The Pacific Island of Nauru is a tiny lump of guano close to Australia. It was administered by Australia between World War 1 and 1968. It is only 21 sq. kms and over 80 per cent of that has been destroyed by phosphate mining. There is no natural water source and electricity is unreliable.

10,000 people live there. 300 of them in an Australian refugee detention centre.

After the so-called Tampa crisis, two years ago, the Australian government needed to somewhere to put the people it stopped at sea, left sitting in the sun on a ship for days and finally towed to Nauru.

The Nauruan government has been offered substantial sums of money, Aus$30m, to host the detention centre for the Tampa refugees. That way the Australian government can say they never entered Australian soil and thus aren't Australia's problem.

Nauru gets another $3 million a year in aid and $2.5 for the next ten years as some compensation for having their island mined away.

But despite this, there is a strong feeling that it will not be able to sustain its population for very much longer. The Australian government has gone so far as to suggest that one solution could be to give Australian citizenship to all Nauruans or possibly give them an island off the Australian coast.

It seems pretty clear that this sudden concern for the people of Nauru has a lot to do with the need to keep the detention centre there.

This is even more obvious when in the middle of the current hunger strike by detainees on Nauru, Australian Immigration Minister, Amanda Vanstone, says it's not our problem. She went on to say "It's not in Australian territory, it's on Nauru and being run by other people. If someone doesn't want to be there, they can go home. Nobody likes to see people who are feeling that they have to take what appear to be drastic measures in order to protest, but people will do what they want to do."

The hunger strike on Nauru now includes 35 men, some of whom have been refusing food and water since 10 December.. In recent days 14 have been hospitalised, with six then discharging themselves. Several have been urinating blood.

Even the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) has become involved. Spokesman Ron Redmond called on the government to treat the detainees on Nauru with humanity.

"(The hunger strike is) symptomatic of a general degree of despair that must be addressed with a view to responding humanely to what is becoming a human tragedy," Mr Redmond said.
"Until such time as conditions improve in the areas of origin of these persons, UNHCR appeals to all concerned authorities to treat them with humanity and redouble efforts to find a dignified and proper solution which does not involve continued, prolonged detention in harsh conditions, including of children."

There are 93 children in detention on Nauru, just under half of the 200 children in detention across Australia. With pyschartrists now making regular public statements about the effects of detention on these children's mental health, there is increasing pressure to at least free them.

The majority of children in detention have suicidal thoughts and nearly half attempt some from of self-harm. The psychological damage is likely to be permanent with children learning a whole series of anti-social behaviours. These are a direct result of the detention, not just the traumas they may have experienced escaping their homes.

One family in Adelaide have had to be taken to a closed psychiatric ward where they are kept under 24 hour guard, at a cost already of over $1m.

But the government has gone to great lengths to keep children in detention. Vanstone has said families will not be released because it sends a message that people need only bring children with them to avoid detention.

The Australian government's border protection laws and its detention of refugees are becoming untenable. The ALP, the Greens and even the Australian Democrats have all called for at least the release of children. On Nauru it seems likely that the hunger strike will continue and that people are possibly going to die. In detention centres around Australia people continue to self-harm. But there is no sign of a back down.

In fact the government's solution seems to be to step up its deportations. Most deportations have so far happened from outside the main centres and have been people returned to Afghanistan and Iran. Reports coming back from both those countries are that the men returned fear for their lives and already a number have been killed or in the case of Iran arrested on arrival. This also, it seems, is not the Australian government's problem.

The way round it for the government has been to, as far as possible, bully people into returning "voluntarily". Often refugees do not want the publicity about their names, so they accept this. They also often feel as if they have no hope or are unable to contact legal help. Once returned, some have been given bills by the Australian government for the cost of their detention!

It seems possible that with a general election on the cards next year, and the fact that the ALP seems to have shifted its policy slightly, in line with a change in public opinion and increasing sympathy for refugees, that there may be some small concessions.

What the refugee rights' movement has to do is up the pressure on the government. Yes, releasing children from detention would be a good start, but no one should be locked up behind the razor wire. There must be no deportations, voluntary or otherwise. And just voting in an ALP government is not going to solve all the problems. In fact it will just be the beginning of a new fight to free the refugees.

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