TWO ANTI WAR ACTIVISTS remained for 11 days in the Shoalwater Military Exercise Area until last Sunday, officially the last day of the joint Australia-US exercises. The two, Yulanji Bardon and Emily Nielsen, turned themselves in to Range Control and were escorted from the premises by military police, under arrest for trespass.
They were able to meet their goal of staying till the end of the Talisman Sabre Exercises which represented the largest training in ‘interoperability’ between the US and Australia.
Emily Nielsen [19] said: “These exercises are not just a ten-day long game of laser tag as Brigadier Bob Brown and the media would have us believe. They represent Australia joining the United States in the illegal invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan where thousands of civilians have been killed.”
Ms Bardon and Ms Neilsen lived on rations and slept in a tent in the Western and southern sectors of the area while Jim Dowling and Culley Palmer had stayed in the Eastern area. Their presence posed a difficulty for the military. They dodged helicopters, military dogs and avoided thousands of military personnel refuting the idea of the ‘all-pervasive security state’.
“The ideas that the military offers protection and that terrorism can be overcome with military means are in glaring need of revision. ” Ms Bardon said. “If two young women with a compass and limited ‘tactical experience’ can get away with sight-seeing in a military base over the course of eleven days without detection, there may need to be an inquiry into just how effective these training exercises actually are.”
Yulanji and Emily entered the base on the 16th July with 5 other activists in two groups: the Jaegerstatter 3 and the Grana 4.
Yulanji and Emily on top of The Polygon spire inside the Shoalwater military area
Photos of Jaegerstaetter 3 (Jim Dowling, Cully Palmer, Bryan Law) inside Shoalwater Military Area
View from inside the base - live firing area
View from inside the base - live firing area
Bryan and Jim inside base
Bryan and Jim inside the base
Bryan and Cully inside base
Bryan Law was arrested inside the area blocking a military convoy. Jim Dowling and Cully Palmer left the exercise area after 8 days at the conclusion of the Talsiman sabre exercises.
Mark Palmer inside base
Four anti-war activists remain at large in the prohibited Shoalwater military exercise area in central Queensland. The Shoalwater area is presently hosting the $250 million Talisman Sabre exercises involving 18,000 U.S. and 6.000 Australian troops.
The four were part of a group of seven activists who covertly entered the area a week ago. Three of their number have since been detected and captured by the military and handed over to state police. U.S. and Australian military have been involved in offensive war game scenarios. Some of the soldiers encountered by the activists were playing the roles of insurgents following an amphibious assault by U.S. and Australian personnel. Today the military are involved in exercises countering civil unrest of the occupied population.
Two of the activists, Yulangi Bardon and Emily Nielsen, are pictured above on top of The Polygon spire inside the Shoalwater military area. Jim Dowling and Culley Palmer also remain at large in the area after evading helicopter and dog searches.
The group’s support spokeperson Ciaron O’Reilly stated “Since these exercises commenced a few weeks ago 30 U.S., 18 British, an Australian soldier and uncounted Afghanis have been killed in combat in Afghanistan. The Talisman Sabre exercises are dress rehearsals for more death and destruction, invasion and war”.
Yulangi and Emily on top of The Polygon spire inside the Shoalwater military area
By Bryan Law
Last Sunday morning, when I’d usually be just leaving Mass with the closing words “Go in peace to love and serve the Lord” resonating in my ears, I found myself instead on a dusty road at the Shoalwater Bay Military Training Area. In front of me, stopped on the road, was an armoured column of US Marines, looking fierce with all their machine guns and cannons and carbines.
I had stopped the armoured column by the sophisticated, high technology method of waving a blue plastic tarpaulin at them from beside the road as I emerged from the bush – a peace-crazed trespasser on the giant war-games called Exercise Talisman Sabre, outside Rockhampton in central Queensland. The Marine who spotted me from the turret of an APC, hopped on the radio and said something along the lines of “Holy Jiminy Batman, there’s an intruder on our war!”, and the column ground to a halt. Goodoh! Thinks me, this is what I came to do. For the how and why of that, let’s go back a step.
