Letter to Jacinda Ardern NZPM and The President of Nauru

Letter to Rt. Hon Jacinda Ardern MP, Prime Minister of New Zealand

... most important task at this stage is to transfer out these asylum-seekers in detention who have been going through immense psychological pressure. In this regards, I am very grateful to the Government of New Zealand for your generosity and your kind understandings of the plights of these asylum-seekers and I trust that these asylum-seekers would be taken off from the detention at the first available opportunity.

Letter to Jacinda Ardern

DEAR PRIME MINISTER ARDERN: I am U Ne Oo, refugee rights activist living in Sydney. Firstly, I would like to thank you and the Government of NZ for continue offering of resettlement places for asylum-seekers detained at Manus Island and Nauru. I understand that your government has recently approached directly with the Government of Nauru to transfer some of these asylum-seekers; of which such kind efforts have not been eventuated so far.

Jacinda Ardern, Prime Minister of New Zealand

In this regards, I have written to the International Committee of the Red Cross to intervene on the situation, and also asked the United Nations' authorities to assist in such intervention. I have enclosed my communications to ICRC, along with my report to ICC, for your government's review as regards Australia's Offshore Detention regime. I believe the most important task at this stage is to transfer out these asylum-seekers in detention who have been going through immense psychological pressure. In this regards, I am very grateful to the Government of New Zealand for your generosity and your kind understandings of the plights of these asylum-seekers and I trust that these asylum-seekers would be taken off from the detention at the first available opportunity.

In closing, I thank you once again for your kind efforts and considerations for these asylum-seekers.

Yours respectfully and sincerely,
Sd. U Ne Oo.

Enclosures	PDF downloads
[#1] Letter to Special Rapporteur on Slavery, 14-Aug-2018. http://www.aus4iccwitness.org/node/60
[#2] Letter to President of ICRC and reply, 8-Dec-2017. http://www.aus4iccwitness.org/node/54
[#3] Letter to ICC and reply, 30-Jun-2017. http://www.aus4iccwitness.org/node/48

As Your Excellency Government may well aware, the slavery is universally prohibited. Therefore, those who engage in "slavery", piracy and other special crimes are considered the enemies of mankind. Such offences attract obligations that attach to crimes of universal jurisdiction. As a rule jus cogens, slavery is prohibited as a peremptory norm from which no derogation is permitted. The perpetrators of crime must have to be brought to justice, regardless of their status.

Your Excellency: As a follow up to the request letter on 11th September 2018, I write to you again to appeal Your Excellency Government ends the MOU with Government of Australia. Once again, I would like to reiterate that the political and business leaderships within Australia have been violating the Slavery laws and have perpetrated crime against humanity.

Whilst I am not a lawyer, I have formed the view that, based on the study on the High Court of Australia decision of Queen vs. Tang (2008), the Government of Australia, by and large, use the asylum-seekers on Manus Island and Republic of Nauru as immigration detainees, and creating an environment for the detention companies to extract financial profits. The Australian Government “use of asylum-seekers” in this ways has been one of the “exercise on the powers attaching to the rights of ownership” over human persons and is material violation of the slavery laws.

Update to Nauruan President

As Your Excellency Government may well aware, the slavery is universally prohibited. Therefore, those who engage in "slavery", piracy and other special crimes are considered the enemies of mankind. Such offences attract obligations that attach to crimes of universal jurisdiction. As a rule jus cogens, slavery is prohibited as a peremptory norm from which no derogation is permitted. The perpetrators of crime must have to be brought to justice, regardless of their status.

I would, therefore, once again appeal You and Your Excellency’s Government to fully cooperate with International Committee of the Red Cross, and extricate yourself out of this crime situation.

In closing, I thank Your Excellency for your kind consideration of this important matter.

Yours respectfully and sincerely, (Sd. U Ne Oo)
Dated: 18th March 2019.

Letter to HE Baron Waqa, President of Nauru

..I appeal Your Excellency's government to unilaterally withdraw from the MOU with Australian Government, and then, hand over all the detainees to International Committee of the Red Cross.

