Wage Peace - Disrupt War

Strategic, bold, direct and discursive action to disrupt militarism in Australia and our region.

Thales

Harms Dealers: Thales in partnership with Israel Aerospace and Elbit.

Pro-Palestine protesters say Thales has no social licence

Stephen W Enciso Garramilla/Darwin December 17, 2023 Published by Green Left Weekly (Original Article Here) About the wonderful Darwin Crew

A delegation of peace builders who wanted to question Thales on its links to Israel’s genocide in Palestine was denied entry to the weapons manufacturer’s office on December 15.

Thales has a relationship with Israeli Aerospace Industries (IAI) and Elbit, the Israeli defence electronics company.

Weapons company Thales under fire for human rights violations in West Papua

The Thales-IAI partnership has produced the Sea Serpent, a surface-to-surface guided missile with a kill range of 200 kilometres. The Thales-Elbit partnership involves a subsidiary company UAV Tactical Systems (U-TacS), which makes killer drones.

Last year Israel was ranked 10th largest global exporter of weapons. Its technologies are often promoted as being successfully “combat-tested”. For instance, Elbit’s drones have been used for surveillance and attacks in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

As the Palestinian death toll exceeded 18,000, Australia voted to support a United Nations ceasefire motion, after stalling for 67 days.

Israel is continuing its indiscriminate air strikes against Palestinians, with United States support.

Achieving a lasting peace will require a break in the military-industrial complex. This year Labor agreed to 52 defence export permits to Israel, while 322 such permits have been approved over the last 6 years. 

Palestinian human rights groups have launched proceedings in the Federal Court to expose all arms exports to Israel since October 7.

Justin Tutty from Top End Peace Alliance said that for weapons companies “the humanitarian crisis [in Gaza] is just a business opportunity”. They are expecting to make big profits.

The delegation reminded Thales that it has no social licence to operate.

Peace builders have previously tried to speak to Thales over its sale of Bushmaster vehicles to the Indonesian Special Forces for its repression of West Papuans.

“War crimes start in the corporate boardrooms of Thales and other harms dealers,” human rights advocate Billee McGinley said. “We show up to expose the true nature of their business and to make clear we do not accept them.”

Thales staff blockaded the door with a Christmas tree and refused to talk to the delegation or receive a letter.

The letter called on Thales to immediately release a public statement “confirming any weapons or military equipment used in Gaza”, and to “urgently recall any weapons or military equipment that are being used for war crimes in Gaza”. It also demanded Thales end its “insidious relationship with the Israeli weapons industry” and “retool or move out of Darwin”.

Tutty said the US military build-up is bringing more international weapons companies to the Northern Territory — including Raytheon, Northrup Gruman, Boeing and Lockheed Martin.

“These companies are coming to feed on the error our government is making in buying into America’s plans for a war with China,” Tutty said.

The delegation left disappointed, only to find 7 police cars and approximately 15 officers waiting for them in the car park.

Nights at Thales in Meanjin

Blood and Light in the Darkness of Thales Weapons in Brisbane

Thales, a multi national weapons corporation is terrorising the people of West Papua. Thales is militarising their forests and lands. Thales is transferring weaponised armoured vehicles with turrets featuring automated optics – for automatic killing.

This year at Wage Peace we hope to hold Thales to account for their weapons sales to Indonesia. They are not a corporation to be honoured. They have no social licence to operate.

A small  crew, younger activists held by their Christian faith, rocked up in the night to Thales Brisbane as a sign of the light and as a sign of commitment to a year of action at Thales. It was Epiphany, the feast represented by the bright star, the light of justice.

Epiphany is a feast in the Christian season of Christmas. It tells the story of the visit of a set of non-Jewish outsiders, “wise men” or “magi” or “kings”.  The Magi recognised the star as a sign of justice, and traveled from the East, presenting gifts to the Holy Family.

