Closing the Nioa-Thales weapons factory at Benalla.
April 11 2023, 6am, Yorta Yorta country.
A heavy mist drenched the land in the long dawn light. Foraging roos and wallabies stared at our convoy in amazement as we wound our way through the swampy country. Silver and pink rays lit up stands of ghost gums, shivering and swaying as though they shared our excitement. We were on our way to blockade a bullet factory, one of two Guided Weapons and Explosive Ordnance facilities on the continent. The Australian Munitions plant just out of Benalla is owned by the Department of Defence, but in classic corporatist practice the site has been leased to two pernicious #harmsdealers: NIOA and Thales.
NIOA started out supplying guns and bullets to the ‘recreational shooter’ market in Queensland, but soon realised that the real money was in organised violence: the police and the military. In 2022 NIOA announced they had sold one billion bullets in Australia. That’s around 40 explosive projectiles for each human body.
Three of those bullets killed Kumanjayi Walker in Yuendumu in 2019. Four of those bullets killed Aubrey Donahue in Mareeba in 2023. In solidarity with everyone impacted by police violence and in consultation with Warlpiri elders, we were determined to shut NIOA down. Ours would be a practical step towards ending police shootings. We were determined that no bullets would be made that day.
The Corporations are Killing in West Papua
Thales is a French multi-billion-dollar weapons corporation that has been supplying the Indonesian navy for forty years. Guns sold by Thales mowed down protesters during the Biak massacre of 1998 in West Papua. Bombs and rockets sold by Thales are landing on West Papuan villages even now. Wars of dispossession are being waged against First Nations peoples all over this planet, causing immeasurable harm to communities, cultures and the biosphere. The disregard of harms dealers for the consequences of their business makes even fossil fuel magnates look decent. (They’re not).
We arrived at the munitions plant at 6.45 am. The mist was still thick around us, enveloping us in a fluffy white cloud and lending a magical quality to our movements. By 7am the glorious Lizard Car was chained to the front gates blocking all access to the bomb and bullet factory. Dressed as the reptile of her name, painted with slogans and adorned with replica Thales missiles, the Lizard Car became the centrepiece of our action.
Disarm Police – Ceasefire
Two of us ran up the road to let incoming workers know they had a day off, that a protest had closed the factory down. 7am shift: cancelled. Folks got busy laying out placards calling out the #harmsdealers and commemorating those we’ve lost to Thales and NIOA weapons. Images of West Papuan people murdered by Indonesian military and police formed the core of the display, a vivid representation of the racist, extractivist violence that is the end game of weapons production. Huge banners reading DISARM POLICE and CEASEFIRE were strung across the road. Lizard Car announced Earth Care Not Warfare. We settled in for the day.
Twenty-five of us occupied the road for a full nine hours. We had not expected this. We knew from previous incursions into #harmsdealer spaces that weapons makers are reluctant to press for arrest. Harms dealers get by on invisibility. They have no ‘reputation’ to protect. Weapons factories exist in our communities by stealth, never announcing themselves, never advertising their existence. They have no social license and they don’t need one: their patrons/ clients/lackeys are governments.
In the case of police, governments spend our money on weapons that will then be used against us. In the case of the military, most of the weapons our governments buy will never be used. The waste of our money is staggering. On the occasions where militaries do use their weapons, the waste is far worse. Contests for land and resources by the powerful end in displacement, dispossession and death for the (usually) brown-skinned people at the pointy end of colonisation and war. West Papuan faces looked up at us from the road to the NIOA and Thales weapons factory.
Nine hours and no arrests. The police did not even try to move us. We played games, read books, had a picnic, and redecorated the signage with pens and spray paint. Theory of liberation says ‘when you do not meet repression, expand the space of protest’. We danced around the Lizard Car. Staff at the factory watched our livestream and commented on our dancing. We constructed a second barricade, closer to the highway, out of branches, hay bales and the Ceasefire banner. Neither the police, nor the defence department personnel who were ostensibly keeping an eye on us, ever breached the Ceasefire barricade. We even took up some of the road, cracked as it was from the weapons-laden trucks exiting the factory. No trucks carried weapons out this day.
Nine hours, no bullets. Afternoon shift blocked: we heard the phone calls telling workers not to bother coming in. NIOA =0 Thales = 0 Peace = 100. The sun was arcing downward, and we decided to save the Lizard Car for another day. We dismantled our barricade, packed up our placards, folded our banners and left. Safe home, we were elated.
We had stopped the bombs and the bullets for the day. Occupying space in a liberatory way has meaning other than its material effects, however. The care, creativity, and commitment we shared sealed a bond that is – perhaps – stronger than profit. The assertion of freedom underpinned by an ethic of cooperation feels revolutionary. Another world is not only possible, it is already here, in our hearts. Nine hours, no bullets, max peace.
Zelda Grimshaw
No copyright. Reprint at will.
What Next
Well we do have plans for Victoria 😎. Keep an eye out. And if you want to – you can watch one of the beautiful live feeds.
There are a few things coming up. Make sure you are in touch with your local wage peace group. We also like you to reply to these emails! What do you think we should do to uncover the #harmsdealers? 20-30bn is spent each year right now by “our government”…
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