wfn.org | WCC FEATURE Australia: Kobia on Aboriginals & asylum-seekers

["WCC Media" <Media@wcc-coe.org>]

World Council of Churches - Press Feature
For immediate release - 12 July 2004

KOBIA ISSUES TWO CHALLENGES TO AUSTRALIAN CHRISTIANS

      By Nick Kerr (*)

      Free photos are available (see below)

      Cf. WCC press update PU-04-33 of 9 July 2004
      Cf. WCC press update PU-04 32 of 7 July 2004
      Cf. WCC press release PR-04-16 of 1 July 2004

Just before he left Australia on 11 July, Rev. Dr Samuel Kobia issued two
challenges to Australian Christians. In a final interview shortly before
catching a flight to Fiji, he appealed to Christians to visit detention
centres like Baxter Detention Facility, see the conditions for themselves,
and be like good Samaritans to the detainees held there; and to support
Aboriginal people who feel their self-determination is being threatened by
government moves to abolish the elected ATSIC (Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islander Commission) and replace it with an appointed advisory council.

The general secretary of the World Council of Churches (WCC) had been
attending the National Council of Churches (NCCA) in Australia's forum in
Adelaide, South Australia. Before the NCCA forum, he spent a day with
Aboriginal people in Port Augusta and three hours visiting detainees in
Baxter, just outside Port Augusta.

Baxter - a shocking reality 

"I appeal for as many Christians as possible to visit these centres and show
love and care to the detainees," he said. "Many of those I talked with in
Baxter expressed their happiness at being visited by ministers and priests of
the Uniting Church, Roman Catholic Church and the Anglican Church. They also
said that they would very much like to have more Christian people visiting
them."

Kobia was visibly distressed by what he saw at Baxter, where about 250
asylum-seekers are being held. "I'd read and heard about the detention
centres," he said. "But I must say I wasn't prepared for what I saw. I was
really shocked, firstly by the physical reality - the high fences, the
forbidding gates. I couldn't understand what made the government detain these
asylum-seekers, who are not criminals, in a maximum security prison.  Because
that's what it looked like to me, a prison.

"That was one of the shocks I had. Then I looked at the detainees' faces.
Many of them crowded around me, wanting just to whisper a few words. Almost
all of them asked: 'Please, can you tell our story? And can you help to get
us out of here?'  I came out of Baxter with more than pity. I left wanting
justice done, but also with the feeling of how much these people need
Christian hospitality."

Kobia said he had talked with many church leaders during his four-day visit
to Australia.  "Many of them have read my comments in the media about Baxter
and the conditions there," he said. "Most agreed with what I said. I felt
encouraged by that. I'd like to believe that many of them will continue to
advocate with the government on behalf of these detainees."

Aboriginal expectations at lowest ebb

Kobia also stressed that he was concerned about the situation of Australia's
Indigenous people, and his comments on this topic made news headlines as
well.

Kobia visited the Pika Wiya Aboriginal Health Service outside Port Augusta,
founded with a WCC grant 30 years ago, and spent an evening hosted by the
Aboriginal Faith Community, which is run by the Uniting Aboriginal and
Islander Christian Congress, the Indigenous arm of the Uniting Church in
Australia. 

Expressing his concern, Kobia noted that "After all these years of tremendous
efforts on their part, and after all the expressions of solidarity they've
had from the Australian churches and the ecumenical movement world-wide, it
was very depressing to hear Aboriginal leaders say that their expectations of
an improvement in their conditions are now at their lowest ebb. For the
government to abolish ATSIC is the worst blow that could have been dealt the
Aboriginal people at this time." 

"The government wants to replace ATSIC, composed of people who were elected
by Indigenous people themselves, with a hand-picked advisory council. The
Aboriginal people see this as a way of denying them their rights to
self-determination and what they see as the legitimate voice of the
Aboriginal people," he explained.

However, he was "encouraged by the covenant between churches and Aboriginal
people, the Sorry Day that's being observed for the 'Stolen Generations'
(Aboriginal children who were taken away from their parents) and the memorial
to them in Canberra. These efforts towards healing and reconciliation by the
Australian churches will continue and be strengthened by our solidarity."

Kobia said that the churches had spoken out clearly on these issues.  "(Rev.
Professor) James Haire, the president of the National Council of Churches in
Australia, said that what the government should have done was not to abolish
ATSIC but to fix whatever problems there were with its leadership. He also
said that the government shouldn't have taken any action against ATSIC
without consultation with the Aboriginal people."

