Antony Loewenstein

The ongoing chaos at Christmas Island – with refugees, guards and citizens all being led astray by the Australian government and Serco – is a blight on our conscience. We treat asylum seekers like animals, lock them up indefinitely, and wonder why their resist? As they should.

Last night Immigration Minister Chris Bowen appeared on ABC TV Lateline to answer questions about the current situation and he was given a roasting. Many, many questions from interviewer Ali Moore on Serco, its incompetence and the government’s reliance on a company that clearly can’t handle the situation.

My partner joked that Serco was being so damned in the media at the moment that maybe the government would dump them as soon as contractually possible. But who would replace them? Just another faceless security multinational. These services should be in public hands:

ALI MOORE: Are you aware that the former manager of the centre reportedly writing to his boss five months ago and saying they’re 15 people short on a daily basis and even if they had a full complement they’d be struggling?

CHRIS BOWEN: Yes, I am aware of the reporting of that letter and that’s something the inquiry will be examining closely, along with all sorts of investigations as to not only the staffing of Serco, but the preparedness of Serco, the intelligence reports as to possible disturbances, how they were managed et cetera. They are all very legitimate issues for the independent arms-length inquiry I’ve set up.

ALI MOORE: When do you hand control back to Serco, not until the end of that inquiry?

CHRIS BOWEN: No, it’ll happen before then. Control will be handed back to Serco when the Australian Federal Police, my department and Serco are satisfied that is appropriate. The AFP remains in control of the centre and, of course, they are working closely with Serco.

The AFP are the appropriate people with the training, resources and skills to manage what was a very difficult, tense and violent situation in the course of last week. The situation, of course, now is much calmer. The AFP will hand back over to Serco when it’s felt appropriate that’s the safe and responsible thing to do.

ALI MOORE: But at the same time if you don’t know what went wrong with Serco, you’re not sure about the staffing issues, you’ve put in an investigation to try to find out. Is it wise to give them control when you don’t actually know what went wrong?

CHRIS BOWEN: I don’t think you should pre-empt the inquiry. There’s a premise to your question that for some reason we should be assuming that there are management failures on Serco’s behalf. I’m not pre-empting the inquiry.

Serco manages a range of detention centres across the country and a range of facilities for a range of government and the private sector. I’m not pre-empting whether there was anything that Serco could or should have done, but they manage all our detention centres and they manage most of them without incident and I’m not going to criticise Serco before I’ve seen the results of that independent review.

If there’s criticism of Serco or my department I’m more than happy to accept it and make it, but I’m not going to pre-empt an independent arms-length inquiry.

ALI MOORE: Have they got a timeframe for reporting?

CHRIS BOWEN: Yes, they’ll report to me by the middle of the year.

ALI MOORE: By the middle of the year? So there’s a fundamental problem, you could have that problem in place for months?

CHRIS BOWEN: Well, this was a major incident. It requires significant investigation. These are two very respected and experienced former public servants. I think you could appropriately criticise me if I didn’t give them enough time to conduct that inquiry.

Why does the mainstream media report as it does? Corporate pressure? Reporter laziness? Set narrative?

A few months ago a few of us here in Sydney discussed the idea of a Democracy Now! show in Australia, a progressive and critical look at the world, views so often ignored by the MSM.

Sydney University’s Jake Lynch took the lead and today the first edition of News Goo is released by New Matilda. It’s (hopefully) the first of many episodes. More original reporting will happen, slicker presentation etc but the idea is to challenge even the so-called liberal media and presenters (like the invaluable Medialens does in the UK) on their prejudices and blindness:

The program’s name comes from a rap by Polarity1, which contains the lines, “the more we watch, the less we know”. This is something we’ve all felt from time to time, sitting in front of a TV screen — but is it true? If so, how come? And how could it be different?

In the launch edition of News Goo, Jake interviews Julian Burnside QC, and the journalist, author and film-maker John Pilger, about the investigative journalism of Wikileaks. They ask why Australia’s media have been so slow to follow up on important leads from the Wikileaks disclosures, like the unmasking of Senator Mark Arbib as a US “protected source”.

It’s presented with the dry wit that NM readers have come to know from Jake’s regular columns. Features include the “elephant in the room” — complete with picture and sound effects — as the spotlight falls on obvious angles left persistently unreported. And Welsh crooner Tom Jones is on hand to remind us of the most neglected question in journalism: “Why, why why, Delilah?”

