Rodrigo’s Story, Columbia
I remember so much about my country, it was a life that was so much freer. Before that is. We always went out on excursions and travelled to other cities and villages, we spoke to the people there. We would sit down anywhere along the street to talk and drink coffee. It was more familiar, a sense of friendship and union between all the people. I studied architecture and worked with my two older brothers in their office. It was a very comfortable life and finally I got my own office and developed my own clientele. I travelled a lot to buy materials for my work and there I made a lot of links, and had a lot of interaction with the people in the villages.
And that was where everything started to go wrong. My family had always lived comfortably and I never thought that the situation would ever become as terrible or impossible as it did. I had seen the terrible things that happened in my country because of all of the injustice that was around us - with the corruption of the political system and the influence of narcotraffickers. We tried to help those who were most affected but because of our connections with the people we started to receive threats against our lives. We tried to tell ourselves not to worry about it, that they were just trying to frighten us, that they were simply words that wouldn't convert into actions. But there is a great difference between receiving a threat and experiencing what that threat means. When they attempted to take my life, suddenly it was like a shock - as if you had been asleep and when you awake you realise that your life has been split in two; that which was before, and that which was afterwards. You realise that you are not able to return to your house - that if you go back to your house you will die, that if you go to your car you will die. Everything was finished. Over!
I woke up in a hospital and the only thing I thought was 'I have to leave here running'. I couldn't go back to my house, my wife, my family - nothing! So I went to a hotel. I was there for 3 days without leaving my room. When I finally went out of there I had decided I had to go. I went to get a passport, I was panicking terribly. My face looked like a disaster, I had to put makeup on to get a photo for the passport. Then I went to speak to a friend of my family who would give me money so that my wife and I could leave immediately. I went and bought the tickets and we left.
When we finally arrived in Australia, I felt that here, after everything, I could make my life again and stop running. That we could have a family here and start again. To get out of Colombia we only had enough to buy one-way tickets and I wasn't sure if we would be allowed through the airport in Australia with these tickets. We arrived at the airport thinking 'This is the moment in which we have to face everything that's ahead of us'. I was there ready to say to the immigration workers 'We are here to plead for political asylum'. But if that had happened to us at that time, when we were so ignorant and thought that they would be willing to help us, they would have taken us into detention and perhaps today we would still be in detention.
Little by little we began to become aware of what the system was like, of all of the obstacles that immigration puts in your way. You begin to realise that being a refugee claimant here is terrible. The day that you apply you put a mark on yourself, from that day all doors close to you. You see this whole system where most of the people and services are supposedly there to help people, and then, a moment arrives when you realise that you don't know if they are helping you or drowning you.
At first we were rejected by Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs (DIMA) and were told we had to appeal to the Refugee Review Tribunal (RRT). We were sent to a lawyer to put in our application and went with 18 days to spare. We worked with the lawyer and left everything ready to be sent - but she forgot to send it. I couldn't believe this! How could you forget something like that when it is someone's life we are talking about? It's not as if you're going to lose some money or an opportunity - it's your life you're going to lose! Even though the lawyer accepted that it was her fault, they refused to hear my case because it was sent in late. They almost took me into detention but some friends of mine moved heaven and earth to help me. These friends also did everything so I could take my case to the High Court; this was just to have my case reviewed so it could finally be heard by the RRT. Until that moment I felt that no one had really heard me, heard my case. They hadn't said to me 'You are or are not a refugee'. They hadn't said 'You do or do not have the right to plead for protection'. They simply denied me the right to apply.
We had understood that Australia was a friendly place of good people, where there was justice. We came with many hopes and expectations to remake our lives here. It was terrible when we began to see that things weren't as we had hoped. My wife couldn't bear it any longer, she decided to return to Colombia. She said 'Lets leave. We have to leave this place, they will finish our lives. This isn't justice, this is a system that is against asylum seekers.' But I disagreed with her, I said ' What is happening to us can't be right, there has been some kind of error.' But she decided to go. I am alone here now. I don't have anyone. I miss my family and who I was before. Then I was able to live like a human being, I could develop and grow as a person, I could earn my own money. Here I don't have permission to work, I can't do anything except wait for them to throw me out.
Not being able to work or participate affects you more deeply than you can imagine, its like they deny you all of your rights. You don't have the right to struggle for your bread, to fight for your name or yourself, to be able to live, to have a home, electricity or a phone. You don't have the right to have an opinion. You don't collaborate, you don't contribute, you don't constitute any part of society or any part of anything. You are obliged to beg just to survive. I used to be a very positive person but each time they push you to the ground, that they oppress you and don't let you do anything, a moment arrives in which you say 'Fine, better that I just sit here and do nothing'. You have to negate yourself, and all that you can do, and all that you are. This whole experience is making me an old man - I have spent too much time running and never feeling safe. The only thing that I have is a huge faith in God and for this I continue to struggle. I feel that all of this has to have happened for a reason, that it is not for nothing that I have experienced this. I am in a terrible situation here but I know that there are people who are in worse situations. I'm nobody in this country and I know there is not much I can do, but in one way or another I try to alleviate some of the pain that I see around me. I feel that one day things will change, somebody is going to realise what is the real situation that refugee claimants are living here.
But that is difficult. I believe this government is running a campaign to give the public an image of refugee claimants that is not true. And many people have an image completely opposite to what a real refugee claimant is: they think that we are parasites that are here to take advantage of the system; they believe that we have the right to everything; that we have a luxurious life and have access to all the benefits. That is a lie. You see, the experience of a refugee claimant has two possible directions: one that you stay and struggle through all of this; the other that you return to your country so that they can kill or persecute you for the rest of your life. When you realise this is the case, you have to recognise that these people have to stay here - they don't have any other option. But it's like they have to stay and die here anyway. I truly don't believe that any of the refugee claimants who are here, going through this process at the moment, would stay and live this experience if they didn't have to.
Have you never stopped to think that those of us who come here, like myself, we have come willing to work so hard and to re-create our lives. We have so much to give. You see a refugee claimant isn't a person who is stupid or ignorant; it is a person who perhaps has studied, has experienced other parts of the world, other technologies, and can contribute our understanding of other cultures. It has been proven throughout the whole story of humanity that the people who are refugees and migrants are a large part of contributing, supporting and building up countries.
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