LETTER TO KEVIN RUDD

Dear Mr Rudd

I apologise for seeking your intervention in the case of the two 'missing' West Papuan asylum-seekers, Yunus and Anike Wainggai, but we now feel obliged, twelve days later, to call for accountability from Australian government departments and agencies involved.

I attach my letter to Stephen Smith (26 Nov 08) for the grounding circumstances. Essentially, Anike and her father have been 'missing' since Saturday 15 November. Victoria Police (at Heidelberg Station) closed the file on Monday 24 November, after the AFP reported the two had walked into a police station in Canberra.

However, the situation stands now, as it did on the day they went missing, where neither we from the West Papuan community in Melbourne nor the Wainggai's lawyer have been able to locate them or contact them. Given our conviction that their disappearance is an Indonesian intelligence operation involving agents in Papua New Guinea and Vanuatu as well as Australia, and the matrix of lies and deceit surrounding their removal from Melbourne and events ever since, we now feel it incumbent on the departments of Immigration and Foreign Affairs to prove the government has fulfilled its duty to protect these high-profile refugees, and that Yunus' request to return to Indonesia was voluntarily submitted without pressure or coercion from Indonesian-intelligence agents in Australia or in Vanuatu (where Siti Wainggai, Anike's mother and Yunus' wife, has also 'disappeared'.

Mr Rudd, I do not seek a response to this letter, but do request you assign some critical personnel to bring this case to a satisfactory conclusion.

Yours sincerely,

Louise Byrne

Australia West Papua Assoc (Melbourne)

Tel 04 329 24 212