Thoughts from my recent visit to Baxter (2004)

by Jane Keogh, May 2004

Those remaining in detention have mostly been there over three years. Some have been there for six.

And there is no end in sight.

Most are losing their minds and their physical health.

I have been visiting some of the detainees for two years now, and the deterioration is extreme in some and obvious in all.

Much is written about the children, but a main concern of mine is the waste of the lives of these young men, mostly 18-28 year olds. Many have already lost their families, and are now broken in mind and spirit by the endless term of mandatory imprisonment and degrading treatment.

On my last visit I saw one young man fall unconscious in shock, hearing his friend receive some bad news. So he was taken to hospital. The next day he reported how he regained consciousness chained to the hospital bed. Another friend was taken to Adelaide for tests, and had to go all day without food and with only the water from the bathroom to drink. The guards munched their hamburgers in front of him; he asked them to lend him the money to buy a sandwich. They refused. He would not allow a complaint to be made as he says this only brings worse treatment.

The most common expressions I heard this time from the young men I talked with were:

I cannot stay here any more. I am losing my mind. I can’t think any more. I don’t want to live.

“Community Housing” is not Community Housing.

Community Housing

Don’t be fooled by Amanda’s definitions and counts.

One young mother of an 11-month-old child told me how she broke the microwave in frustration trying to get appropriate support for her baby. Her stress is heightened because she had to make the difficult decision to leave her husband and take the baby to the Community Housing complex. In the end, she made this decision only because from the Community Housing complex mothers are allowed to take their children to play group once a week to be with other young children … part of the bribery deal to get all children “out of detention” before the election. Yet the Community Housing project is not really “out of detention” at all. They still have the high walls, no visitors, and guards 24 hours a day. And no privacy – the guards walk into the bedrooms any time of the day or night to check on them.

Those who work on the Children out of Detention campaign need to be aware that “community housing” is not in any way being out in the community. The big difference is that they can buy their own food and cook for themselves. And this is significant, given the poor and culturally in appropriate food in Baxter. where the main complaint is about the lack of vegetables and the sameness of chicken and rice – sometimes badly-cooked chicken and rice. In Housing they are escorted shopping once a week – to different shops, in case they get too familiar with the shop assistants, or in case their friends in the community might try to make contact during their “outing”. The second difference, however, is that they are separated from their husbands/fathers and older brothers/sons.

Punishment

I talked at length to one obviously traumatised detainee, “Hassan”. His face was strained and tense, and his hands shook. He kept saying to me “All I did was throw sugar”. For this they put him in Isolation, which made him feel so traumatised that he threatened to commit suicide. The tears dropped down his face as he described the shame of being stripped naked and left standing with no underwear, and then having to wear only a special “gown” while kept on 24-hour watch. I couldn’t get a good description of the gown, but it appears it does not cover them adequately, and they feel great shame in not being allowed their underwear.

I asked the other detainees about what he said happened to “Hassan” and they told me Yes – this is standard practice for those who seem likely to commit suicide. They described having to have the lights on all night and being cold. As one said cynically, but probably realistically: “They want us to die back in our own country, not here where it will cause them embarrassment. Mr Ruddock said it is no business of Australia’s what happens to us once we are deported back home”.