On Thursday 16 July 2009 I walked into the Shoalwater Bay Military Training Area with two friends, Culley Palmer, 21 and Jim Dowling, 51. We’d formed our little band over 10 days of organising and taking symbolic actions around the Peace Convergence, and we’d been part of the Martin Luther King House of Christian Nonviolence at Yeppoon. Our mission is to save Australia and the world from the spiritual death of militarism.
Full reflection by Bryan continued on this link…….
Anti-war activist Jacob Bolton was discovered by military personnel inside the Shoalwater Military Base late on Saturday night. He was detained and taken to the Rockhampton Watchhouse to be charged and was released on bail early Sunday morning.
A spokesperson from the Martin Luther King House of Nonviolence said that “Jake is very pleased that he was able to find a physical way to challenge war and the military machine. These exercises are only a step removed from current warmaking by the US and Australia in Iraq and Afghanistan. The US and Australians have no civilian players in the exercises. These exercises are a fantasy. The activists presence counters this fantasy”
Margaret Pestorius, who was detained by US solidiers last week said: “Each activist that is found by the military is a reality check for those military personnel who run into them. War has real people: Ordinary men, women and children who want peace and who are trying to go about their daily business in the face of bombing, shooting and incarceration”.
“We were discovered by US infantrymen playing insurgents in a large role playing invasion scenario. Yet there are no civilians in this scenario.”
Jake was part of a group calling themselves the Grana 4. Grana was the sole survivor in her family of a NATO aerial bombing of her village. [see Guardian website]
Phone Margaret on 0403214422
Ciaron on 0411516434
See Jake’s statement click link MLK House
A Statement from the Martin Luther House of Christian Nonviolence
to Senator John Falkner Minister of Defence
on his visit to Talisman Sabre Military Exercises
July 18th 2009
For more information call: Sean O’Reilly 0423749946, Margaret Pestorius 0403214422
Australian Defence Minister, John Faulkner will today visit the US-Australian war games in the Shoalwater Bay Military Training area.
7 activists remain in the Shoalwater Bay area. These people represent the civilians who are endangered in every war and who are being killed in bombing raids in Pakistan and Afghanistan during the current escalation of war there by the Australians and the US. The overwhelming numbers of those killed in these wars are innocent civilians and children.
We particularly oppose the concept of training Australian forces to participate and engage with US forces in the simulated invasion of another country. Australia has no right to train for such behaviour.
We understand that the model city in the war games has a mosque. Australia has no right to practise violence against such sacred places.
Senator Faulkner has been appointed by Rudd government to the defence portfolio significantly because of his reputation in regard to taking control of obstructive government officials and monitoring expenditure carefully.
We ask Senator John Falkner to stop the exercises, to stop the wars, to reduce military spending and redirect that money to making the transition to a sustainable future.
Australia is set to spend a further $100billion over the next 10 years on top of current military spending. Many Australians oppose an escalation in spending on military hardware and assisting America’s wars overseas.
Spokesperson Sean O’Reilly said:
“Our security will not be guaranteed by expensive weapons systems. Moreover the recent defence review confirmed that Australia has no immediate, medium or long term threat.”
“Australia’s external security will only be ensured if Australia is an active participant in peace and justice in the region and globally. We cannot address terrorist violence by trying to kill more and more people, most of whom will be innocent bystanders.
“Australia’s internal security requires we address the causes of homelessness, of social violence, of changing our wasteful culture. These changes will require financial and human resouces which are presently being wasted in War.”
Eight people have been arrested over the past 2 weeks while opposing the wars and the exercises.
Balloons will be released today with messages to John Faulkner since we have been unable to communicate dirtectly with him despite several attempts. A vigil will be held mid-afternoon at Yeppoon where statements by the seven activists will be read aloud.
