Ruddock Hits Out Over Riot, Escape
The Sunday Age
Sunday March 31, 2002
Ten detainees from the Woomera Detention Centre were still at large last night as police and the Federal Government blamed refugee activists for inciting a mass breakout and violent clashes.
A total of 47 asylum seekers - or one in seven of those held in the remote outback compound - escaped on Friday night after protesters stormed the centre and passed bolt cutters and other tools to detainees.
Detainees told The Sunday Age yesterday that more than 100 detainees were involved in a long and violent confrontation with Australasian Correctional Management officers after the breakout. Women and children were tear-gassed and one detainee was left with a suspected broken arm, it was claimed.
Detainees in the high-security Oscar compound were handcuffed and left in the table-tennis room for most of Friday night and early yesterday as guards feared they might attempt a second breakout.
An Immigration Department spokesman said more than 30 people - 14 detainees and 17 security staff - were injured in Friday night's clashes between police, ACM staff, protesters and detainees.
South Australian police said yesterday they had so far arrested 37 of the escapees, including two who managed to reach the town of Port Augusta, 180 kilometres away.
The Immigration Minister, Philip Ruddock, said the behaviour of the protesters who incited Friday night's riot was inexcusable. He said they had trespassed on Commonwealth land, breached fences, incited detainees and aided their escape.
"None of these are incidents that can be taken lightly," he said.
"They were clearly premeditated. They were clearly designed to create havoc within the detention centre and the results are there to be seen."
Police searched a number of cars belonging to protesters in the early hours of yesterday as attempts were made to whisk away some of the Afghan, Iraqi and Iranian detainees hiding at a temporary tent-city protest site.
One group, which included up to eight escapees, was stopped at a nearby roadhouse.
Another group of six detainees and two protesters was arrested when their hire car got bogged on the outskirts of Woomera.
Police said 20 protesters had been arrested for helping detainees and would face charges of harbouring escapees, an offence which carries a maximum penalty of four years' jail.
Yesterday, several hundred protesters again massed outside Woomera's main gate, while a smaller group pushed through an external perimeter wire gate and walked about 200 metres inside before retreating. Four of the protesters were arrested.
Mr Ruddock warned that detainees who escaped from Woomera could face jail terms or other sanctions. Their actions could also affect their asylum claims.
"Australia is under no obligation to give protection to people who commit serious criminal offences," he said.
Mr Ruddock said most detainees at Woomera had either been rejected as asylum seekers and were awaiting deportation, or were waiting on the outcomes of various appeals.
Australian Federal Police were leading an investigation to decide what charges would be laid against detainees and protesters, Mr Ruddock said.
Detainees told The Sunday Age by phone last night that Friday night's confrontation within the centre had erupted after detainees escaped. At one stage, ACM sent two detainees to the Mike and November compounds to help calm the situation - but it made little difference.
"It was no use - the fighting detainees thought that if some could escape, they all could and they kept on fighting," a detainee said.
Since the riot, the atmosphere inside Woomera has been particularly tense, with constant searches of compounds for weapons and unauthorised mobile phones. Detainees said they were constantly being moved from compound to compound to thwart any further escape attempts.
Detainees said they had been warned that if they ventured near the security fences they would be beaten back. ``We have been told by ACM that the protesters will go home after Easter but we will not be going anywhere and we will have to live with the consequences," one said.
South Australian police, who yesterday took control of policing at the protest site at the request of Australian Protective Service guards, described protesters' actions as "clearly dangerous and violent".
A spokeswoman for the group No-one is Illegal, Andrea Maksimovic, said while protest organisers had not expected detainees would break out, their choice to jump the barricades had to be respected.
She said many of the escapees told protesters they would rather die than go back inside Woomera
About 700 of a predicted 2000 protesters have converged on the isolated South Australian centre since Thursday for a four-day demonstration calling on the Federal Government to end its policy of mandatory detention of asylum seekers.
© 2002 The Sunday Age