Strategic, bold, direct and discursive action to disrupt militarism in Australia and our region.
“Our enemies are not in the poorest countries on the planet, but right here in the richest one”
—@MikePrysner#NoWarOnIran #GIResistance pic.twitter.com/uMiHv9wZpV
— About Face: Veterans Against the War (@VetsAboutFace) January 5, 2020
#ThisisAustraliasWar https://t.co/a6mKclrJfW
— #WagePeace (@wagepeaceau) January 5, 2020
Concerned citizens took a disruptive performance to four Canberra sites to highlight how Canberra supports the transfer of Australian weapons, made by Electro Optic Systems (EOS), to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates (UAE).
On Nov 13th the group visited
The group performed a theatrical procession revealing war crimes in action, “Extra Lethal”, featuring a Saudi General, a weapons executive and of course – victims of war.
Canberra’s Electro Optic Systems (EOS) has repurposed its world class technology, previously applied in aerospace navigation, to create lethal weapons for overseas regimes.
The CEO Ben Greene previously admitted the company has plans for future shipments to the Kingdom of Saudi. Furthermore, in a media release dated January 30, 2018 Greene claimed that the EOS R400 weapons system is all about “considerably enhancing lethality”.
EOS has sent weapons systems to the Saudi Ministry of Interior, even after the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi as indicated by this shipment noted at Sydney airport in June 2019.
Shipping label showing R400s Remote Weapon Station exported to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Minister for Interior, General Department of Arms and Explosives via Orbital ATK.Shahnaz Martin from Wage Peace said “The board is stacked with Canberra identities such as Kate Lundy and General Peter Leahy: people embedded in Canberra society pretending to do good, but doing deals with dictators”.
Former Labor Senator Kate Lundy and General Peter Leahy are on the board of directors for EOS. ACT Defence Industries is promoting the company. Lundy is “Defence Industries Ambassador” for the ACT. The Canberra airport advertises the company.
“We say EOS enhances the lethality of Saudi war crimes in Yemen. We fear the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia are using weapons against their own population including women struggling for human rights and other dissidents such as journalists.” said Ms Martin
“This company’s interest is simply about money with total disregard for the victims of the regime. The last thing the Middle East need are more weapons. If EOS are mercenary with this particular technology, we must also question if their so-called civilian space program is also a military scam.”
“We simply don’t believe them when they say they don’t send weapons to Saudi – Who ever believed a arms dealer. They appear to have slipped round the Arms Trade Treaty”.
This letter was sent to shareholders in response to the media coverage and protests. It does not actually say that EOS does not sell to Saudi Arabia and UAE, rather it says that they sell to allies of the US and Australia, since US and Australia have a good human rights record. It is obviously a false assumption given the human rights abuses in Yemen. It is up to companies to make the moral decision.
At least 9 nations have already stopped transfers of weapons to Saudi Arabia including Germany, Denmark, Finland, Belgium and the UK. UK were forced to stop selling by their High Court.
Check out our live feed and posts on twitter.com/wagepeace facebook.com/wagepeaceau
A climate emergency has clearly been unfolding – right now – throughout Australia. We must rapidly change the current arrangements. There are actions that can be taken now. Immediate redirection of funds for protection and restoration of Nature is required.
Addressing the current fire emergency must occur NOW with the application of Australian Defence Force resources.
$325billion has been promised to several military mega-projects: by the current Government with support of the Labor Opposition.
Submarines will cost $225bn alone. The first is not due till 2050 yet money is being poured out to Naval, a French weapons corporation and other transnational corporations which specialise in hi-tech military equipment.
The submarines are highly contested: claims are that they will be obsolete, pointless, made-in-France, unlikely to work with US partners and expensive. Between May and December 2019, the estimated cost escalated from $100bn to a massive $225bn.
The money should be applied immediately to the climate emergency. Climate change can be stopped and reversed using Nature’s own mechanisms.
The Australian Defence Force are best positioned by far to address this crisis in Australia. They have the organisational capacity, skills and access to equipment and materials required. Together with health and social institutions, the ADF can make a huge difference.
Veterans and serving members of the ADF understand recovery and healing. Call on them now.
Addressed to
Minister Linda Reynolds (Minister of Defence), Hon. Richard Marles (Shadow Minister of Defence),
Prime Minister Scott Morrison, Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese,
Minister and Shadow Minister for Defence Industries, Members of the “National Security Committee”
Chief of Defence General Angus Campbell
Our petition:
We petition you to agree to allow the temporary, or permanent, redirection of money allocated for the Attack Class Submarines to the Climate Emergency.
Deploy ADF human and material resources to the current fire emergency and to fight future fire emergencies.
Deploy ADF resources to secure Australian communities and landscapes in the face of the Climate Emergency and to assist immediate recovery efforts.
Deploy ADF resources to protect and restore Nature as a practical response to global heating.
We see it is pragmatic at this moment to redirect military spending to the actual crises being faced by communities in Australia.
Cost of Submarines sails past $200bn
Government Must Explain Project Decisions
Thunberg and Monbiot: A Short Film on the Climate Crisis
Billion dollar cost blowouts and delays hit defence projects
West Papuans are currently engaged in a full-scale, nationwide, nonviolent insurrection. They demand all Indonesian troops to be withdrawn and for the internet to be switched on.
The conflict is not going away until the question of political self-determination is settled in a free, fair and dignified way, either through political negotiations and/or a referendum. West Papuan leaders also want the Indonesian government to immediately release all political prisoners arrested for calling for self-determination. They are urging the international community to pay attention to what is happening and for the Indonesian government to allow a visit from the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.
Thank you so much for your solidarity with West Papua.
Please share the news on social media, sign and share our petition, and, if you are able to, demonstrate outside AFP offices or Indonesian embassies and consulates on Friday 6th of September.