Prayer and balloons
![Ciaron solidarity vigil yeppoon sat18th [med]](http://talismansabre.files.wordpress.com/2009/07/ciaron-solidarity-vigil-yeppoon-sat18th-med.jpg?w=189&h=300 "Ciaron solidarity vigil yeppoon sat18th [med]")
Jaegerstaetter3: Cully, Bryan, Jim start the trek inside
GRANA 4: Yulangi Bardon, Emily Nielson, Mark Palmer, Jake Bolton
JAEGERSTAETTER 3: Cully Palmer, Jim Dowling, Bryan Law
*Call Talisman Sabre Hotline and demand the end of the exercise
1800 639 724
*Further background on nonviolent resistance to Talisman Sabre 09
http://talismansabre.wordpress.com/
*Further suggestions for solidarity with the 7 activists see the end of this email
MEDIA RELEASE:
7 More Activists Inside
Shoalwater Bay Military Training Area:
Call for End to War on Afghanistan
Seven anti-war activists entered the Shoalwater Bay military training area in central Queensland during joint US-Australian Talisman Sabre exercises. The seven remain in the area and are presently moving towards the ‘live fire’ areas with the intention of shutting down the exercises. They remain undetected by Australian Defence Force Security and the Qld Police guarding the area.
The activists are:
Yulangi Bardon, 21
Jake Bolton, 27
Jim Dowling, 53
Bryan Law, 55
Emily Nielson, 19
Culley Palmer, 21
Mark Palmer, 51
The group stated:
“US and Australian militaries, training at Talisman Sabre are presently involved in waging an escalated war in northern Pakistan and southern Afghanistan. Most of the victims in this eight year war have been civilians yet the concept of civilians and civilian loss seems to have been completely lost on the military. There aren’t any civilians permitted in the exercises. Civilians are eliminated here as they are eliminated in war.
“As civilians we enter this area in solidarity with all the civilian victims of the US and Australian military. We enter the exercise area with the intention of shutting down the exercises.
“We come from varied backgrounds: Christian and Humanist traditions. We come in common purpose to nonviolently resist these rehearsals for war and the escalating war on the peoples of Pakistan and Afghanistan.
“It is universally acknowledged that lies told by the Australian Parliament and the US government regarding “Weapons of Mass Destruction” [WMD] in Iraq led us to an illegal invasion and disastrous war in that country. Prime Minister Rudd’s recent assertion that Australian troops waging war in Afghanistan decreases the possibility of terrorism at home is also a lie leading us all to further disaster, death and destruction.
“We call upon all sectors of civil society in Australia to take action against such rehearsals for invasion and war as Talisman Sabre. We call upon all sectors of civil society to take action against the escalating war on the peoples of Afghanistan and Pakistan.
“We call upon Air Commodore Meier to make good on his word to the Australian Senate “that if unauthorised personnel are known to be on or near the live fire area, we stop the clock on the exercises until they are found.” [June 4th 09] Despite our attempts to communicate, Thursday’s statement by Brigadier Bob Brown, contrary to this position, exhibits a negligence in relation to human safety that echoes the Australian and US military behaviour in Afghanistan.
Call for further comment on the group’s activities: Martin Luther King House of Nonviolence, Yeppoon:-
*FURTHER SUGGESTIONS FOR SOLIDARITY
to one of the 7 c/- 69 Kurumba St. Kippa-Ring Q.4021 AUSTRALIA
-Financial donations c/- “Ciaron O’Reilly” P.O. Box 6376 Fairfield Gardens Q. 4103 AUSTRALIA
*Call the following people for further comment on the group’s activities.
Ciaron O’Reilly 0411516434
Sean O’Reilly 0423749946
Margaret Pestorius 0403214422
Landline 07 4933 0356
+61 7 4933 0356 (international)
Professional photos available on request: Margaret 0403214422
Email contact fightfirewithwater09@y7mail.com
Press Release
Tuesday 14 July 2009
Margaret Pestorius, Jarrod McKenna, Jessica Morrison and Rev. Simon Moyle have been found this afternoon on the Shoalwater Bay military training area after entering the base yesterday. The four are expected to be handed over to the Queensland Police and taken to Rockhampton Police Station.
Four nonviolent Christian activists have entered the Shoalwater Bay Training Area this morning to stop the Talisman Saber exercises. Calling themselves the “Bonhoeffer 4” after Kevin Rudd’s favourite theologian, Margaret Pestorius (44, Social Worker, Cairns), Jarrod McKenna (28, School Peace Educator, Perth) Jessica Morrison (33, University lecturer, Melbourne) and Rev. Simon Moyle (32, Baptist Minister, Melbourne) are currently moving towards a live-fire area. They call on the Australian and US forces to cease their involvement in the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and the undeclared war in Pakistan.
