PNG asylum-seekers are set to face their attackers again

Transcript

The same guards responsible for the killing of an asylum seeker in Papua New Guinea, and the brutal beating of 77 others, are set to be re-introduced to the compound.

Ian Rintoul, the spokesperson of the Refugee Coalition, says since the attack on February the 17th, none of the G4S or the PNG police have been allowed back into the camp.

He told Alex Perrottet it's absurd that attackers and victims will be put together again, and the managers of the facility are pressuring transferees to accept the arrangement by depriving them of the usual quantity and quality of food.

IAN RINTOUL:  Well I think it's important to understand just how fearful people are, their preparedness to actually physically resist if they are attacked again and the way they see it is that you've got the G4S managers and Immigration Department in Australia talking about opening the gates to the people who attacked them on the 17th of February. I think the potential for there to be very serious clashes between local staff and the asylum seekers is very high.  It doesn't seem like the Immigration Department in Australia has got any appreciation of either the scale of what happened on the 17th of February, the degree of fear of the asylum seekers and the consequences; should those responsible for the attacks again being given access to the people they attacked only two weeks ago

ALEX PERROTTET: Now what they've also given the asylum seekers is a letter that sort of warns them, those not included in any prospective riots, I guess, how to behave if they do come into the compound to suppress a riot and that they are telling people who are peaceful by putting their hands over their heads and crouch on the ground.  Could you go into what content that letter was and how you are reacting to it?

IR: The letter says that PNG police are going to be introduced into the compound, there will be siren warnings that will go off, and if the PNG police come in to a so call riot situation and people aren't involved in that, to sit on the ground with their hands on their heads and G4S staff will escort them to a place of safety. Well it's the most absurd nonsense imaginable when it's quite well established now that PNG police and G4S are the people who attacked them.  They brutally attacked them when there was a protest, they split heads and broke peoples hands. To tell someone to sit down and put your hands on your head so the G4S take you to safety is tantamount to saying sit down, put your hands on your head and you will be a passive and defenseless victim for the people who use rocks, poles and knives to cut throats and bash people two weeks ago.  I mean it is an indication of the complete lack of contact with reality, the degree of denial and the willingness for the authorities in control of the Manus detention centre, including the Immigration Department in Australia are complicit with the attacks that are taking place; and are now saying we will make you vulnerable again, so it's astounding that they would produce such a document.