Fire at Baxter

So i just got off the phone from a couple of my friends who were sleeping in the White One compound at Baxter last night, and were woken by the fire alarm at 4am. They've had the fright of their lives! Apparently the compound is completely destroyed - which probably means their personal belongings, photos, CDs, letters, books, everything... It looks at this stage like the fires were deliberately lit, which is a real bummer, because whoever did it has just made life a lot harder for everyone else at Baxter. Hmm. And apparently there are 300 people detained there at the moment, so it'll be damn hard to try to find out what happened / who did it.

Anyway, everyone's ok. A few people were treated for smoke inhalation but nobody was injured.

It's hard to justify behaviour like that. Of course nothing will excuse arson, but knowing a few of the people who have been there for a long, long time, and a few who have recently got out, they are NOT psychos or criminals. The levels of desperation and anxiety reach titanic proportions and just get way out of hand. I'm not purporting to make excuses for setting fire to stuff, but just think about how you'd feel if you'd been locked in the desert for 4 years... Geez. You might want somehow to draw attention to what was happening to you...

A few guys who have been released have spoken to me about the overwhelming feeling of not being remembered by people. They speak of the fear that grips them, they're sitting in a prison, everyone in Australia (erroneously) believes them to be illegal, they can't go home without very serious risk to their lives, and they have no idea when they'll be getting out of detention. These lovely, rational, intelligent, funny, gentle people are the same people who have been reduced to lip-sewing, to cutting themselves, to hunger striking, to blowing their tops and smashing a window... Sometimes good people just flip out... :(