'Nothing has changed': the men who remain in limbo on Manus Island

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/nov/17/nothing-has-changed-the-men-who-remain-in-limbo-on-manus-island

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“I remember talking to [friends] about how it’s definitely going to get shut down – we thought someone would probably die,” says Nicole Judge.

“But then Reza Barati was murdered, it still didn’t get shut down. And Hamid Kehazaei got sick and died and it didn’t get shut down.”

A former caseworker with the Salvation Army, Judge was last at Australia’s immigration detention centre on Manus Island in February 2014, before the murder of Barati and the numerous other violent incidents that followed.

More than four years later, Judge returned to meet with refugees on Manus and in Port Moresby. She travelled back to the former detention centre, now empty and overgrown, but still with guards stationed at the front and side fences.

There have been seven deaths, violent incidents including a shooting incident involving drunk soldiers, and a three-week standoff when authorities shut down the centre.

“It was as though nothing had changed,” she said. “The conversation was the same. As soon as I sat down … it was: ‘How long do you think we’ll be here? If Labor gets in will we leave?’ … it really felt as though I had never left.”

More than 600 refugee men are now living in three purpose-built accomodation units in the town of Lorengau.

Judge says her impression is that authorities had shut down one camp to build three more in its place, and that promised upgrades to the hospital appeared to be little more than new paint.

One guy we interviewed had rectal bleeding. He didn’t know why he had it, he’d had it for several months

The men she spoke to were still visibly affected by the events of the standoff and closure.

Aziz Adam had acted as a spokesman for the men who refused to leave, and coordinator of food drops – donated mostly by local Papua New Guineans – until the final day when police, mobile squad, and army, were on site to clear the centre.

“I did not expect that 428 men would remain in the detention centre until the last day,” he says in the filmed interview with Judge.

“I thought, what if someone passed away, what if someone got killed? Who will be responsible? Because I’m the person on the front page, everyone is looking at me,” he said.

He says the final day reminded him of 2014 when Barati was killed. The whistles started early in the morning.

“The guys are saying they are coming, from the back side. They had a joint force with the navy, who were armed.

“[We thought] they shot at us before, they can do it again.”

A year on from the closure, refugees and asylum seekers say for many, the situation is far worse, and say they aren’t getting proper medical treatment.

“They just were leaving them there in the hospital,” Judge says. “Then if they do get to Port Moresby it’s a really hard to get into [the hospital] to get proper treatment, they get bogged down in bureaucracy.

“One guy we interviewed had rectal bleeding. He didn’t know why he had it, he’d had it for several months. He’s really worried.”

In the past year, another man has died and many others have tried to kill themselves. Dozens have been transferred to Port Moresby for a higher level of medical care but as Papua New Guinea prepared to host the Apec conference this weekend, groups were sent back to Manus, regardless whether or not they had completed treatment.

The transfers prompted panic and despair. One man attempted suicide, Guardian Australia was told.

On Monday another group of 14 were transferred under what the PNG police described as “security preparations” for Apec. Asked what the security concerns were, the police spokesman would not elaborate, saying only that it was a “normal precautionary measure”.

One man was sent in the opposite direction. An Iraqi refugee had been refusing food for more than a week, and then began refusing water. Friends were adamant he was not engaging in a hunger strike, but was deeply depressed.

His friends told Guardian Australia nurses were unable to monitor him properly to prevent attempts at suicide or self harm. On Wednesday he was transferred to Port Moresby.

“Two of the men we interviewed in Port Moresby brought bags of medication to show us,” Judge says. “We’d ask do you know why and what it’s for and they wouldn’t know.

“They also said they were given medication that was expired. I really believe deeply that someone else will die there from lack of treatment.”

While we are open and we would welcome them, we cannot cater to them because we cannot even cater to our own people

Australia maintains it will never resettle anyone from offshore detention. The only options for those on Manus are to settle in PNG, successfully apply for US resettlement, find their own way to another country through sponsorship – as some have done – or go back to their home country.

On Manus and in the wider PNG community there doesn’t appear to be widespread hostility towards the refugees. There are supportive civil society and community groups, and some men have married local women and started families. But there is a concern that PNG’s rapid recent decline renders it impossible to care for others.

The country is dealing with endemic poverty, a medication shortage, the aftermath of a devastating earthquake and outbreaks of polio and drug-resistant TB.

“While we are open and we would welcome them, we cannot cater to them because we cannot even cater to our own people,” bishops’ conference secretary, Father Ambrose Pereira told Radio New Zealand, calling for Australia to resettle everyone by Christmas.

Meanwhile the US resettlement program continues at an extraordinarily slow pace. Two years after it was signed, fewer than 500 people from Manus and Nauru have been taken.

News Corp Australia claimed earlier this month that 70 refugees had refused resettlement because they were told they would have to work and wouldn’t get welfare.

Guardian Australia has sought to verify these claims. Sector workers suggested the number of refusals could be correct but were sceptical about the claimed reasons. Instead, they said, a number of refugees had refused because they were currently separated from family members, or because they held fears of living as a Muslim in the US.

Some maintained hope they would be accepted by Australia – especially those with extended family in the country.

Others didn’t apply because they feared a rejection would affect their chances of resettlement elsewhere.

Observers and advocates say large proportions of applicants are being refused, usually under a “discretionary” reason.

There are widespread suspicions the US travel ban on half a dozen nationalities is also affecting the resettlements, although a handful of Iranians have been accepted.

A US state department official told Guardian Australia the ban “does not apply to refugees”, and there wasn’t any kind of ban on nationalities or religions within the country’s refugee program, but there were additional screening and vetting procedures recently introduced to identify “potential threats”.