The Marsh Birds (15 page)

ALIENS PROTECTION AUTHORITY:
REVIEW HEARING.
… The applicant is clearly uncomfortable speaking about his family and completely unable to talk about what happened in the crossing from Iraq into Syria, which involved a marsh crossing and probably a journey by road, as indicated also in his AID interviews. I do not find his testimony weakened by this. He was twelve at the time and, although there is no psychological assessment on file, his discomfort and silence and, in earlier hearings, evasiveness, can be explained as a reaction to trauma, which is at the least a reasonable assumption, given that no member of his family was with him in Syria or is contactable now.
    I find it distasteful to suggest that a child of twelve was so deeply embroiled in crime that he has taken these lengths to bury a former identity when a simpler explanation stands out: the applicant lost his family and cannot speak about it. He was a child.
    I questioned him about his evidence that his family had not suffered persecution, as is deduced from his first interview hearing. He said he was never asked this. I have checked the record and he is correct. He was asked if any member of his family had been imprisoned or tortured or killed. He said that his oldest cousin disappeared, simply did not come home from work one day, shortly before the two families left. He said that his father and his uncle did not show themselves on the street and stayed hidden in the family home for about a month before the family fled, and he was cautioned to say nothing at school, and to say, if asked, that his father was away in the south on business for some months and would return before Eid with presents. I find no reason to disbelieve this evidence. Persecution begins at some point. I accept that until shortly before they left, this family had probably not suffered significant persecution. I also accept that at age twelve, and the baby of the two combined families, the applicant would not have known why or known all the background of his parents' concerns. I reiterate, he was a child.
    I find that he is a refugee for the purposes of the 1951 Convention vis-a-vis Iraq. It remains to be determined whether he had effective protection in a third country, in this instance Syria, where he lived for two years under a false name. His evidence is that he was taken in by what seems to have been a shady character who charged him exorbitant prices but fed, clothed and sheltered him, and, ultimately, for a fee, put him in contact with a people smuggler and arranged his trip to Indonesia and Australia.
    From the description given of the family home in Baghdad, this was a wealthy family. The language assessment of the applicant's speech also suggests this. He has had an education in a good urban primary school, as he himself testifies. I do not, however, accept that the applicant was able to secrete the money he claims he was carrying and live off it for two years and pay a people smuggler. From his evidence I believe he worked in Syria. His evidence is that he did not: that the only work he could have got would have been ‘shameful work'. I believe he has made a story out of his time in Syria that is more appealing to him than his actual experiences there, but I do not find that this discredits his testimony overall. He was fourteen when he arrived in Australia, still a child, and his story overall is consistent with his age and the things which, in the absence of a psychological assessment and physical examination, it is possible to at least speculate he has experienced.
    I do not think his testimony as to his age is unconvincing and differ on this point from the hearing officer. He appears before me as a sixteen-year-old boy who knows when his birthday is and when the birthdays of all members of his family are, including his parents. Unlike many Iraqi families, his family seems to have made much of birthdays, and to have used western and Islamic calendars. He is able to consistently give the full names of his sister, cousins and parents when giving such trivial information. He has no problem saying how old he was when particular events took place in his country and answers this kind of question with an easy, frank and open manner. I am satisfied that he is who he says he is and that his stated age is correct.
    Did he have effective protection in a safe third country? He states that, in hindsight, he believes his family to have been a major political target and that he would be very afraid to return ‘as a man' to Syria. His evidence on the dangers of Syria to him personally is, however, hazy. He fled Syria when his friend told him that ‘bad people' were after him. He knows nothing else. He was told by his father to never reveal his real name in Syria and so lived there under a false name, but he does not know why. He didn't even tell his friend his real name but stated his real name as soon as he arrived in Australia. He never went to UNHCR offices in Syria, as he says he ‘didn't think about being a refugee'. His friend in Syria, a ‘businessman' of about fifty-five years of age, was his adviser and organised the trip with people smugglers, but the applicant insists that this was paid with his family's money. He does not know how much. He does not know how much money he had but ‘almost all of it' was spent in the two years and on the people smugglers. It is worthy of note that he has more than $10 000 US dollars with him in Australia. He says this was put in his backpack by his friend and comes from his family's money.
    Syria has been deemed to be safe for Iraqi returnees who have no particular interest to the Iraqi Government. Given that the applicant was very young when he was last in Syria, and lived there more or less safely for two years, on DFAT and consular advice he is very unlikely to represent a political target. I concur with the AID hearing officer in rejecting the claim that the applicant was in personal danger in Syria, although for the record I am convinced that he genuinely believes he was.
    I find his fear of persecution in Syria, while genuine, to be unfounded. I find that Australia does not have protection obligations under the 1951 Convention in this case. I do have very grave concerns, however, about returning a traumatised unaccompanied minor with no relatives to Syria and I recommend Mr Dhurgham Assamarrai make an application for a Special Humanitarian Visa Class A.

Dhurgham met a lawyer who was visiting Abu Nizar. He decided to go with Abu Nizar to his interview to keep him company, and because Abu Nizar told him that he should meet Mr Jean-Luc and learn a thing or two. He watched the lawyer with mild distrust. He had over the years absorbed a little of the guards' open hatred for lawyers and the bewilderment most people he knew felt at the inexplicable delays in every legal process. Jean-Luc Isakowski was a tousle-headed blond man with bright blue eyes and a serious face. He looked underslept. He asked Dhurgham, pen poised over Abu Nizar's fat file, where his case was at, and Dhurgham looked at him blankly for a moment.

‘I have no real case,' he said. ‘My memory is too unreliable.'

Mr Isakowski looked at him keenly for a moment and then sighed.

‘How old are you?

