Don’t Stop these Boats: Manus Camp Contractor's Housed in Luxury Floating Hotel at Taxpayer Expense
By Ruth Skilbeck 23.2.2014
Seen through the eyes of a desperate exile,
this must seem like a cruel joke, they who have been plucked from the ocean
from flimsy sinking ferries, or prevented from sailing, are being held captive
by staff housed in a luxury ship.
As
asylum seekers on Manus Island wilt in the excessive heat, and are attacked by
machete wielding locals, the contractors who are hired to run the camps are
housed in luxury, reports now reveal.
The mysterious ‘bibby’ that the injured
asylum seekers in Manus Island attacks were taken to in the first hand report cited by the Daily Fugue earlier today, has been revealed to be a luxury floating
hotel, the Bibby Progress, owned by a British company Bibby Maritime, which tax
payers are paying for at the cost of almost $75,000 per night to house
detention camp staff.
A report in the online Sydney Morning
Herald, gives details of the detention camp staff hotel, which boasts a gym,
bars, private rooms and a roof relaxation area.
Nothing could be in starker contrast on the
Pacific Prison Island, to the tents where the asylum seekers are held, in a
prison enclosure, and which does not meet UN basic standards as revealed in a
recent UN report, which cited inadequate water rations, and excessively hot
temperatures for the occupants.
Earlier this week, following deadly
attacks on the asylum seekers in the camp by PNG police and security
contractors, and perhaps also local catering staff (according to latest news), where
23 year old Iranian Reza Barati was murdered, the
wounded were as quoted in the first hand report published on the Daily Fugue,
today, brought to the wharf where “the bibby” is moored, and tended by staff
there.
Some readers may have assumed, like we
did that “the bibby” was a humble local boat of some sort. But in an unfolding
story of almost unbelievable contrasts of fortune, this is the very different reality:
“Taxpayers are
footing a more-than $73,400 nightly bill for detention centre staff to stay in
a floating hotel moored off Papua New Guinea's Manus Island, Fairfax can
reveal.
Government
contracts show the department of immigration will spend more than $13.3 million
to temporarily accommodate staff aboard the Bibby Progress, for seven months to
May 30.
According to
the website of Bibby Maritime, the British company contracted to provide
floating accommodation for detention centre staff, the Bibby Progress boasts a
large bar, restaurant, gym and roof terrace.” (SMH 23.2. 2014)
We can
only imagine how the vision of the Bibby Progress must have seemed to the
wounded and dying asylum seekers on that cruel Wharf.
Eyewitness Accounts of Manus Island Attacks Posted on Facebook (published here) Contradict Minister's First Account of the Detention Camp Unrest
23.2.2014
http://ruthskilbeck.blogspot.com.au/2014/02/eyewitness-accounts-of-manus-island.html. 23.2.14
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