The program also takes a closer look at the ABC’s relaunched 7.30, with Leigh Sales and Chris Uhlmann, and its investigation of Australia’s rusting fleet of naval vessels. Interviewed in the studio, Dr Hannah Middleton of the Australian Anti-Bases Campaign Coalition, says it continues a pattern in ABC reporting, of nitpicking over the details of “defence” spending, while ignoring the case for reducing military budgets overall.

And Jake is joined by the author and journalist, Antony Loewenstein, to discuss Channel Ten’s 6PM with George Negus. A “pre-emptive buckle” prevents journalists from spelling out the facts about Israel and Palestine, Loewenstein says — which is why so many programs end up, like 6PM, rehashing the same set of clichéd angles and treatments — despite its claims to be “new and different”.

News Goo is produced by a team of experienced professionals, giving freely of their time and expertise. Like the rest of New Matilda’s coverage, it depends on YOUR SUPPORT! If you would like to see further episodes of News Goo in the future, please make your donation here.

Jake Lynch left his TV career to become Associate Professor and Director of the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Sydney. He is also a member of the Executive Committee of the Sydney Peace Foundation, which staged the Wikileaks event in Sydney Town Hall on Wednesday 16 March.

How many other mainstream American commentators do?

While the West is focused on bombing Libya, Wikileaks’ cables are convulsing the world’s largest democracy:

The Wikileaks’ expose on the cash-for-votes issue paralysed proceedings in Parliament on Tuesday with the Opposition demanding immediate discussion on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s statement on the matter.

The Rajya Sabha witnessed three adjournments and the Lok Sabha one as an aggressive Opposition insisted on taking up the debate straightaway notwithstanding the government’s plea that Finance Bill be taken up first in the Lok Sabha.

Speaker Meira Kumar told Leader of the Opposition Sushma Swaraj that her notice of Breach of Privilege against the Prime Minister was being examined by her.

And more:

Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday said the U.S. need not preach to India on human rights in the wake of its concerns on this issue in his State as reflected in leaked diplomatic cables from an American Consul, accessed by The Hindu through WikiLeaks.

Mr. Modi at the same time noted that the cables had also spoken of him being “incorruptible” and Gujarat being a “progressive” State.

He also said that the Central government should address the issue of U.S. “interference” in the internal affairs of India.

“(Michael) Owen had discussed Gujarat..I looked into his eyes and said America should not give us advice on human rights,” Mr. Modi recalled. Michael. S. Owen was U.S. Consul General in Mumbai when he had a meeting with Mr. Modi in 2006.

“This America should not give us advice on human rights. I am son of India and I know what human rights violations you have done. Good that dialogue is faithfully reproduced,” he told reporters on Tuesday.

It’s important to remember that the image of Washington as a meddling and destructive force is constant through Cablegate. America isn’t a stabilising force but a reckless and bullying one. Goodbye, empire (slowly but surely).

Here’s Julian Assange discussing the Indian case:

Private security firms are now global entities, turning up in the strangest of places. G4S recently announced it was allegedly pulling out of Palestine due to pressure from pro-Palestinian activists. Its record with refugees in Britain is highly troubling.

Next stop for G4S? More government contracts, of course:

Well, it’s only taken a few years to seriously wonder how a British multinational, paid hundreds of millions annually, is so incompetently mismanaging immigration detention centres around Australia and Canberra is now paying them to build more facilities in remote locations.

The glories of privatisation. Can we now have a discussion about placing these semi-prisons of mental trauma back into public hands? Fat chance:

Today’s front-page Australian story:

The former manager of the Christmas Island detention centre wrote to his boss at Serco five months before last week’s riots, urging the company to hire more staff to tackle security and safety failures at the overcrowded facility.

The staffing proposal document written last October by then centre manager, Ray Wiley, urged Serco, which operates all the detention centres, to hire more personnel and “provide proactive intervention rather than reactive damage control”.

The document, obtained by The Australian, details chronic overcrowding at Christmas Island’s main detention centre, including 144 detainees housed in classrooms, 92 in storerooms, 30 in a visiting area and 240 in tents.

In his letter, Mr Wiley, who has since left Serco, claims the detention centre was “typically 15 staff short per day” and says “even if all posts were filled, we would struggle”.