They were drawn by a bright light representing right relationship and hope of a more just world; it was a light that would dispel the darkness of a period of violence and terror.

60000 internally displaced people face this darkness in West Papua right now. It only takes a few cruel and despotic acts of terror by military forces for people who have lived in their home territory for thousands of years, to be compelled to move away in a series of dangerous journeys.  First Nations people face this story over and over: acts of terror resulting in movement as they flee to protect their families. Movement away from homelands, is followed by dispossession from sovereignty and land as they seek safety.

Thales with other weapons corporations such as Boeing and Electro Optic Systems and Rheinmetall are profiting from the sale of weapons which are used in West Papua by the military and police of Indonesia. The website www.waronwestpapua.org displays this flow of weapons. Australia is represented through the delivery of the weaponised Bushmasters.

Over 200 weapons export licenses for Indonesia have been issued by Australia in the last two years according to the ABC’s Andrew Greene. It’s hard to know what weapons these licenses are for exactly, but we know that Indonesia is a key target market for Australian weapons exports. Rheinmetall have factories both in Brisbane and in Indonesia presumably to facilitate transfer of shared components. Electro Optic Systems are transferring their weaponised automatic killer turrets. Boeing is sending attack helicopters, if not from Australia – then direct from the US. Australia has provided Lockheed Martin heavy-lift Hercules air transport planes.

All these weapons are used IN WEST PAPUA – not for defence, not for overseas expedition, but to disposses and repress the people of the subjugated colonies of the elites. People in West Papua are calling on Australia to stop the weapons trade. Their people are suffering. They do not want to end up dispossessed from their sovereignty in the same violent way that  happened to First Nations people in Australia.

“It was with this story of West Papua on our hearts and our lips that we as young Christians gathered for Epiphany. We  sang psalms and prayed for the light of justice to rise over West Papua. Our friends are there,” said Eleni Dowling who helped imagine and set up the action.

Two weeks later, people were back at Thales again with our friend Ronny Kareni from the West Papua diaspora. We poured symbolic blood and remembered Ronny’s friends and family members who are facing extraordinary and persistent violence in West Papua. We remembered the 60000 internally placed people living away from their food gardens, schools and villages.

“We do not accept that $30bn a year of Australian public money should be pouring into weapons companies with or without exports”, said Margie Pestorius. “This is a time for Earth care, Earth repair, not warfare.” 

Blood was poured out on the ground at Thales. We remembered the blood spilled in the Frontier Wars on Australian Land. And We remembered those terrorised in West Papua. Again the windows of the entrance were pasted with the names of those killed by militarised violence inflicted by the police and military. We pasted slogans, and photos of those killed. and reminders of their duty to stop the war against West Papua. 

Ronny Kareni spoke and sang about the injustices. “To sing is to resist in West Papua”, he reminded us drawing on the memory of martyrs such as Arnold Ap who gave their lives to the struggle against Indonesian land theft. 

Thales is not the only target. But Thales has delivered weaponised vehicles.
We are keen to find what makes up the 200 weapons export licences that are being approved by the regulators, the Defence Export Controls Office. 

Join us in Naarm, in Sydney and in Brisbane. Also in Lithgow, Bendigo and Benalla. Say no! No weapons exports. This is a time for repair and regeneration.  Earth care NOT Warfare!

Conversations with the Arms Dealers: Thales and the first of December

The Thales building looms large over Sydney Olympic Park station. An imposing wall of slick dark glass, crowned by a six-foot tall sign bearing their logo. From the outside, you wouldn’t know that Thales is an arms dealer.

Thales is not exactly a household name, and they don’t want to be. They move in the shadowy world of the global arms trade and would prefer not to be in the public eye. Their customers are mostly nation-states, so there is no reason to bother wasting resources on building their brand in the minds of ordinary people. Ordinary people don’t get a say when defence contracts are negotiated. Contracts like those Thales holds to supply the Indonesian forces with weapons. Weapons that are then used to violently repress the West Papuan struggle for independence and self-determination.