The group has released the following statement:
In his article in the Monthly, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd called Bonhoeffer “without a doubt, the man I admire most in the history of the twentieth century.” We have taken the name of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, because he embodied a serious, costly commitment to peacemaking and ending injustice, “a costly grace”. Yet Rudd’s $100 billion long-term military spending plan reveals the Prime Minister has forgotten his hero and is in need of some sisters and brothers to jog his memory.
That is why we will put our own bodies on the line in order to stop the U.S./ Australian Talisman Saber Military Exercises and jam a spoke in the wheel of war. These exercises are implicated in killing and injuring our sisters and brothers in Afghanistan and Pakistan, including untold numbers of civilians. This “war without end”, as George Bush put it, has no exit strategy and no end in sight. We will not overcome the violent terrorism of the poor with the violent terrorism of the rich.
Rev. Moyle has been in contact with the Defence Department about our plans for more than 7 months (http://nonviolencestories.wordpress.com <http://nonviolencestories.wordpress.com/> ) in order to build a relationship of trust and openness. Air Commander Meier has stated in Parliament, “If we know there is an unauthorised person into the Commonwealth land at Shoalwater Bay…the exercise is stopped.” The Defence Department has been notified of our presence on the base. We call on Air Commander Meier to keep his word to the Australian people.
We plan to be inside the area for as long as possible, and are well prepared for a long stay.
As Rudd’s hero Bonhoeffer put it, “The church has three possible ways it can act against the State. First, it can ask the State if its actions are legitimate. Second, it can aid the victims of the State action… The third possibility is not just to bandage the victims under the wheel but to jam a spoke in the wheel itself.” With our actions and our lives we plan to do all three.
For footage and stills of the activists entering the area contact media spokesperson Treena Lenthall (0447 851 858).
Rev Simon Moyle, Jarrod McKenna, Jessica Morrison, Margaret Prestorious
Veteran members of the Catholic Worker movement Jim Dowling and Ciaron O'Reilly prepare to block a major access road to the Talisman Sabre military exercise
ACTION DESCRIPTION
Australian Catholic Workers, Jim Dowling and Ciaron O’Reilly were arrested this morning while blocking a major military access road to the Talisman Sabre 09 exercises being held at Shoalwater, central Queensland, Australia. Along with seven other anti war activists, the pair blockaded the road for over and hour and a half, and prevented more than a dozen US Army Jeep Troop carriers from entering the area.
The activists raised a signpost to mark the road “Talsiman Sabre 09 – The Road to Perdition”. They then knelt in the middle of the road holding signs stating “War is Terror is War” and “Resist the War on Afghanistan” while others present read the names of civilians and troops who have been killed in Afghanistan.
To minimise disruption to local citizens, private vehicles have been allowed access. And for safety, the highway is not blocked.
The pair appeared in court late this morning and are refusing to co-operate with bail conditions while the military exercise continues and will likely be held in custody for the length of the exercise.
O’Reilly stated, “Talisman Sabre is a $250 million exercise in futility. Talisman Sabre is not a game or an exercise, it is a fantasy – a war theatre with no civilians! Most of those being killed by American, Australian and Pakistan militaries are innocent civilians, most fatalities have been women and children. The Af/Pak war is presently escalating and expanding. These Talisman Sabre exercises are significant preparations for more killing.
The Australian involvement in the war on Afghanistan is now eight years old. Ten Australian troops, hundreds of British and U.S. soldiers and thousands of Afghani civilians have been killed, millions of Afghanis and Pakistanis have been made homeless or forced to flee into exile.
*JIM DOWLING and CIARON O’REILLY BACKGROUND
-Jim Dowling presently works and lives outside of Brisbane on the Peter Maurin Catholic Worker farm with his wife Anne and their seven children. He was one of the Christian Against All Terrorism group that broke into the secretive U.S. N.S.A. Pine Gap base near Alice Springs http://www.pinegap6.org to carry out a citizen’s inspection during the recent war on Iraq.
-wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Dowling
-Ciaron O’Reilly spent a year in U.S. prisons as one of the ANZUS Ploughshares convicted of damaging a B52 Bomber in New York on the eve of George Bush Sr.’s war in 1991. O’Reilly was also part of the Pitstop Ploughshares arrested in Ireland in 2003 and charged with $2 1/2 million damage to another U.S. war plane en route to George Bush Jr.’s invasion of Iraq. The group was acquitted of all charges unanimously by an Irish jury in 2006.
Veteran member of the Catholic Worker movement Jim Dowling prays before preparing to block a major access road to the Talisman Sabre military training facility
*STATEMENT OF FAITH
Blockading the Military’s Road to Perdition
Resisting Talsiman Sabre 09 & the Af/Pak War
“Because we want peace with half a heart, half a life and will, the war making continues. Because the making of war is total – but the making of peace by our cowardice is partial.” Fr. Daniel Berrigan SJ
The $300 million “Talisman Sabre 09″ exercise presently taking places in central Queensland/Australia involves 20,000 U.S. and 7,000 Australian troops, aircraft carriers and fighter bombers. Meanwhile, in Afghanistan the large “Strike of the Sword” U.S. military offensive is underway with Australian support.
We come to Talisman Sabre to lock the gates, block the access road to the Shoalwater exercise area and read out loud the names of the dead of the war on Afghanistan – ten Australian, hundreds of U.K./U.S. troops, and thousands of Afghani civilians. We come to nonviolently resist this exercise and the expanding, escalating “Af/Pak War” on the Pushtun, Afghani and Pakistani peoples.
We have come to the Talisman Sabre exercise in Queenland, Australia, during a time when the now Obama led war on the Pushtun people of northern Pakistan and southern Afghanistan is wreaking death and destruction. No target is off limits; weddings, funerals, villages, sites of worship, homes and the innocent labelled “collateral damage” have been bombed in this 8 year war. As usual. in modern warfare, the victims are mostly women and children. They die in a flash of an air strike or slowly of untreated wounds. Some will die in years to come from cluster bombs and other unexploded ordianance fired today.
It is a war that has no popular support, yet little visible popular oppostion, in the countries waging it. A war with general disengagement within the countries of the imperial centre from where it is prosecuted and bloody death and destruction on the fringe of empire – this time in the lands of the Pushtun people of northern Pakistan and southern Afghanistan.
It remains self evident “That truth is the first casualty of war!” H.W. Johnson
British and U.S. governments now acknowledge that they sold the 2003 invasion of Iraq on a bunch of lies that have since been clearly exposed (Saddam had no WMD!).
We have been sold the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan on another bunch of lies. Australian involvement in this war is now 8 years old – from 600 troops on the ground to providing targetting information from the U.S. NSA Pine Gap base (near Alice Springs) for U.S. bombing raids. One such raid by a B1 Bomber killed over 100 Afghani civilians last month.
The war is now refered to as “Af/Pak” by the Obama administration and Pentagon warlords. It continues to be marketed as a Bush’s neverending “War on Terror” This month we witness an American surge in southern Afghanistan and the Pakistani’s military offensive in its northern provinces that is creating millions of refugees.
As Peter Ustinov reflected “War is the terrorism of the rich. Terrorism is the war of the poor!” The present policies and actions of Obama and Rudd will create more orphans, more vengeance and more terrorism. There is no military solution in central Asia. To seriously address the issues of terror one would have to address the 30 year role of the Saudi royal family funding, Pakistani military training and U.S. empire building in promoting the wholesale terror of government forces and the retail terror of paramilitary groups employed in the “great game” of empire building in central Asia. Instead of addressing the role of these rich, corrupt and powerful governments and militaries we are asked to keep on killing the poor. In Australia the churches, the academy and the media maintain a house broken silence in the face of this 30 year slaughter and destruction of Afghanistan.
All the powers require from us is our silence and sedation in the face of these great crimes that are being visited on the peoples of Pakistan and Afghanistan today. We know that war is terror is war. We refuse to be sedated from the cries of the poor, suffering at the hands of the governnments prosecuting this war. In resisting Talisman Saber and the Af/Pak War, we will break our silence and join in a shared context of jeopardy – with the peoples persecuted under the Af/Pak war, the soldiers trained and deployed to prosecute this war. We will enter this jeopardy in a spirit of nonviolent resistance to Talisman Sabre and the Af/Pak War.
