Internment camp supply-chains and Infrastructure

Mandatory detention is one of the most damaging aspects of Australian government policy. Major contractors in the supply network that supports mandatory detention include Serco, IHMS, Save the Children and Transfield Services. Contracts with the Salvation Army ($74 million – Nauru) and G4S ($80.5 million – Manus Island) come to an end this month.

Transfield Services Limited, an ASX-listed company, notified the ASX on 29 January that, “subject to completion of contract negotiations, the Company will be responsible for Garrison Support Services and Welfare at both Manus Island and Nauru.”

“Code of Conduct”

[Here is what has been circulating as the draft Code of Conduct. pdf NB: see note below]

The new “Code of Behaviour” for asylum seekers in the community on Bridging “E” visas — complete with the invocation of miscegenation — appears designed to incite broader sections of the populace, outside the defence forces, to violence against asylum seekers. As Bridging Visa conditions become harsher, with no work and conditional income support, the Minister has already signalled what kind of ‘anti-social behaviour’ — such as gatherings of bridging visa holders in apartment blocks — will constitute a breach of the ‘Code of Conduct’ and which can result in a cut to income support or being sent offshore after visa cancellation. The more impoverished people become, the more they will have to resort to informal and ‘illegal’ economies to survive. The ‘Code of Behaviour’ then becomes a fait accompli — a standard designed for and compelling breach — and then giving license to the consequences that follow for asylum seekers. The ‘Code of Conduct’ vests power over asylum seekers’ lives directly in the hands of the Australian populace — the very same people whom the Minister predicts will be aggrieved by asylum seekers engaging in ‘anti-social acts’ by gathering in large groups in one-another’s homes. The Minister’s attempt to dissolve certain categories of Protection visa and make these the subject of his personal powers is a further attempt to dictate and curtail the flow of asylum seekers into the country along racial lines. Reposing power with the Minister for determing claims under ‘complementary protection’ simply enables the Minister to grant visas to people from ethnic backgrounds that constitute his key constituencies.

[written by Sanmati Verma et al]

The Australian Defence League and the Australian Navy

“Who are the Australian Defence League,” by Andrew Fleming:

The recent revelation that members of the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) responsible for carrying out “Operation Sovereign Borders” are also members or supporters of the anti-Muslim Australian Defence League (ADL) has caused a great deal of embarrassment to the authorities. It has also generated no small amount of concern among the broader public. 

[read the rest of the article here]

Command Structure, Operation Sovereign Borders

 

This is an organisation chart of the command structure of Operation Sovereign Borders, as far as it has been possible to ascertain. [Click on the image & open in another tab to see the full size]

Operational Matters, Working Paper

This last few weeks has provided a quick lesson in the myth and mechanics of border policing in and beyond Australia. Below is a Working Paper on ‘operational matters’ in the related campaigns. It is meant to provoke a focused discussion about how to bring about change. [An earlier version of this was distributed on January 26, 2013.]

Summary:

1. Violence is integral to the policies of Operation Sovereign Borders and mandatory detention. That violence can only be justified by giving credence to and encouraging racism.
2. Successive Australian government policies are a global problem that require a range of global responses.
3. The subcontracted, multi-agency character of internment, deterrence and expulsions makes everyone complicit. It also makes active non-compliance and refusal possible at each step in the supply-chain.
4. Campaigns in support of asylum seekers and refugees have to confront their own “positional errors” and “unintentional-but-repeated” reiterations of colonial sovereignty.

[Read the rest of the discussion paper here]

Antiracism – Alerta, Antifa

Antifa is the name given to anti-fascist networks around the world since the rise of fascism in Europe. It is above all a call — an alert — for the self-defense of communities targeted by neo-Nazis and the far Right when the state either no longer serves to protect them or is undertaking such attacks itself.

It involves three dimensions: practical, on-the-ground solidarity of diverse communities; scrutiny of neo-Nazi and far Right organizing efforts; and longer-term attention to the preparation of the ground for the legitimation of violence.

There is only one aim to antifa actions: autonomous self-defense undertaken for and by diverse communities, in the defense of that diversity.