Baxter to close?

Currently hundreds of Australian soldiers are camped above the Baxter Detention Centre in tents waiting for the last detainees to leave so they can move in and take it back. They are training at Port Augusta for deployment to Afghanistan.

The Baxter Detention Centre was originally an army base called El Alamein until 2002 when the Immigration Department took it over to imprison asylum seekers and their children. There are nine compounds. Only one compound is in use today as the numbers of people detained have dwindled. The last statistic, April 2007, was 18 in Baxter and 10 in Port Augusta Housing Detention Centre. Two are woman. Not all are asylum seekers. Some are people transferred from the Prison system and waiting to be removed from Australia.

Millions of dollars are being spent to maintain this inhumane place. Some of these asylum seekers are desperately ill, having attempted suicide. They come from countries known for their brutality and lack of human rights. Some have waited years for a decision.

Closing Baxter is a political decision. The soldiers will have to wait, as the asylum seekers have waited.

Will the soldiers feel the ghosts of the broken spirits of the hundreds of Afghan refugees who were imprisoned in these compounds? One day refugees locked up in Baxter, the next Australian soldiers training there to go off to war to create more refugees.

Detention Camps Closed:

1. Woomera
2. Port Hedland
3. Curtin
4. Manus Island

Pamela Curr