JOHN TROY is a long-time local GP and a former state Labor MP for Fremantle. In this week’s THINKING ALLOWED he argues Australia has a moral obligation to look after people it has helped cause to be refugees.

In preparation for the election which has now been called for September 7, the policy attitudes towards ”boat people” has degenerated into a contest of Rudd proving he can be more harsh on this question than Abbott. Neither policy of sending people to camp life in another country, or returning them on the boats on which they have arrived, has any semblance of dealing with refugees.

These people have become refugees as a result of our being part of the destruction of the countries from which they have come.

We do have a history of treating refugees differently and humanely from which we can learn and emulate. When I was a young boy an incident occurred which illustrates the issues very well.

In 1948 a boat called the “Papachristidis Vassilios” lost power four days’ sailing time from Fremantle. On board were 2000 refugees and a crew of 50 or so. A May Day distress message was broadcast as the boat had lost power and urgently needed help. The distress call was received in Fremantle, the nearest port, and its first destination in Australia.

Unseaworthy

Only one tug in the harbour, the “Yuco”, was sufficiently powerful to undertake the task even though it was relatively unseaworthy. This vessel was a coal-fired steam boat which then needed bunkering and providoring for such a task, a process which can take many hours. The intended journey in good conditions would take at least four days to arrive at the boat which had broken down and, at the minimum, six days to return with the vessel under tow.

Fortunately, a British flag merchant vessel, the Chanpara, had also picked up the distress signal and was about four hours’ sailing time from the stricken boat. When it arrived it quickly became clear it would have to take the boat in tow to avoid a serious tragedy. The “Papa”, itself a coal-fired steam boat, only had four days’ supply of fresh water on board for its boilers, the refugees and the crew. The Chanpara was not originally destined for Fremantle but did indeed arrive here complete with the stricken vessel, refugees and crew, four days later.

Some of the refugees stayed in WA and the rest were forwarded on other boats to other destinations in Australia. The boat itself remained in Fremantle for more than one month being repaired as there were serious faults in the boat which made it unseaworthy. Apart from the repairs to the engine room which had caused the loss of power in the first place, the davits on which the lifeboats would be swung over the side were rusted, making it impossible to use in the event the boat may have had to have been abandoned.

Negligence

It was in such a parlous state it should never have been allowed to make the journey from Europe to Australia. Such negligence borders on the criminal. Frankly, it was left to the trade unions in Fremantle to reveal the situation and have a humane outcome for the refugees and crew.

Many of our workers who were involved in the repairs, and some of whom would have been in the tug crew had it been put to sea for the rescue journey, were outraged by the condition of this boat. They were even more outraged when most of the crew told them they had not received any pay for many months.

The port union, the “Coastal Dock, River and Harbour Workers’ Union” insisted the ship be appropriately prepared before it was allowed to leave. They also insisted the crew receive the wages they were owed. Numbers of the crew decided that they would like to stay here. They were made welcome and joined our community. The secretary of this union was Patrick (Paddy) Troy.

The refugees were people, who for the most part came from the “Displaced Persons Camps” which had been set up in the aftermath of the Second Great Imperialist War in Europe. Many millions of people lost their lives in this conflict including more than 20 million in the USSR. The total death toll would have been in excess of 40 million with associated destruction of systems of housing and social infrastructure such as water supply and transport.

Fast forward to 2013

The United Nations places an estimate of 45 million refugees in today’s circumstances. The double tragedy is, in large measure, they have come from the countries that have been invaded and destroyed by “The Coalition of The Willing”.

Today’s refugees come from Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Somali, Palestine and now Syria. In Iraq more than one million have been killed by invading forces, four million are refugees in their own country, one million have crossed the border into Jordan and one million into Syria. More than 4000 tons of the radioactive substance, so-called spent uranium, has been dumped on Iraq since 2003 giving it a radiation profile which far exceeds the radiation load dumped on Hiroshima 68 years ago this week. It should be noted it will continue to cause death and deformity, especially in children for the next 300,000 years.

No humanity

Having been a party to the destruction, and creation of the refugees, as a nation, our political leaders now say to the refugees, “get back to where you came from”. There is no humanity, Christian nor otherwise, of those leaders who display themselves in religious cloaks and have such policies.

Dumping these human beings on Papua New Guinea, Nauru or any other poor country using the pretext they were not invited to Australia is, to say the least, inhumane. Our pretext of having the “Responsibility to Protect” (R2P) to justify the interference and destruction in the countries from whence the refugees have come now stands out as the completely cynical cover for grasping after and controlling the natural resources of other people.

Shame on those so-called leaders and their supporters for these disgraceful policies.