article by Ronny Kareni
Kevin Rudd’s ironic plan to banish asylum-seekers to PNG is a cruel deceit on its moral obligation as a signatory to the United Nations Refugee Convention. In 2011 the Australian government was quick to act on live export of cattle to Indonesia but the Australian public have witnessed that its government is now sponsoring the live export of human beings to PNG.
I grew up as a refugee in a small shelter in Wewak, north coast of PNG, where it was ‘survival of the fittest’ to live in a country with high unemployment while being harassed and intimidated by Indonesia’s Intelligence operations. Despite most New Guineans’ support for their West Papuan relatives’ struggle across the border, the PNG government is easily bought off to turn a blind eye to these incursions and the human rights abuses across the border, just as they are being bought off by Australia to ignore their own obligations to the Refugee Convention and to human dignity.
freedom flotilla 