Tim Daughney
Refugee-rights supporters came from all over Australia. Packed into crowded buses, cars and mini-vans, we travelled for up to 48 hours to spend the Easter weekend camping in the desert.
The Baxter '05 convergence numbered about 450 people. While the largest contingents came from Melbourne, Perth and Sydney, activists from Hobart, Darwin and Adelaide also endured the sun and dust of the South Australian desert to show their solidarity with refugees locked up indefinitely and without charge in the heavily guarded and fortified concentration camp that is Baxter Immigration Detention Centre.
On the way to Baxter, protest organisers decided to pay a visit to the North Adelaide house of Amanda Vanstone, the minister in charge of locking up refugees. Our presence, however, was not welcome. More than 100 police officers surrounded Vanstone's house and cordoned off the street.
"With a flick of [Vanstone's] wrist, all the refugees could be free and Baxter could be closed", said Sydney refugee-rights activist Ian Rintoul, addressing more than 150 protesters.
After the rally we headed on to Baxter. We weren't welcome there either — a police roadblock awaited our arrival. After negotiations with the elders of the Bangala people — the traditional owners of the land — police authorised a campsite 3.5 kilometres away from the gates of the detention centre.
That night, hundreds of protesters marched down to the front gates of Baxter chanting "Free, free the refugees, send the Liberals overseas".
The next day, protesters decided to march again to the detention centre. "Our intention was to walk around the back of the Baxter compound to where the detainees could hear us and we could hear them. We wanted to make contact and let them know that we are here to support them", said Mark Goudkamp from the Sydney Refugee Action Coalition (RAC).
Refugee supporters marched in unity behind lengths of plastic fencing, designed to protect them from police attack. The first altercation with police came when the protesters crossed a metre-high wire fence marking the boundary of Commonwealth land.
Before the protesters could get within 250 metres of the detention centre's perimeter fence, 200 riot police in full amour and 10 mounted officers surrounded and charged them. The plastic fencing was snatched from the protesters and torn up. A young woman was trampled by a police horse and several protesters were arrested.
"It will be clear to most Australians from the television pictures that it is the police who are instigating the violence. Police assistant commissioner Gary Burns' claims that there is a violent element within the protest are hypocritical, as it is only the police that have been violent", Goudkamp said later.
Forced to change tactics, the protesters marched instead to the front gate of the detention centre, where we chanted and sang. An "Australian flag-washing" ceremony took place and dozens of helium-filled "freedom" balloons were released.
Later that night, a group of protesters returned to the gate for a peaceful kite-flying action. Claiming that the paper kites posed a threat to the helicopter circling high overhead, riot police confiscated and destroyed them. One Melbourne woman was arrested for flying a kite in a restricted air space and later released on bail. Like other arrested protesters, her bail conditions prevented her from returning to the camp.
On their way back to the campsite later that night, a number of protesters were able to make verbal contact with detainees, who responded to chants of "azadi" with their own chant of "freedom". One detainee even managed to climb onto the roof of the detention centre compound to communicate with protesters. Such contact with detainees, who are imprisoned behind electrified razor wire and unable to see the outside world, was an emotional and inspirational event for those involved. This was considered by many convergence participants to be one of the most important outcomes of the weekend protest.
In the early morning of the third day, activists decided to again attempt a peaceful action with kites and balloons. Carrying a banner reading "Freedom" in seven languages, protesters moved towards the gates in a tight, unified contingent.
Half-way down the road to the detention centre's main gate, protesters were stopped by a cordon of 60 police officers. The police forced their way through the front lines of protesters to burst the helium balloons attached to the banner. Once the balloons had been destroyed police retreated, allowing the march to proceed. Later, several clashes took place between police and protesters when officers violently confiscated kites and made several arrests. A number of protesters were injured.
After packing up camp, the protest made its way to Port Augusta for a rally against police racism and harassment of the local Indigenous community. Some 200 people marched in a demonstration organised and led by the Port Augusta Aboriginal community. The demonstrators chanted: "Police, racist scum" and "Always was, always will be Aboriginal land", as they wound their way along the Port Augusta foreshore and through the town centre.
Despite police heavy-handedness and the arrest of 16 protesters, convergence participants believe the Easter protest was an overwhelming success.
"We came here to demand justice and freedom for asylum seekers, and to shine the spotlight on the evil that is Baxter detention centre. People have mobilised in solidarity with us as far away as London and Berlin. We have succeeded in opening the world's eyes to the inhumanity of mandatory detention and to the inhumanity of the Australian government, and we will come here again and again, year after year, until Baxter and other concentration camps like it are closed for good", said RAC Victoria's Gill Davy.
Protesters have vowed to return to Baxter every year until the detention centre is closed. RAC Victoria has already issued a call to action for Easter 2006.
From Â鶹´«Ã½ Weekly, April 6, 2005.
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