PM welcomes return call
The Age
By LOUISE DODSON, NEW YORK
and MARK FORBES, CANBERRA
Thursday 31 January 2002
Prime Minister John Howard has welcomed comments from the new Afghan leader that it is now safe for asylum seekers to return to their homeland.
"Clearly the situation in Afghanistan is different now to what it was when many of the people who've come to Australia as asylum seekers left there, because the Taliban is gone," he said yesterday.
Mr Howard meets interim president Hamid Karzai in New York today where they will discuss the repatriation of asylum seekers from Australia.
"We will of course accept any Afghan refugees judged to be such, or our share of them," he said.
Mr Howard said he was encouraged by Mr Karzai's comments.
"Our view plainly is that people who are not judged to be refugees ought to return to the countries from which they came."
Mr Howard also backed away from his comments on Tuesday that immigration policies would not change and the Woomera detention centre would not be closed. He said he had been out of touch and unaware that the Immigration Detention Advisory Group had recommended the closure. Mr Howard said he agreed with Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock's stance.
The Woomera asylum seekers yesterday ended their two-week hunger strike and abandoned suicide threats after breakthrough negotiations with the advisory group. All detainees' stitches have been removed.
About 250 detainees resumed eating at 3pm, having received undertakings that decisions on asylum claims would be made fairly and quickly. Other concerns about conditions and their continued incarceration at Woomera will be negotiated between Mr Ruddock and the advisers.
The breakthrough came as the Uniting Church and Catholic Church called for the United Nations to intervene in Woomera and on behalf of all asylum seekers in detention. A letter to UN High Commissioner for Refugees Mary Robinson states: "International help is desperately needed in order to bring about a change in government attitude to the plight of people seeking asylum in Australia."
Smaller protests in other detention centres are continuing, with 16 detainees at Port Hedland and 29 detainees at Curtin in Western Australia still on a hunger strike. At Sydney's Villawood, one detainee still has sewn lips.
An emotional Ray Funnell, the acting chairman of the advisory group, said the hunger strikers offered to end their protest after five hours of talks as an expression of good faith. "We did not ask them to end their hunger strike, but they of their own volition did so," he said.
"... They don't expect to walk out of Woomera tomorrow ... all they expect is that processing will continue and those who get a decision in their favour will be released."
Mr Ruddock welcomed the resolution and said he would discuss the possible closure of Woomera or removal of some detainees now he was no longer under duress.
"The approach I have to take in relation to these matters requires a degree of firmness, which sometimes people think demonstrates a lack of humanity. But I think your humanity has the greater potential to be evil than if you remain firm," he said.
In hindsight, there should have been better communication of his decision to resume processing of Afghans this week, Mr Ruddock said.
Another member of the advisory group, Melbourne University psychiatry professor Harry Minas, said the breakthrough was "a significant point, but it's not the end of the problem".
The 11 young, unaccompanied Afghans, including five minors, who are still in the centre dropped their suicide claims after assurances that their concerns would be relayed to Mr Ruddock, Professor Minas said.
The advisers will visit Woomera again next week. with CHRISTOPHER KREMMER and AAP