Letter to UN Secretary-General Guterres

In this follow up to the previous letter of 21-Aug-2019 to you, I would like to report that the PNG authorities have recently relocated all the refugees and asylum-seekers on Manus Island to the City of Port Moresby. On 2nd September 2019, the PNG authorities have announced the closure of Manus Island Refugee Camp [#1]. Although the underlying reason(s) for such relocation were undisclosed, we were receiving reports on early August 2019, notably at a time when the international refugee advocacy groups began focusing on Manus Island, that those Manus refugees had been offered "voluntary relocation" to Port Moresby. Noting also that the local PNG lawyers had pending detention lawsuites against the PNG Government and, at various times, the PNG politicians of Manus Island had expressed disapproval of the refugee camp there. Whichever was the main reason(s), the Australian and PNG authorities will be using the fact, "there are no refugees and asylum-seekers on Manus Island", as political window dressing at the UN Forums.

Antonio Guterres, UN Secretary-General

The relocated refugees are reported to be accommodated in Granville Motel in Port Moresby where they are subjected to 6pm-to-6am curfew. Of great concerns have been that, the 54 individuals who have been resisting to participate in this fraudulent Offshore Processing scheme are now placed under the incommunicado detention at PNG's Bomana Prison. Some of those individuals at Bomana Prison were severely ill and needing urgent medical treatments in Australia. I ask the Secretary-General and International Committee of the Red Cross to urgently intervene to resolve this matter.

As regards the enslavement allegations I've put forward to ICC, I am continuing to assert that the period of enslavement be lasting from September 2014 to August 2018. Whilst there has been a continuum of detention at offshore, along with the instances of severe deprivation of personal liberties since 2013 up until now, I have chosen that period for the purpose of legal certainty, where the perpetrators' actions were most likely to have proven to cross the thresholds of slavery. As such, I do believe these refugees and asylum-seekers, both on Manus Island and Nauru, are the victims of enslavement.

In any case, there has been no doubt that all of these detainees have suffered unprecedented arrays of oppression, injustices and denial of personal liberties. I therefore continue to appeal for urgent intervention by the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross. I also appeal to the Canadian and European Governments to offer humanitarian resettlement to those detainees.

In closing, I thank you once again for your kind attention to this matter.

Yours respectfully and sincerely,
Sd. U Ne Oo.

ADDRESS OF UN SECRETARY-GENERAL, ANTONIO GUTERRESS
Executive Office of Secretary-General
405 East 42nd Street, New York, NY, 10017
United States of America
(OR through UNHCR/Canberra)
C/- Regional Representative, The Office of UNHCR,
14 Kendall Lane, 2601 New Acton, ACT, Australia
Facsimile: 61 2 6247 2933
Email: aulca[AT]unhcr.org

Manus Ref Camp Closure.
[#1] http://www.looppng.com/png-news/manus-refugee-centre-finally-closes-86714