This complacency, this certainty that they can do whatever they want in pursuit of profit – including arming human rights violators, dictators, despots, and fueling conflict around the world – is probably why we were able to walk right in. They weren’t expecting to be challenged.

A sunny summer morning in so-called Sydney, the first of December. On this day in 1961, West Papua declared it’s independence and raised their now-iconic morning star flag for the very first time. Just months later, their dream of self-determination was steam rolled by Indonesian invasion and an elaborate UN process orchestrated by the US. The New York agreement made West Papua a province of Indonesia in the eyes of the UN. West Papuans have struggled for recognition and self-governance ever since.

Western interests were watching the newly formed nation of Indonesia. Indonesia was looking around for allys in an effort to establish its self as a people and a nation on the world stage. Being the height of the cold war, the US was worried that communism might sound appealing to peoples who had just moments ago thrown off the yoke of Dutch colonialism and set about ensuring that this new state aligned its self with the West. West Papua was little more than a bargaining chip, but their struggle would outlast the cold war context which produced it.

We walked across the ground floor entrance chamber and summoned the lift. A few people passed us and looked at us quizzically, we smiled and waved amiably. Then we got to level 2, spilled out of the lift into the reception level and unfurled a West Papuan flag.

“Staff of Thales” I thundered in my most official sounding voice. “We have a message for you”

“We are not here to hurt you. We have brought no weapons. We will not harm you or your family, we will not poison your water, raze your homes, or imprison your leaders. We just ask you do the same for us and for our friends in West Papua”

Most of the staff hid in their offices, and sent a representative out to ask us to leave. We asked him what he thought about West Papua, and he said he didn’t know anything about it.

“No problem!” I said “I’ll tell you about it again”.

After failing to extract a personal opinion from this person, not as an employee but simply as a human being, he was starting to get a little antsy. We continued to reassure the staff that we understood that they probably didn’t know that their employer was arming the repression of West Papuans less than 500 miles from Darwin – because any reasonable person wouldn’t stand for that. We told them we understood that the people on the level 2 reception desk are not attending board meetings and deciding which dictators will be next year’s clients. But at the same time, we reminded them that their labour is critical to the continued functioning of the business and that no matter who or where we are, we always have a choice to make.

We told them the names of some West Papuans who had been killed by state forces in Indonesia and held a memorial in their honour, right there in the Thales lobby. We asked the staff to be respectful of the lives lost and allow us to hold our memorial, and to be fair they stayed sheepishly silent during our proceedings.

At the conclusion of our memorial we made our way back down in the lift and out onto the footpath, after which time they shut off the automatic doors. We left them some messages on the footpath with chalk including “our friends in West Papua say hi” and “these guys arm genocide”. As we were leaving the cops finally arrived.

“Thank god you’re here!” we said “Those guys are selling weapons!”

“Where?!?” said the main cop – we had him going for a minute there 😉

Marles & Thales

Marles and Thales: a match made in the military industrial complex, 01.02.23.

This is what Defence Ministers and Foreign Ministers do. They swan around the world on tax payer funded junkets arranging the transfer of public money to private corporations, aka selling weapons.


Gunpowder, manufactured by Thales, in Australia, will fuel the disaster that is the war in Ukraine. We pay for this climate and humanitarian catastrophe now, through our taxes, and for decades to come, through climate collapse and war trauma.


THERE IS NO END TO THE HARM THAT WEAPONS DO.


Gunpowder will not keep us safe. Gunpowder will not keep Ukraine safe. The people of Ukraine and Russia are united in wanting the war to STOP and the dialogue to begin.


Our elected representatives, meanwhile, are wining and dining in Paris to gain contracts for one of the most corrupt companies in the military industrial complex – and that is a VERY high bar.


Thales: turning our future to dust.
Fuck you Marles.
Fuck you Thales.
May your falacies explode, your gunpowder never.