We know as Australians, our government generates the lie that our security is only to be found in service to empire. This has been our historic role from the 1800’s to the present day – dispatching Australian troops to Aotearoa, Sudan, South Africa, Gallipoli, Malaysia, Vietnam, Iraq and now Afghanistan to service American and British empires. As Christians, we know that our security lies in following the disarmed Christ in practising the acts of mercy, nonviolence and the realisation of peace and justice.
Jim Dowling
Ciaron O’Reilly
July 9th. 2009
*PRISON SOLIDARITY SUGGESTIONS
*Solidarity letters and postcards can be sent to Jim Dowling or Ciaron O’Reilly c/- 69 Kurumba St. Kippa-Ring, Q.4021 Australia (mail will be redirected to the jail or watchhouse where they are detained for the length of Talisman Sabre 09)
If you would like to make a financial donation to this act of nonviolent resistance (we have failed to set up a seperate account), you could send a cheque to “Ciaron O’Reilly” P.O. Box 6376 Fairfield Gardens, Brisbane, Q.4103 AUSTRALIA. This will help us with transport, outreach etc
Members of the Catholic Worker movement along with fellow peace activists blocking military vehicles on a major access road to the Talisman Sabre war games exercise area in Shoalwater Bay, QLD
Members of the Catholic Worker movement along with fellow peace activists blocking military vehicles on a major access road to the Talisman Sabre war games exercise area in Shoalwater Bay, QLD
Military vehicles were blocked for over an hour and a half this morning on a major access road to the Talisman Sabre war games exercise area in Shoalwater Bay, QLD
Veteran members of the Catholic Worker movement Jim Dowling and Ciaron O'Reilly blockade military vehicles by kneeling in Nonviolent Resistance to the Talisman Sabre War Games Exercise
Queensland Police prepare to arrest peace activists Jim Dowling & Ciaron O’ Reilly for blocking military vehicles access to the Talisman Sabre military training facility
Police arresting Jim Dowling for blocking military access to the Talisman Sabre training facility.
Police arrest Jim Dowling for blocking military access to the Talisman Sabre training facility.
Police arresting Anti-War activists Jim Dowling and Ciaron O’ Reilly for blocking military access to the Talisman Sabre training facility
Police arrest Ciaron O’ Reilly for blocking military access to the Talisman Sabre training facility.
Police arrest Ciaron O’ Reilly for blocking military access to the Talisman Sabre training facility.
Photographer | Thomas Day
Rear view of truck convoy
Long line of trucks blocked for 1.5 hours
*VIDEO
*Grana, 12, is the sole survivor of a coalition bombing in southern Helmand province that took her arm and her leg, and killed nine members of her family
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2009/jun/25/afghanistan
The Af/Pak War and the USA & Australia Militaries
While Australia services the escalting U.S. Af/Pak War in northern Pakistan and southern Afghanistan, a training exercise is taking place in July in central Queensland/Australia between the two militaries.Australia has a long history servicing U.S. aggression in Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. The Catholic Worker has a long history in nonviolently resisting such wars and preparations for war. Catholic Workers are heading to the Talisman Sabre exercises to 'fight fire with water' and nonviolently bring and end to Talsiman Sabre and the Af/Pak War.
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RTS @ del.icio.us- Photos: Ship protester arrested - Cairns, QLD, Australiaquote: 'Earlier, Peace by Peace member Bryan Law had signalled the group's intention to hold a nonviolent "citizens' inspection" because the group was suspicious of the navy ships, the USS Essex and USS Tortuga. He said if the vessels had nothing to hide, the ship's personnel would co-operate with them and allow the inspection. […]
- Exercise Talisman Saber 2009 - Australian Department of DefenceWhat is Talisman Saber? Exercise Talisman Saber is a United States led, Australian supported, training activity that is focused on the planning and conduct of ‘high end’ war-fighting involving a Combined Task Force. The exercise will aim to improve combat training, readiness and interoperability, across the spectrum of military operations from conventional c […]
- Photos: Ship protester arrested - Cairns, QLD, Australia
