Graham Edwards (Cowan, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary (Defence and Veterans' Affairs)) Share this | Hansard source

I want to congratulate the shadow spokesperson for the Australian Labor Party in bringing this matter of the Rwandan service of Australian defence personnel before the House. I think that the member for Bruce, Alan Griffin, since he has moved into that shadow portfolio, has done an immense amount of work. He has certainly made himself available to the broad veteran community across Australia. I think he has done an immense amount of work to restore the credibility of the position of shadow spokesperson, and I know he is held in very high esteem by those members of the veteran community that he has had the chance to meet with in the past couple of months.

I am very pleased that this motion has been brought forward today. I am also very pleased at the announcement made by the member for Blair, who spoke before me. I did understand, however, that that press release was embargoed until this afternoon. But, regardless of the timing, the important thing is that the government have responded to this motion brought forward by Alan Griffin today. I appreciate what he has done, and I certainly applaud what the minister has done in now recognising this service, because it was a failure of policy in the past and one that was carried over a number of governments—a failure of policy which has now been rectified as a result of the initiative taken by Alan Griffin in this place today.

I have had the opportunity, over the years, to speak to some of the people in Rwanda—some of them are still serving—and it is often harrowing to listen to their stories and to imagine the appalling frustration that they confronted when they saw the massacres taking place and, because of their rules of engagement, were unable to respond to protect those innocent men, women and children who were being slaughtered in the most horrific ways. I think the courage of those soldiers is seen, too, in stories where they themselves broke out from the relative safety of some of the areas they were in to go out and, despite orders, rescue some of the kids and smuggle them back to safety and to medical aid.

I was looking at a story by a fellow named Paul Jordan who was at camp Kibeho during the massacre. He says:

As we worked, we were often called upon to make snap decisions and to ‘play God’ by deciding which patients’ lives to save. We were forced to move many seriously injured victims to one side because we thought they would not live or because they would simply take too long to save.

They are dreadful decisions for soldiers who are trained as medics to have to make. He went on:

Our medical work continued unabated in the Zambian compound as the casualties flowed relentlessly. At about 10.00 a.m., some of the displaced persons attempted to break out and we saw them running through the re-entrants. We watched (and could do little more) as these people were hunted down and shot. The RPA soldiers were no marksmen: at times they were within ten metres of their quarry and still missed them. If they managed to wound some hapless escapee, they would save their valuable bullets, instead bayoneting their victim to death. This went on for two hours until all the displaced persons who had run were dead or dying.

These are the dreadful things that these soldiers have to live with and had to observe. They were incredibly frustrated that they could not protect those people and that they were unable, in so many circumstances, to save lives and to do the job that they thought they were there to do. No wonder so many of them are facing depression and the issues which go hand-in-hand with post-traumatic stress disorder in their civilian lives. I support the motion and congratulate Alan Griffin.

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