“This in itself does not enable confidence in being able to manage the centre in a controlled and ordered manner, affording a safe environment for staff, clients and visitors to the centre,” he says.

After violent rioting last Thursday night in which parts of the centre were burned to the ground, the Immigration Department asked the Australian Federal Police to take over control of the facility from Serco, which has a $370 million a year contract to run Australia’s detention centres.

Julia Gillard warned yesterday that the asylum-seekers involved in the riots would not go unpunished, saying they should face criminal charges.

After taking charge of security at the problem-plagued centre, the AFP has switched on the electric fences and yesterday patrolled the compound with a tactical police dog to move detainees to their assigned areas.

Some detainees have been refusing to move to the main compounds from the burnt-out remains of the Aqua and Lilac compounds at the edge of the centre.

There are fears up to 20 escaped detainees are camping out in the jungle, eating robber crabs, and yesterday AFP operational commander Chris Lines acknowledged that an official head-count had not been completed. “What I can report is that it was another calm night at the centre, the third calm night in succession,” Deputy Superintendent Lines said.

Serco was reportedly fined more than $4m for contract breaches earlier this year. Rosters obtained by The Australian this month show that on some night shifts since November, there have been fewer than 10 guards in compounds holding about 1600 men.

The Immigration Department has acknowledged to this paper that it has, at different times, asked Serco to increase staff for the safe and secure running of the detention centre. Understaffing is partly a result of the accommodation shortage on Christmas Island: even if Serco could recruit large numbers of extra workers, there is nowhere for them to live. To address this, Serco has tried to recruit residents on the tiny territory. About 100 out of a population of about 1500 work for Serco.

Mr Wiley sent the staffing proposal document to Serco’s then Christmas Island cluster manager on behalf of the detention centre operations team. His employment ended in January after several incidents termed “abatements” that began in November the month after the staffing proposal document was written. “Abatements” are breaches of Serco’s contract with Immigration that attract a fine. They include breaches such as escapes or bureaucratic breaches such as failing to complete client management plans or promptly report incidents.

Bombing Libya is welcomed across the world from so many supposedly well-meaning types who haven’t a clue about what the country is like or what they’re really backing. But hey, Gaddafi is a bad man!

This Haaretz editorial weighs the risks:

While the joint Western and Arab action against Libya’s dictatorial regime has widespread support, it raises a complicated dilemma. Up to now, the populations of Arab states such as Tunisia and Egypt managed on their own to topple their regimes, and set the stage for democratic reform. Furthermore, the revolutionary developments in Yemen, Bahrain, Syria and (two years ago in ) Iran won public legitimacy because they were viewed as authentic civil uprisings which were not assisted by foreign elements.

In Libya, however, the Facebook revolution is liable to turn into the Tomahawk revolution: The intervention of forces from Western states is liable to undermine the legitimacy of civilian movements there and perhaps in other states.

The Israel Lobby co-author Steve Walt blogs eloquently about the now default position of the American establishment. As for “liberals” who hear a few Libyan rebels calling for Western air-strikes and don’t recognise the inherent problems with rushing into a military conflict with no true end goals, get real and learn from history:

Last Wednesday I spoke at an event at Hofstra University, on the subject of “Barack Obama’s Foreign Policy.” The other panelists were former DNC chair and 2004 presidential candidate Howard Dean and longtime Republican campaign guru Ed Rollins. The organizers at Hofstra were efficient and friendly, the audience asked good questions, and I thought both Dean and Rollins were gracious and insightful in their comments. All in all, it was a very successful session.

During the Q & A, I talked about the narrowness of foreign policy debate in Washington and the close political kinship between the liberal interventionists of the Democratic Party and the neoconservatives that dominate the GOP. At one point, I said that “liberal inteventionists are just ‘kinder, gentler’ neocons, and neocons are just liberal interventionsts on steroids.”

Dean challenged me rather forcefully on this point, declaring that there was simply no similarity whatsoever between a smart and sensible person like U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice and a “crazy guy” like Paul Wolfowitz. (I didn’t write down Dean’s exact words, but I am certain that he portrayed Wolfowitz in more-or-less those terms). I responded by listing all the similarites between the two schools of thought, and the discussion went on from there.

I mention this anecdote because I wonder what Dean would say now. In case you hadn’t noticed, over the weekend President Obama took the nation to war against Libya, largely on the advice of liberal interventionists like Ambassador Rice, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and NSC aides Samantha Power and Michael McFaul. According to several news reports I’ve read, he did this despite objections from Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and National Security Advisor Tom Donilon.