Asked if he thought that the Australian government's policies were racist,
Kobia commented: 
"When I consider the way the Aboriginal people are treated here, and
listening to them, I would say that one cannot avoid detecting some racist
tendencies. I wouldn't, however, call the Australian people, or Australia as
a country, racist in the same way I would have called South Africa racist in
the apartheid period. There are very commendable initiatives and efforts that
the Australian people have made, both the churches and other communities. But
in any society like this, you will find individuals, or maybe some extreme
organizations, that would want to continue with racist attitudes." 

"Guantanamo without the shackles"
 
At a press conference in Adelaide the next day (Friday, July 9) Kobia called
on the Australian government to abandon its policy of mandatory detention of
asylum-seekers. He said the policy violates human rights and is un-Christian.

"The image of Australia has been damaged by what is happening in these
detention camps," he said. "I think it's a great disservice to Australia to
have this kind of policy and to maintain the types of camps I saw yesterday."

Kobia said the Baxter high-tech detention centre was like a "maximum security
prison".  "This reminded me of the pictures I have seen of Guantanamo Bay -
without the shackles and the uniforms. But then there is the electrical
fence."

Kobia  talked to detainees attending a worship service; some 60 to 70 of them
attend Christian services in the facility's visitors' centre every week. 

"I could clearly see people who are depressed. Many of them complain of
psychological and emotional torture because there they are, day in and day
out, not knowing what tomorrow will bring. They feel that even criminals who
have been imprisoned are better off in that they know how long the sentence
they are serving will last."

Light and shadow  

Kobia returned to the theme of the detainees when he addressed the NCCA forum
the next day (Saturday, July 10): "Refugees and migrants have enriched
Australian society and made it into a wonderful multi-cultural society.
Australia also has a long tradition of supporting the international system of
refugee protection, of supporting UN endeavours and international legal norms
on refugees and asylum-seekers. However, policies adopted by the Australian
government in the last five years have called into question this legacy and
have damaged Australia's reputation abroad."

Among those policies, he mentioned the Australian system of visa controls
that is intended to keep people fleeing persecution at home from arriving at
Australia's borders; the existence of detention centres in which
asylum-seekers are mandatorily detained for an indefinite period; the policy
of Temporary Protection Visas where individuals who are recognized as
refugees are only allowed to remain in the country temporarily; and the
so-called "Pacific solution" in which asylum-seekers who were en route to
Australia are "warehoused" in the small country of Nauru.

On the other hand, Kobia also congratulated Australia for receiving many
hundreds of Sudanese refugees in the last two to three years, and for sending
relief to those who have fled from the ethnic cleansing in West Dafur. "There
are a million Sudanese refugees in Chad," he said. 
"Many of them will die of hunger and disease within the month if enough aid
does not reach them."  He also congratulated Christian World Service, the
relief arm of the NCCA, on its special appeal for these refugees. 

The Good Samaritan

The next day (Sunday, July 11) Kobia preached on the Good Samaritan reading
in St Peter's Anglican Cathedral. "For churches and Christians in Australia,
reaching out to the strangers in your midst or advocating with the government
in an increasingly difficult climate is not easy," he said.  "Nevertheless,
if we are to be faithful to the gospel - to welcome the stranger and work for
justice - we have no choice. It must be our task and responsibility to open
our eyes to the uprooted among us."

(Rev. Dr Samuel Kobia is presently - 12-15 July - visiting Fiji on the third
leg of a tour in Asia and the Pacific.)

Nick Kerr is communications officer of the Uniting Church in South Australia
and editor of its publication New Times  nick@sa.uca.org.au

Free photos on the visit of Rev. Dr Samuel Kobia to Australia are available
at the website of the Uniting Church in South Australia
http://www.sa.uca.org.au/pages/news/ncca/

For further information, please contact Juan Michel, WCC  media relations
officer,  tel: +41 22 791 6153, mobile +41 79 507 6363, media@wcc-coe.org  

The World Council of Churches is a fellowship of churches, now 342, in
more than 120 countries in all continents from virtually all Christian
traditions. The Roman Catholic Church is not a member church but works
cooperatively with the WCC. The highest governing body is the assembly,
which meets approximately every seven years. The WCC was formally
inaugurated in 1948 in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Its staff is headed by
general secretary Samuel Kobia from the Methodist church in Kenya.