re: Humanitarian Resettlement for refugees on Manus Island of Papua New Guinea
To: Commissioner Stylianides, European Council: I am U Ne Oo, an Australian Citizen of Burma origin living in Sydney. I work to support myself as a cleaner (janitor) and I am not being part of any political parties or non-governmental organisations in Australia. I am respectfully writing to you and European Council, firstly for your kind assistance with regards to the resettlement of 450 asylum seekers, who had been detained for six years by Australian Government on the Manus Island of Papua New Guinea. To my observation and analyses, the Australian Government's conducts with regard to these asylum seekers tantamount to an enslavement/slavery. In this connection, I have enclosed my letter in December 2017 to the International Committee of Red Cross for your kind attention.
These asylum seekers, in particular on Manus Island, are very traumatised by a long term detainment and severe deprivation of their personal liberties. I would respectfully ask, through your good offices, towards those traditional resettlement countries within European Union to consider taking in some of those asylum seekers. As regards international support for this task, the Government of New Zealand, since 2013, has an ongoing offer -- though not being taken up any by the Australian Government -- for the resettlement of 150 persons par year. I have also send recently the same appeal to the Government of Canada for the resettlement. I am appealing, through your good office, to the European Countries to consider, in a way of burden sharing, for the resettlement of those asylum seekers in this set of extra-ordinary circumstances.
As regards the Australian Government's enslavement of those asylum seekers, I had filed a complaint to International Criminal Court in July 2017. Whilst I am not a lawyer, I have analysed this situation further and in detail recently and that I have no doubt Australian Government had violated customary humanitarian laws of enslavement. Because of the Manus Island of Papua New Guinea is not under the jurisdiction of ICC, I ask the European Council to sponsor a humanitarian resolution regarding with Australian Government's enslavement at this United Nations General Assembly. In this connection, I would respectfully ask the Commissioner Stylianides and Human Rights Commissioner to consider including the recommendations that had been put forward to International Committee of the Red Cross in December 2017.
In closing, I thank you for your kind attention to these matters.
Yours respectfully, U Ne Oo
Addresses
Christos Stylianides
EU Commissioner for Humanitarian Affairs
Rue de la Loi / Wetstraat 200
1049 Brussels, Belgium
email: christos.stylianides [at] ec.europa.eu
https://ec.europa.eu/commission/commissioners/2014-2019/stylianides_en
Dunja Mijatovic, Commissioner,
Office of the Commissioner for Human Rights,
67075 Strasbourg Cedex, FRANCE.
email: commissioner [at] coe.int
https://www.coe.int/en/web/commissioner/the-commissioner