The only important intellectual difference between neoconservatives and liberal interventionists is that the former have disdain for international institutions (which they see as constraints on U.S. power), and the latter see them as a useful way to legitimate American dominance. Both groups extol the virtues of democracy, both groups believe that U.S. power — and especially its military power — can be a highly effective tool of statecraft. Both groups are deeply alarmed at the prospect that WMD might be in the hands of anybody but the United States and its closest allies, and both groups think it is America’s right and responsibility to fix lots of problems all over the world. Both groups consistently over-estimate how easy it will be to do this, however, which is why each has a propensity to get us involved in conflicts where our vital interests are not engaged and that end up costing a lot more than they initially expect.

So if you’re baffled by how Mr. “Change You Can Believe In” morphed into Mr. “More of the Same,” you shouldn’t really be surprised. George Bush left in disgrace and Barack Obama took his place, but he brought with him a group of foreign policy advisors whose basic world views were not that different from the people they were replacing. I’m not saying their attitudes were identical, but the similarities are probably more important than the areas of disagreement. Most of the U.S. foreign policy establishment has become addicted to empire, it seems, and it doesn’t really matter which party happens to be occupying Pennsylvania Avenue.

Nice:

Fascinating new book:

Tweets from Tahrir from OR Books on Vimeo.

Australia’s Christmas Island detention centre is in turmoil and controller of the place Serco is woefully incapable of running it. Might we finally see some questions about the privatisation of asylum seekers?

Interesting information from yesterday’s Crikey:

I’m currently on Christmas Island. I have just been speaking with a photojournalist who has been staking out the detention centre. He reports that, at most, 60 refugees were protesting and they only retaliated (with a store of Molotov cocktails) when tear gas was fired at them. He felt that this was in itself retaliation for the refugees making fools of Serco, the company responsible for the centre.  Apparently the ablution block and the guards’ sleeping quarters (60 beds) were torched. The reporter was expecting a cargo of tear gas and other weapons to be flown in.

They’re everywhere at the moment. Hawks and so-called doves eager to show that butcher Gaddafi a lesson. How dare you massacre your own people (er, with Western-supplied weapons, but let’s not focus on such details)?

Tonight’s ABC TV Q & A program featured five guests who all backed war against Libya. They all spoke in generalities and had absolutely no idea who the West was backing over there or the real purpose of the conflict. Putting aside the fact that the show didn’t feature even one critical perspective on the conflict, it’s a sad reflection on public debate that both conservatives and a leading Greens MP all mouth from the same song-sheet; attack now and ask questions later.

To be sure, military intervention isn’t a black and white question (Monday’s Guardian editorial outlines the issues) but the speed with which even the “liberal” press (here’s Britain’s Independent editorial) are endorsing the supposedly humanitarian reasons behind the war are revealing. This is really about Libyan civilians? Or geo-strategic posturing at a time when Western influence in the Muslim world is declining? Or securing oil reserves? Perhaps it’s really all about Bosnia. And American hypocrisy is startling (but unsurprising). And what about the lack of US Congressional approval? Is Barack Obama simply a king who issues order?

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown explains in the Independent the kind of ethical, moral and political decisions behind the new Arab war:

Arab bloggers are totally sceptical and some furious that the UN and Arab League has validated what is an oil grab by interested, over-armed nations. It is all to do with fuel security – nothing, they say, NOTHING to do with human rights and safeguarding civilians. I believe there is some honourable intent in the battle against Gaddafi but behind that only big, big greed. My ambiguity thus only multiplies.

Look also at who are the people most excited, nay delirious, as the skies over Libya turn black and orange? Worse than tabloid cowboys waving their patriotic guns are fanatical “liberal imperialists” – excitable journalists, think-tank warriors wanting action, Foreign Office wonks, horribly hubristic commentators – jumping at any chance to catch a conflict and bend it to Western will and control. The failure of Iraq, instead of chastening them, has made them frantic for one that will bring glorious victory. M. Junaid Levesque-Alam, an astute observer of the modern Muslim world, blogs: “Some Western pundits have started exercising their shoulders to once again take up the White Man’s Burden.” Read the well-honed thoughts of ex- British diplomat Robert Cooper and you understand how they long to return to a colonial world order with a modern twist.