The terrifying sadness of Baxter
From the compounds at Detention Camp Baxter there is no view of sunrise or sunset - no view of the horizon at all; only one unchanging view, across a square �quadrangle�, that of the buildings enclosing the square.
The sense of isolation, a lack of any visual stimulation, the oppressive encompassment, the spy cameras - an abyss plunging to deepest depression - made ChilOut Coordinator Kate Gauthier�s flesh creep.
Kate paid a Christmas/New Year visit to Baxter, on a Uniting Church/ChilOut/RAR and general sympathisers initiative, with nine other activists to investigate Baxter and its facilities � the �mood� - of the new �centre�, which is divided into four sections, each of three compounds, including B3 where so-called �trouble-makers� are held in isolation and allowed no outside communication,� Kate said.*
�The encircling 3000 volt fence, the intimidating eye of the cameras, featureless walls that block out any view, unable to see from one compound into another, unable to see the horizon, you have no frame of reference to prove that you are anywhere in the world, except for a small patch of sky.�
�With no traffic between compounds allowed and all doors within the camp operated automatically from a central control station, it�s altogether a destroying, pressure cooker environment.�
�In the few days we were there visiting, mornings and afternoons, we each felt an attack of �stir craziness�, yet it�s �home� indefinitely for about 350 people, including at present 40 children, from infants to young teens.�
�At best, without the high security features, Baxter might be tolerable for a few weeks for initial health and security checks, but as someone�s home for months � years � of detention, it is terrifying,� Kate said.
�Baxter is a frightening vision into the strange mentality of this Australian Government and what it thinks is an acceptable way to treat fellow human beings.�
But Baxter, she said, at least served to over-turn DIMIA�s lies. �Once or twice children from Baxter have been allowed to go out for a swim, guarded by ACM staff. For DIMIA this becomes a claim of universal, regular swimming outings - Rubbish,� Kate said.
�Detainees enjoy DvDs and play stations: oh really! The truth is there�s one video playing device provided per compound of up to 80 people, in a common room. A few have a TV in their rooms provided by outside friends. Many things in detention centres have been donated or organised by volunteers who had to fight damn hard to be allowed to give them, and then DIMEA turns around and claims they�re providing a 5-star service! For god�s sake, we had to take underwear into women who�d been given wrong sizes and told to make do.�
�Bluntly, as a matter of immediate urgency the government must release all children and their complete families from detention � and not in the fashion some women and children are ostensibly �freed� at present.�
�It�s just a pretence. At the Woomera housing project they�re in fenced-off houses; they can�t come and go as they please, if they want to go shopping a guard accompanies them; visitors are restricted and males 14 years and older are forbidden to live there; and the age of dependants means that there are instances of families being split, with older children continuing in detention with their fathers, unable to live with the rest of the family. It�s insane,� Kate said.
�Teachers for the children are poorly organized and not necessarily trained and lessons are haphazard - a bit like the medical care. A man suffered a broken foot, but it was 13 days before it was set!�
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An infuriating obstacle for outsiders, and a painful impediment for those in captivity, was the limits imposed on visitors at Baxter - the need to apply to visit 72-hours in advance, the requirement that detainees have their visitors� names on a list, otherwise no entr�e; numbers restricted at first to just 13, including the detainees being visited, subsequently eased off to about 20; the exclusion of other detainees from casual access to the visitors� area (as for example at Villawood); and the distance of the camp from Adelaide � a four hour drive.
Kate Gauthier said Baxter presented a bureaucrat�s bureaucrat with a paradise - virtually unlimited powers of rejection, indifference or misdirection, or all three; complete unaccountability, answerable to no-one. �And it�s no surprise that they exercise it,� Kate said.
�But to be fair, we discovered during our time there that the visits officers were generally decent human beings who went to great lengths to make our visits go well and regarded the detainees sympathetically. As a job for some Port Augusta and Port Pirie locals, it was eye-widening; whereas many old-hand ACM guards �gifted� with streaks of cruelty and malice regard and treat the detainees as criminals and low-lifes.
�The most harrowing case we struck at Baxter however was one of silence - total silence: a Palestinian woman in her early thirties, a mother of three young children, the last born 8-months ago. She has been in detention three years. She has been silent and catatonic since the birth of the baby. So distressed and terrified of the guards is she that they have to cover their uniform shirts if they have to go to her or near her. It�s heart-breaking. She will probably never fully recover. Now that�s something to Ruddock�s credit, isn�t it.�
Moments in Jon Steiner�s account of the activists� Baxter visit make a note to finish on:
# We visited X and her two sons. X is a very beautiful and quiet woman with dark, sad eyes. Her older son, Y,is 13. He has dark circles under his eyes. He said he only sleeps two hours a night, There is no one his age there for him to hang around with. He seems old beyond his years and is mainly concerned with looking after his mother and his younger brother, 4. The older boy told us: �One time, my little brother saw a bedsheet and said he was going to use it to hang himself. Also, he takes pens and pretends he�s cutting his wrists.� The 14-year-old son said that when they were at Woomera he was saving up his �points� wages to buy his mother a pair of earrings he�d seen in a catalogue they were allowed to buy from. The earrings cost $50. He had almost saved up enough when they were transferred to Baxter. His savings were not transferred; he lost all his money. Essentially, ACM robbed a 13-year-old boy of forty dollars. He told us this story of defeat with no expression at all. His mother stared at the ground.
# � a guard came in and told the father that he had a package in Property, so he would have to leave a bit early to pick it up. . He stood and shook hands with a few people. When he got to me we shook hands and then hugged. He held me to him, kissed my neck, then broke down into uncontrollable sobs. We clung to each other for a minute, then he ran from the room. I fell into a chair and everyone sat in silence, staring at their feet for a long time. I thought about how this man made the difficult decision to uproot his whole family from their lives and bring them to this country � about the persecution they must have faced to make them leave everything behind and venture into the unknown, and about how terrible and powerless and responsible he must feel for their having been incarcerated for three years. Today was his son�s 18th birthday - his third birthday in detention.
# I went into town to get some empty boxes to put donations in. On the way back I noticed a sign that said �Historic Water Tower.� I followed it and found on a hill an old water tower converted into a lookout, so I parked and climbed the stairs inside the metal drum of the tower. There were metal grilles over the windows but in one direction a perfect view of Baxter, framed by the expanse of nothingness around it. It seemed appropriate to be looking at it through a metal grill. After a while I went home. At sunset I handed everyone a can of beer and told them to get in the van for a surprise. I took them to the water tower. We had our drink up there, looking at Baxter. At night the place is lit up like the Fourth of July. Screaming bright lights out there in the desert!.
Download a copy of this media release: www.chilout.org/files/BaxterSadness.doc