‘Nearly seventeen.'

‘Family?'

Dhurgham hesitated. ‘I don't know.'

Mr Isakowski sighed again and looked annoyed, or perhaps harassed. ‘Do you have a lawyer? Have you ever spoken with a lawyer?'

‘The AID lawyer helped me a lot.'

‘When?'

‘For my interview. Nearly two years, maybe.'

Mr Isakowski sighed for a third time and rummaged in his briefcase.

‘I have seventy-three urgent cases. What is one more?' He pulled out a form, looked at Dhurgham with another glance of startling blue intensity and gave him a sweet smile. ‘Fill this in,' he said gently. ‘It will let me get all they have on your file and find out the story. I'll see what I can do to speed things up.'

A letter arrived for Dhurgham. He was sure there must be some mistake, but Abu Nizar told him that Australians had begun to write to some people, and they would have got his name and number from Mr Peter or Mr Jean-Luc. It was on plain paper. Abu Nizar held on tight to the paper and translated it for him, not remembering that Dhurgham could read English.

‘
Welcome to Australia, Mr Assamarrai. I do hope you will be freed soon. I am sorry that our government has imprisoned you like this. I, and many other Australians feel for you, with all our hearts. These concentration camps are a great shame to our nation. I hope you have been able to contact your wife and children, and that they are all safe. If you would like to consider writing to me, my address is 68 Sentinel Street, Bondi, NSW. If there is anything I can send you, please let me know. Yours faithfully, Joyce Collyer.'

There was a photo in the envelope of a middle-aged lady with a sad and imprecise face. She was seated on a bench surrounded by teddy bears with a tree he didn't recognise in the background and part of a low wire mesh fence in the foreground. She had a large Winnie Dubdoub on her lap. His heart twisted at that familiar yellow bear-face. The shadow of the person who took the photo, a man maybe, was splayed irregularly over the left-hand side teddy bears. Dhurgham kept the letter and photo in his things, stroking the paper and the words, imagining the friendliness of Joyce Collyer, but he didn't answer. He felt too tired.

Then, some weeks later, a bunch of flowers arrived for him from a Robin Tucker, whose address was 2A Semaphore Rd, Semaphore, SA. He sat on his bunk and fingered the strange blooms, feeling the pink and purple petals and yellow throats, rubbing them between his fingers, smelling the unfamiliar perfumes, unable to quite make them real but caught in them nonetheless. Then, on some impulse, he ate all but one of the flowers, savouring their odd vegetable taste. The last one, along with the succulent and poisonous-tasting green leaves, he gave to Mrs Azadeh. The bloom was big and pink with purple spots, with ochre yellow powder thick on its five delicate tongues. He watched the same dreamy unbelief float over Mrs Azadeh's features. He went to bed early, unbearably sad; and didn't write to Robin Tucker either.

But his heart warmed to the women in Australia. They seemed good to him, and he told himself that when he was free and could hold his head up, he would visit Semaphore SA and Bondi NSW and pay his respects to Joyce Collyer and Robin Tucker. He lost himself in a sweet dream in which he saw himself sitting upright and proud, just like his father, sipping coffee with guests, these two shadowy ladies, and both of them feeling pleased to have chosen this decent, upright Mr Dhurgham As-Samarra'i to write their welcomes to.

Hamdi al Yemeni and Mrs Zainuddin got the same letter and photo from Joyce Collyer. Dhurgham was bitterly disappointed in her at first, then told himself that only three people wasn't too bad, and at least he and Hamdi were male, and how could Joyce Collyer know anything about them anyway? But no one else got flowers from Robin Tucker and she became his favourite Australian friend. He imagined her with glasses and a kindly face, her children all grown up, a girl and a boy, now a doctor and a lawyer, with names like … Hilary and Bill. He imagined her in a garden, resplendent with exotic blooms coaxed out of the desert with incredible labours, with water running here and there to soak their roots, and he imagined her choosing the flowers he had eaten, cutting their sappy stalks and lovingly wrapping them in mauve paper. He would visit Semaphore first, then Bondi. Then he would pay a visit to Mr Jean-Luc in Adelaide and thank him warmly, pay him with Mr Hosni's money and offer to help him in all his fine humanitarian visa work.

FILE NOTE RRN230:
Special Humanitarian Visa Class A application: Refused. The Minister has determined the applicant to have no special humanitarian priority. On findings of first hearing he is over eighteen years. See attached letter to Mr Jean-Luc Isakowski.

Dhurgham and a hundred and fifty others received deportation notices. These warned him that he was liable for deportation as he had not lodged an appeal with the High Court within the statutory thirty-five days and in any case had no cause. Deportation would be carried out without warning.

In fact, Dhurgham and many others were a problem, as they could not be deported to Iraq. No country in the world was returning Iraqis. Another receiving country had to agree to have them. Syria had agreed quietly to receive some, for a fee of $10 000 per head, but with no guarantees; indeed, several deportees had vanished upon arrival in Damascus, not even seen by their waiting relatives.

Dhurgham presented a special problem, because Syria had refused him. In his AID file in Canberra was the following note:

CONFIDENTIAL:TO THE MINISTER, AID, FROM Henry Gibbons, head of PEOPLE TRADE INTERNATIONAL PTY LTD.
Dear Ross

We're unable to do this one. The Syrian Government has indicated that it will not accept Mr Dhurgham As-Samarra'i as legal deportee under the current arrangement, as the family was politically sensitive. Apparently the Amer Hassan As-Samarra'i family (three brothers Mohammad, Muhsin and Mahmoud) were high-profile Baghdadi intellectuals with links to the opposition. Mahmoud died in 1994. Mohammad and Muhsin were denounced in 1997 and fled.