ONE TERM TONY AND CO NOBODY LIKES YOU
Port Moresby governor calls on PNG not to ‘act like Australians’ on Manus
Powes Parkop decries as 'repugnant' the detention of asylum seekers in a 'near prison-like environment'
Island detainees be given freedom to work while they await processing,
to address the country’s skills shortage crisis. Photograph: Eoin
Blackwell/AAP
The governor of Port Moresby has called on Papua New Guinea not to
“act like Australians” and to distance itself from Australia’s
“treatment and attitude” towards asylum seekers, in an open letter
criticising the Manus Island detention process.
Governor Powes
Parkop also suggested that some Manus Island detainees be given freedom
to work while they await processing, to address the country’s skills
shortage crisis.
In an open letter to the minister for foreign affairs,
Rimbink Pato, Parkop decried the detention of asylum seekers in a “near
prison-like environment” as “repugnant to our traditional and
contemporary culture and to our Christian values”.
The Manus
Island detention facility currently holds about 1,270 asylum seekers,
and faces constant criticism for its harsh conditions. Investigations
are underway into the death of 23-year-old Reza Barati during violent
incidents at the centre in February. Witnesses have said Barati was beaten to death by local PNG contractors during the unrest.
In
his letter Parkop called on Pato to adopt a more humane and “morally
superior” approach to processing asylum seekers than the current
Australian-run system, which he said went against the UN convention on
refugees, to which PNG is a signatory.
“This is an Australian
practice which we should guard ourselves against,” Parkop wrote. “We are
a compassionate nation and people known for our hospitality and
compassion in reaching out to people in hardship, distress or seeking
comfort.”
The letter, titled “(SOFT) HUMAN APPROACH TO ASYLUM
SEEKERS” and dated 23 April, was published as a full page advertisement
in two PNG newspapers, including the Post Courier.
It was copied
to the PNG prime minister, Peter O’Neill, the Australian high
commissioner, Deborah Stokes, and the media. Parkop told Guardian
Australia he had had no response from PNG or Australian officials.
Parkop
suggested the PNG authorities screen Manus Island detainees, and grant
work permits to those with professional skills such as “engineers,
doctors, nurses, teachers, accounts [sic], etc” to address the country’s
skills shortage.
Citing mental health problems created and
exacerbated by the detention centre conditions, Parkop wrote that steps
must be taken to ensure asylum seekers do not live in the “prison like”
environment. He did not suggest skilled asylum seekers be given any
further claim to settlement in PNG, but rather be allowed to work and
“contribute socially and economically” while they waited for their
applications to a “third or fourth” country to be processed.
“I
understand our people are opposed to their settlement in PNG but I
believe this attitude is influenced by the perception that some of these
asylum seekers might be extremist or Muslim fanatics or trouble
makers,” Parkop wrote. “Let us not demonize these people forever or
collectively. Let’s have a more human approach that befits our culture,
our moral and legal responsibility and let’s not act like Australians
and allow their policies and culture of detention forever to dictate our
approach.”
Parkop, governor of PNG’s capital city, is a former
human rights lawyer. He is originally from Mbuke Island off the south
coast of Manus Island, the Post Courier reported.
The Australian departments of Foreign Affairs and Immigration did not respond to requests for comment.
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