundamentally a criminal regime.

In Australia we have a Labor government that uses tear gas and rubber bullets on asylum seekers

So we have a Labor Government in Australia that uses tear gas and rubber bullets on vulnerable people who protest.

And then that government turns around and blames those same people for provoking such brutality and also blames them for causing the long delays in processing refugee claims that were one of the protesters grievances.

And we are a people that stands by and allows this to happen.

As John Passaant rightly points out:

" A government that gasses protesters is unworthy of support"

 The report below is from ABC News online:

"A refugee support group says the overnight riot by 300 asylum seekers on Christmas Island, which left one man in hospital with a suspected broken leg, was sparked by security staff at the facility.

Ian Rintoul, from the Refugee Action Coalition, says security officers entered the compound at about 10:00pm (AWST) looking for 20 people they said led the mass break-out of 170 people last week.
"It was only when they captured some of those people and put them in handcuffs that provoked the response inside the detention centre. It was completely calm, completely peaceful before that," he said.

Mr Rintoul says the officers took the people to the high security management unit known as the red compound, staffed by officers from Serco, the facility management company.

"One-hundred-and-fifty to 200 people surrounded the red compound, actually got into the red compound and the tear gas was used when the Serco guards that were in there couldn't secure their little office," he said.
"We're told it might even be a rubber bullet that broke the leg of that protester.
"The idea that tear gas and that kind of force could be used against detainees inside the detention centre is an absolute disgrace."

Earlier, Immigration Minister Chris Bowen said the demonstration was over complaints by detainees that their visa applications were being processed too slowly.

He conceded "a level of frustration" was involved in the fracas which he said involved 300 asylum seekers.

Mr Bowen says the demonstration only serves to slow the application process.


"It does not change visa outcomes," he said.

"This protest action has meant that independent merits reviewers who were meant to arrive at the island today to progress people's assessment of their claims have not been able to enter the island.

"People who protest to try and change their visa outcome or get their place of detention changed do not achieve anything. They simply slow the process.

"I understand people's frustrations inside detention, but protest actions like this does not achieve the desired result."

When a fine for breach of contract is not a fine but an "abatement"

Tom Cowie on Crikey has published a longer piece today on the saga of Serco's $4.5 million fine for breaches of its multi- million dollar immigration detention centre contract with the Federal Government.

However, the real truth about Serco's contract breaches remains to be told. It appears that the $4.5 million in fines applies only to contract breaches that occurred at one of the Christmas Island facilities and does not reflect additional breaches that have occurred for contract breaches at other detention facilities on Christmas Island and the mainland.

As Pamela Curr from the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre points out the real victims of these fines are the detainees, who are being supervised by staff fearful of their company being sanctioned. Furthermore, we the wider public are denied access to any information about these publicly funded services and the expenditure of huge amounts of public money to a UK based multinational corporation with a history of constant contract breaches and a record in the UK of the use of illegal regimes of force.

Curr points out that:

"The government, in order to ensure they’re protected in the media from any escapes, impose punitive fines on the private contractor, who in turn impose punitive conditions on detainees".

Here is an extract from the Crikey piece

"A DIAC spokesperson told Crikey they couldn't confirm the fine, the amount or what it was for, because those details are "commercial in confidence". All Crikey could ascertain was that there is a provision in the contract for DIAC to sanction its partner: "The contract between the department and the detention services provider has provisions that allow Serco to be financially sanctioned for failure to meet agreed service delivery standards."

The minister's office was also less than forthcoming. Details of the fine and the figure fall under the contractual agreement, a spokesperson for Minister Chris Bowen said, and to provide any more information would breach "commercial-in-confidence".

Serco also would not provide any details on the fines. A spokesperson even took umbrage with that description -- "they're abatements, not fines" -- and said any sanctions issued were part of an ongoing review of Serco's performance.

"The contract between DIAC and Serco has provisions that allow Serco to be financially sanctioned for failure to meet agreed service delivery standards," the spokesperson told Crikey. "We cannot go into detail on the total amount of any fines imposed as this information is considered commercial-in-confidence.

The spokesperson said that the confidential contract between Serco and DIAC was "growing" and that it was "particularly complex": "This long-standing practice to not disclose such details has been in place over successive detention service providers, and covers governments over many years."

If Serco can't run immigration detention why is the Barnett Government paying it $3.2 billion to run Fiona Stanl;ey Hospital?

So this is how privatization and contracting out of public services works.

Serco the operator of Australia's immigration detention centres, is paid nearly $400 million by the Federal Government to run immigration detention. But Serco breaches its contract so much that it has been fined $4.5 million for contract breaches over a 2 month period (November and December). Information suggests that Serco were fined $2 million dollars in November and $2.5 million in December for breaches that include poor practice, incompetence, inappropriate treatment of detainees, incidents in centres, and escapes.

But the Government refuses to release any detail of the breaches, citing commercial confidentiality.

As Antony Lowenstein points out  rather than demand that Serco improve the treatment of detainees, or even rescind Serco's contract for constant breaches, the Federal Government simply pockets the money Serco pays in fines.

The immigration department has fined the company that runs its detention centres for contract breaches, including a series of breakouts.

The Department of Immigration and Citizenship contracts the UK-based Serco to run its detention centres. The latest contract – worth about $370 million – was signed in 2009.
“Under the contract between Serco and DIAC there are provisions for the imposition of fines and sanctions against Serco for lax practices or incompetence,” a DIAC spokesman said.
The fines reportedly exceeded $4 million, but the department has refused to reveal the figure.
“The details are commercial in confidence,” the spokesman said.

 So the crises in immigration detention worsens.

And here is yet another example of Serco's inability to run public services judiciously, effectively and accountably. As the crises in Australia's immigration detention system worsens just what is Serco's risk management strategy for managing a disturbance in detention centres it is paid hundreds of millions of dollars to run? Just call the Police.

This extract is from the Sydney Morning Herald:

Concerns whether NT Police would have the capacity to deal with a large-scale disturbance emerged on Friday, after it was announced late on Thursday that a new 1,500-bed detention facility would be developed at Wickham Point, on Darwin Harbour - opposite the CBD - to house single men.

The move, along with plans to almost double the bed capacity at the Darwin Airport Lodge Detention Centre, will take Darwin's immigration detention capacity to 2,900, eclipsing Christmas Island's 2,600 capacity.

 

NT Police Association president Vince Kelly told AAP he understood that Serco, the private security company that manages Australia's immigration detention centres, had no real plans to handle a major disturbance other than to telephone the police.

"It would seem that there has been no contemplation of the impacts this might have on the NT police, or about the capacity of NT Police to deal with a large-scale disturbance involving 1,500 people who are held in these facilities," he said.

"The safety of NT police officers is something that should be considered."