Since 21 of August, tens, and possibly hundreds, of thousands of West Papuans have poured into the streets, calling for an end to the Indonesian government’s occupation of West Papua.
The event that sparked the latest uprising were attacks from the Indonesian police, military, and a racist mob, towards West Papuan students in Surabaya, Malang and Semarang in Java.
In Surabaya, students were called ‘monkeys’, ‘dogs’ and ‘pigs’, including by police and military personnel. The crowd, who came from civil-society mass-based organisations, threw stones and threatened ‘to kick the students out’ and ‘slaughter them’. Australian and US trained police then stormed the dormitory in riot gear and arrested 43 students, wounding many of the students in the process.
The reason for these attacks? In Malang and Semarang, it was because students marched and called for freedom. In Surabaya it was because an Indonesian flag had been allegedly thrown in the gutter.
The racist slurs, a daily indignation for all West Papuans, and something we witness/experience regularly, have ignited a firestorm. In Jayapura, thousands shut down the capital of West Papua. The Governor of West Papua, Lukas Enembe, cried tears of frustration.
In almost every town and district across West Papua people have taken to the streets. Tens of thousands of people have rallied and raised the banned Morning Star flag. In these places Papuans behaved in a disciplined and dignified way, resolutely committed to nonviolence.
Most of this has not been reported in the mainstream media. Even in places like Manokwari, Sorong and Fak-Fak, where riots broke out, Papuans did not attack anyone and there has been no retaliations against Indonesians. Everywhere Papuans are displaying the banned Morning Star. In acts of risky defiance, it has been raised on flag poles outside Government offices in West Papua and even outside the Presidential Palace in Jakarta. In Sorong, in a stunning act of noncooperation, the Red and White, the Indonesian flag, was lowered by civil servants and handed back to Indonesians.
The refrain, heard on the streets and spread electronically, over and over again, is ‘Indonesia treats like animals, it is better if we are just free’. West Papuan students, together with Indonesian solidarity activists from FRI-West Papua (Front Rakyat Indonesia untuk West Papua) have protested across the archipelago. In Papua New Guinea, East Timor, and around the Pacific, people are standing in solidarity, stating clearly that when West Papuans are called monkeys by the state they also call Pacific Islanders monkeys.
Instead of prosecuting the organisers of the mob and the police who raided the student dormitory in Surabaya, the Indonesian government sent in troops to West Papua and throttled the internet.
Essential services, including local government and hospitals, have been affected by the government’s internet blockade. Doctors have been unable to access patient records, research cases, or order medicines. This is not only a freedom of expression issue; the Indonesian government is showing it disregards West Papuans’ basic rights to life and safety.
Thousands of Indonesian combat troops have arrived by air and sea. Scores of Papuans, including mothers, have also been wounded by Indonesian police and military as civil insurrection spreads. Many of our friends, well known activists as well as people on the street for the first time, have gone into hiding.
On the 28th of August the Indonesian military and police in Deiyei taunted protesters who had gathered outside local government offices. Again they abused Papuans as ‘monkeys’. Then, when people responded angrily, the security forces opened fire, killing six. Police and military have since denied the attack, surrounded the hospital in Deiyei, in the remote highlands, and prevented everyone from visiting the wounded or viewing the bodies of those killed.
The day after, Thursday 29th of August, West Papuans marched 50km on foot, from Sentani to Jayapura. As we write this, one of us holed up in a safe house with good independent WiFi. Outside Jayapura is in flames. A parliament building is in flames. Indonesian militia are on the street and West Papuans are still occupying the downtown area. With West Papuan leaders and the Governor of Papua in Jakarta negotiating with the President it is not clear what is going to happen in West Papua, over 3000km away at the eastern end of Indonesia’s far-flung archipelago.
Meanwhile in Nduga military operations that began in December last year continue. Refugees are still arriving in the towns or hiding in the forest as the remote mountain villages empty.
Pasifika
29 August, Jayapura
International Solidarity activist resolve to fight for peace, justice and self determination for West Papua. Represented are: Timor Leste, United States, Maluku, Norway, Sri Lanka, Nederlands, Australia, Germany, France, Greece, Indonesia, Malaysia, Portugal, Phillipines. West Papua, we see you, we hear you, our hearts ache for you.
“West Papua, the people of the world are with you!”
September 16 2019, Canberra Food Coop, 5.30pm (soup) for 6:00pm start.
Competition with China is fast becoming an organising principle of U.S. economic, foreign and security policies. The new “digital iron curtain” that will separate the globe into U.S. and Chinese technological zones runs through Australia, which has banned Chinese telco giant Huawei from supplying equipment to Australia’s 5G network.
Meanwhile, the US military says it wants to spend more than a quarter of a billion dollars worth of naval facilities in the Top End.
Professor Clinton Fernandes will provide an analysis of these matters. He is the author of “Island off the Coast of Asia” and “What Uncle Sam Wants,” a former Defence Force intelligence officer, and an academic at UNSW Canberra.
Professor Fernandes has been a strong supporter of Witness K, and his lawyer Bernard Collaery, and also The whistleblower David McBride in the Afghanistan case.
The talk will not focus on these cases because they are before the courts, however the relevant issues that will be discussed will be of interest to anyone following Australia’s role in joining war games with the US and concerned for the implications for Australia’s peaceful co-existence with its South-east Asian neighbours and the rest of the world.
September 16th, Canberra Food Coop.
Pay what you can – we’ll pass around a donation bucket to cover venue costs
Be there at 5:30pm for crusty bread and vegan soup ($8, cash only)
Talk 6:00pm to 8:00pm
Presented by Wage Peace, IPAN and friends
www.wagepeaceau.org (join our mailing list)