Your Excellency: I am U Ne Oo, a refugee supporter in Sydney. I am a naturalized Australian of Burmese origin and I myself was once a refugee in Australia, of which the government here had granted me the refugee status in 1992. I had obtained a Doctorate degree in Theoretical Physics from the University of Adelaide in 1993. I am now working to support myself as a cleaner (janitor) in Sydney. I am not being part of, nor in association with, any professional non governmental organisations nor the political parties in Australia. I write to you today as a private individual, about my concerns for the welfare of detainees in the Offshore Detention Center in Nauru. I would also like to convey an important message, with my heavy heart, to Your Excellency about the well beings for your government.

Letter to H.E. Baron Waqa

H.E. Baron Waqa, Nauruan President.

I understand that Your Excellency's government has had the Memorandum of Understanding with Australian Government to host those refugees on Nauru since 2012. In a careful analysis on the Australian Government's practice on running of those offshore refugee camps, it is found that the Government of Australia has been perpetrating the Crime Against Humanity of Enslavement of those asylum-seekers. Whilst I am not a lawyer, I had filed this incident of enslavement to the International Criminal Court in June 2017 under the Article 15 of ICC Statute [#1]. As a follow up to this case, I have also filed the 39 individuals from within the Australian Senate on the charges of being accessory to this crime [#2]. In short, I have promised the Australian Federal Police as well as the world authorities to continue reporting, without fear or favour, on the perpetrators of this enslavement crime, who lend their hands on Australia's Offshore Detention regime [#3].

As for the enslavement of person(s) taking place in the Republic of Nauru, the Government of Nauru may have primary responsibility to end this practice. I believe there are certain international instruments to achieve above mentioned task. In 2001, the Republic of Nauru had signed and ratified the treaty with International Criminal Court. On the one hand, the Republic of Nauru, as a former colonial territory of Australia, is covered by the 1956 Supplementary Convention on Abolition of Slavery. The Republic may also be covered by the 1926 Slavery Convention as it had been under the League of Nations mandate in 1919. In any case, as the Republic of Nauru has been a signatory to International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, in which the Article 8 of ICCPR states that "No one shall be held in slavery; slavery and the slave-trade in all their forms shall be prohibited." Therefore, the Republic of Nauru and its government has a duty to ‘expropriate’ or to ‘confiscate’ individuals held in slavery so as to reverse the deprivation of liberty by freeing them from their situation.

In this connection, I had written letters to International Committee of the Red Cross [#4] and United Nations Special Rapporteur on Slavery [#5], to intervene on the enslavement situation on Nauru and PNG. I appeal Your Excellency's government to unilaterally withdraw from the MOU with Australian Government, and then, hand over all the detainees to International Committee of the Red Cross. I understand that the Government of New Zealand had already made an offer to take some of those detainees.

In my considered views, the current leaders within the Australian Government are in the thick of crime and, therefore, Your Excellency's government will be better off extricating yourself from such a crime. In sum, Nauru don't deserve to be criminalised.

In closing, I thank Your Excellency for your kind consideration of this important matter.

Yours respectfully and sincerely,
(U Ne Oo)

Letter Addressed to:

Dated: 11 September 2018
His Excellency Baron Waqa, MP; President of the Republic of Nauru, Parliament House, Yaren District, Republic of Nauru, Central Pacific.

Enclosures	PDF downloads
[#5] Letter to Special Rapporteur on Slavery, 14-Aug-2018. http://www.aus4iccwitness.org/node/60
[#4] Letter to President of ICRC and reply, 8-Dec-2017. http://www.aus4iccwitness.org/node/54
[#1] Letter to ICC and reply, 30-Jun-2017. http://www.aus4iccwitness.org/node/48
[#3] Letter to Australian Federal Police, 17th-Nov-2017 http://www.aus4iccwitness.org/node/52
[#2] Additional Submission to ICC, 15-Apr-2018 http://www.aus4iccwitness.org/node/52