Headline Nov. 28/ ''' AUSTRALIA'S REFUGEES AMBIVALENCE '''

''' AUSTRALIA'S REFUGEES 

AMBIVALENCE '''

THE WORLD STUDENTS SOCIETY : is the exclusive ownership and voice of *every single refugee in the world* just as it is-

The exclusive ownership of every single student in the world : One Share-Peace-Piece.  

The men packing the boat with rice, cigarettes and medicine had fled war and persecution in their home countries.

Now, at 1.a.m. off the coast of remote island in Papua Hew Guinea, they were speeding back to the  detention camp they just so hated.

Why, I asked, would they return to the ''prisonlike refugee processing center'' where they had been trapped for nearly five years?

''We have brothers to feed,'' said Behnam Stah, 31, a Kurdish asylum seeker, as we cruised over  moon-silvered waves on hot November night. ''We have brothers who need help.''

More than 1,300 asylum seekers have been dumped on Manus Island since the end of 2012 as part of *Australia's contentious policy* to keep migrants from reaching its shores.

They were all but forgotten until last month, when Australia attempted to shut down the center move the men to facilities near the island's town of Lorengau hit resistance.

Hundreds of the men refused to leave. Many said they were afraid to move closer to town, where some had been attacked and robbed by local residents. But it was more than that. 

With the attention of the world finally on them, the camp's detainees had turned their prison into protest, braving a lack of water, electricity and food to try to jog loose a little compassion from the world.

They had already suffered and understood danger. Fleeing more than a dozen countries, they had risked their lives with human traffickers on ramshackle boats leaving Indonesia. And ever since the compound started filling up in 2013, it had been plagued by illness, suicide and many complaints of mistreatment.

But now, by staying there and sneaking in and out by boat, they were risking arrest in a desperate search for self-determination and to intensify scrutiny of Australia's migration policy and methods.  

*And That Scrutiny Has Come* Veteran United Nations officials said this month that they had never seen a wealthy democracy go to such extremes to punish asylum seekers and punish them away.

Papua New Guinea officials and local leaders, enraged how the camp's closure was handled,  have demanded to know why Australia is not doing more to help the men.

Instead, Australia is cutting services -reducing caseworkers and no longer providing medication, official said, even though approximately 8 in 10 of men suffer from anxiety disorders, depressions and other issues largely caused by detention, according a 2016 independent study.

''It's a very drastic reduction,'' said Catherine Stubberfield, a spokeswoman for the United Nations  refugee agency, who recently visited Manus.

Australia's Department of Immigration and Border protection did not answer questions about the service cuts. In a statement, it said general health care was still available and ''alternative accommodation sites'' were ''operational'' and ''suitable''.

Prime Minster Malcolm Turnbull has also doubled down on Australia's hardline approach, arguing that offshore detention has been a successful deterrent against illegal trafficking.

But in Papua New Guinea, deterrence increasingly looks like an incentive for cruelty. Officials,  Manus residents and outside experts all argue that Australia has a responsibility to those it placed here, to international law and to its closest neighbor.

''They've put the burden on a former colony which does not have the resources for many of the things its own people want, like health care and a social safety net,'' said Page West, a Columbia University anthropologist who has done extensive fieldwork on Manus.

''This is a problem created by Australia's failure to comply with its human rights obligations.''

The detention center, a warren of barracks and tents, sprawl across a Naval base used by American troops in 1944 during World War II. The Papua New Guinea Supreme Court ruled that the camp was illegal, calling it a violation of ''personal liberty''.

The governments of Australia and Papua New Guinea agreed in April to close the site by Oct 31. But finding alternatives has been a struggle.

Some of the men at the camp -all of whom were caught trying to reach Australia by boat -have been granted refugee status and are hoping for relocation to the  United States, under a deal brokered by President Obama and initially opposed by President Trump.

But nearly 200 of the 843 men still stuck on Manus {women and children were sent to the island of Nauru} have not had their asylum claims fully processed, or their claims have been rejected, leaving them effectively stuck on the island.

For now, all of the detainees are expected to move to three smaller facilities near Lorengau, a few miles from the camp.

Lorengau is not a big place. It is a close-knit rural town with a few thousand people, a single supermarket, a rusty playground and electricity that comes and goes. 

The Honor and Serving of the latest Operational Research on Refugees and status continues. The World Students Society thanks author and researcher Damien Cave. 

With respectful dedication to the Leaders, Refugees, Students, Professors and Teachers of the world. See Ya all on !WOW! -the World Students Society and Twitter-!E-WOW!  -the Ecosystem 2011:

''' Coastlines & Languishing '''

Good Night and God Bless

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