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April 2017 Refugee Action Collective Forum: [from left] Aziz from Manus (Skype), S. Ravi Nagaveeran (Nauru), Lucy Honan (Refugee Action Collective), Lynne Elworthy (Nurse)

Replaced my name with a number. Don’t want to leave our country if we can live free.  Men risk journey in the deep water.  Carried lots of dream seeds with me and now I have none. Last four days… no water and no food.  No life, no food and no hope.

We are not here to steal. We are not Captain Cook. Save their life in the water and killing them on the land. 29 April he died [friend set himself on fire]. Keep faith and don’t lose hope.  This morning I thought: “I want to kill myself.” I am nothing here.

Knock the back door, they didn’t break the door, they couldn’t find their way to the front door. We never wants to come to Australia only want to come free… to gets out of this hell… this human dumping ground.

I used my time writing, dreaming, giving good things… we are not your enemies. Call us – we are your neighbours, call us we are your friends, together we can make Australia great.

I still have to say my boat arrival number now. [not known by his name]

~Ravi

Activist – gives me a power, a strength, to have have that.

Australian Guantanamo Bay.
Name and codes that they are using are the same.
Now is the time for all Australians to know what is going on there.

Oct 2013: There was shooting, gates were open.
Staff who are paid to protect us ran away…
in this instance their job was to “take care of ourselves first”
We did not know if it was a drill, practice or something else.

April 2017: Someone from the local defense force, drunk, came to where
we were playing sport. We told him: “Go away”.
Two hours later there was firing at every angle on the centre.

We had enough suffering. We had enough human rights violations. Human beings like you but dehumanise you.  I don’t want much – shelter and some chance to live free.

Doors impregnable.  Only one option left: Risk life on the oceans…
survive = hero, drown = feed the fish. At least your soul is at peace.
Not heroes… criminals.
But if you look at the conditions for criminals in Australia
they are treated better than we are.
Our rights have been taken away.
My name has been taken away that my parents gave me. I’m am QNK002.

People need to know the truth.
We need people to write. Be one voice to fight for this policy.
We never forget. We very proud. We pray for you day and night to have the strength and the power for this policy to change.  For the day we can get our freedoms.

~ Aziz

[in response to Peter’s Duttons account of a child being brought into the Manus detention Centre]

One gate… another gatehouse… another gatehouse…
no one can go in that isn’t staff or a refugee.
“Walk of shame”

“What crime did I do to put me in jail for four years?”
Australia’s criminal system is for guilty people. Refugees have done nothing.  If an Australian prisoner is sick they get seen at a clinic > ambulance > hospital > ambulance > another hospital. On Manus – need a rubber stamp to get off Manus and it doesn’t come in time. Australian prisoners get visitors… see family.  On Manus no one comes unless working with refugees.

Built 2 new prisons on Manus. Spent billions to keep them on Manus. “Mum, if you want people to listen to you talk about the men on Manus you have to talk to their pockets.

No money, no papers, no place to go.
It’s a cage, a concrete cage.
No toilets, no water, no beds, no blankets.

Waste – serving no useful purpose. So much talent in there. COuld have worked, Australia could have something useful for the money they have spent. Really good sportsmen, rep Australia in weightlifting, Socceroos, cricket – this is the time they would be developing that talent that they’re wasting.

I knew it would be in the article but not that I’d be named. I wasn’t being brave I was just speaking what was in my heart.
{Aren’t you afraid of going to jail?}
My kids are growing up. I’m old enough. What difference does it make?

~ Lynne

IHMS left Manus? Still here. Three weeks ago, big problem, with no warning stopped working. Had problem with Health MInister of PNG – refused to renew contract. IHMS didn’t hand over all the files.  “What sort of medicine are you taking?”  We don’t know the names… nervous… I’m the patient… I don’t know.  Contract renewed for 3 months until the end of June – after that we don’t know, especially with medical files.  Could get ‘lost’ we don’t know. Not good health cover. System designed to hurt you mentally, physically… “Send a message… send you back…” mosquito bite like a ball (panadol and water), headaches (panadol and water), diarrhea (panadol and water), back ache (panadol and water)… we have these where we come from but we didn’t know it could fix everything! What we suffer from? Negligence. Like Faisal, every 3 days for 6 months I write for him. No trust, interpreter not interpreting everything.  Kicked out. “You’re not sick. Please stop coming here. Sick and tired of seeing your complaint coming every day”. Faisal asks community for help. [petition] …more than half the community signed. Taken to isolation. “If anything happens to me, take care of my kids. I’m going to that place. I don’t know what will happen there.” Two days later, heard he had passed away. IHMS designed to destroy us mentally and physically by the system.

~ Aziz

Magic panadol? Super water?
Let me know where to get that.

~ Ravi

No paper trail on the computer.
Nursing someone to get better to go back to Nauru – what role can the unions play?
Not sign discharge papers? Sent back 24-hours later.
Most unethical situation I have ever been in.
Told: “You’re  earning your money out of our blood.”
You would go there as a volunteer if you were allowed but you’re not.
You have to get paid to get in.

The Australian population doesn’t want to believe you’re telling the truth. Need doctors and nurses who have established trust to use their platform to advocate.

Despite everything these men are standing tall, standing straight.
Superhuman resiliency – respect to the men, past and present.

~Lynn