“Aborigines from across the country will fight nuclear dumping”

Media Release

Goodooga, northwest NSW, 24 February 10 – Aboriginal people will be called from all over Australia to protest in the Northern Territory against any movement of nuclear waste across their traditional lands, an Aboriginal activist says.

Michael Anderson, chairman of an Aboriginal Summit Task Force recently elected in Canberra (pictured at right), says in a media release: “Nothing will move down the former American Vice-President Dick Cheney’s Halliburton railway line from Darwin to Alice Springs.”

Mr. Anderson was responding on behalf of a majority of traditional land owners to an announcement by Resources and Energy Minister, Martin Ferguson, that the Federal Government will pursue the first Australian radioactive waste repository at Muckaty Station, about 120 kilometres north of Tennant Creek.

Mr. Anderson condemned the Bureau of Northern Land Council for “ignoring the majority of the traditional land owners who do not want their country, Muckaty Station, used for nuclear waste dumping”.

He said the general Australian public fails to understand how much influence the federal government has over organisations such as the Northern Land Council, whose CEO is appointed by government.

“Aboriginal people are under siege from the tyranny of a Labor government who have no consideration whatsoever for our rights,” Mr. Anderson charges.

“What we have here is a repeat of the Ranger uranium mine agreement fiasco. The arrangements that are being made are illegal and the government and the Northern Land Council know full well that the traditional owners have little to no chance of fighting against this dictatorship.

“But don’t underestimate our resolve as a resistance group. It is time the Australian government woke up and understands that they are pushing us into a corner and we will come out fighting with all that we have.

“Our communications thus far with the traditional owners suggest that a fight is looming, and maybe then the Australian public will get the picture.”

Mr Anderson, the last survivor of the four Black Power activists who set up the Aboriginal Embassy in Canberra in 1972, says he is pleased that the unions are offering support.

“The New Way Summit Task Force has been asked for their support to bring this matter to the attention of the public. The Task Force puts the Australian government on notice that like Noonkanber in Western Australia in 1979, we will call upon Aboriginal people to come from every part of this country and protest any movement of nuclear waste across our people’s traditional lands.”

“If the Europeans, Americans and China along with the rest of the world want to use nuclear power, then dump your rubbish on your own soil. You take it from us against our will and you now want to return it against our wishes.”

Muckaty Station is the country of the mother of Barbara Shaw (pictured left), Alice Springs camps activist and a member of the Summit Task Force. Ms Shaw commented on uranium mining in the Northern Territory at the Canberra summit from 30 January to 1 February.

She said only some people agreed to the dump “because they saw the dollar sign”. Although Elders had long warned that the radiation is dangerous, a lot more awareness needed to be created in the area. Listen to the extract at http://www.4shared. com/file/ 228500371/ e1144837/ Barbara_Shaw_ MINING.html.

The Taskforce can be contacted through Michael Anderson at 02 68296355 landline, 04272 92 492 mobile, 02 68296375 fax, ngurampaa@bigpond. com.au

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Mr Anderson’s release in full:

As Chairman of the recently elected Aboriginal Summit Task Force, I condemn the Bureau of Northern Land Council for ignoring the majority of the traditional land owners who do not want their country, Muckaty Station, used for nuclear waste dumping.

What the general Australian public fails to understand is how much influence the Federal Government has over organizations such as the Northern Land Council. In the first instance the CEO of the Northern Land Council is a Government-appointe d person as per the Federal Northern Territory Land Rights Act. This does not fare very well for its perceived independence. Aboriginal people are under siege from the tyranny of a Labor Government who have no consideration whatsoever for our rights.

What we have here is a repeat of the Ranger uranium mine agreement fiasco. The arrangements that are being made are illegal and the Government and the Northern Land Council know full well that the traditional owners have little to no chance of fighting against this dictatorship. But don’t underestimate our resolve as a resistance group.

The public must now realize what this Labor Government are doing to Aboriginal people, blackmailing them to sign over their lands for infra-structure development and housing, but the real issues are now coming to a head and this is just one example of what is coming.

We do have rights and freedoms and it is time the Australian Government woke up and understands that they are pushing us into a corner and we will come out fighting with all that we have.

It is pleasing to see that the unions are offering support and our communications thus far with the traditional owners suggest that a fight is looming and maybe then the Australian public will get the picture.

The New Way Summit Task Force has been asked for their support to bring this matter to the attention of the public. The task force puts the Australian Government on notice that like Noonkanber in Western Australia in 1979, we will call upon Aboriginal people to come from every part of this country and protest any movement of nuclear waste across our people’s traditional lands. Nothing will move down the former American Vice-President Dick Cheney’s Halliburton railway line from Darwin to Alice Springs.

“If the Europeans, Americans and China along with the rest of the world want to use nuclear power, then dump your rubbish on your own soil. You take it from us against our will and you now want to return it against our wishes. No, the energy-hungry consumers need to look to a better way of doing business, and in this case bury your own nuclear waste in your own back yards; if you believe what you are told by your leaders that it is safe then you have no fears.

The climate movement needs freedom of speech

from Green Left Weekly, 26 July 2009


The following open letter was sent to the Australian Youth Climate Coalition from Resistance. It is in response to the Power Shift 2009 conference in Sydney on July 11-13.

***

We face a climate emergency. Climate tipping points are rapidly being approached, which, if passed, could mean an uninhabitable planet.

Climate scientist James Hansen said in 2008 that we only had a decade to act to avert catastrophe. Since then, all indicators have shown that it may be even more urgent than that.

Despite this, governments across the world, including the Australian government, continue to set greenhouse emission reduction targets that are totally inadequate, jeopardizing our future on the planet.

Faced with this emergency and government inaction, we agree that a “power-shift” is needed: a shift away from current governments whose policies are written in the interest of big polluters rather than of achieving a safe climate.

This is blatant in the Labor government’s Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme bill, which would give more than $9 billion in permits to big polluters, make individual actions to cut overall emissions impossible will even allow emissions to increase.

We therefore find it strange that, at Power Shift 2009 — a national youth climate summit — the very people and organisations we need to shift the power from were given a platform to greenwash their policies and portray themselves as serious about climate change.

In some sessions, participants could not ask a single question or publicly respond. In others, the chair selected one question from the floor to read out; stifling debate or comments that would expose the role that these climate vandals actually play.

This meant NSW Premier Nathan Rees was able to talk of banning hunting in National Parks, while his government is massively expanding coal-fired power stations. Participants were unable to take him up.

South Australian Premier Mike Rann spoke of how his state was leading the way in banning plastic bags — while expanding uranium mining and forcing radioactive waste onto Aboriginal communities.

And Emma Hurd, from Westpac, spoke about her bank’s commitment to stopping climate change, while it remains a major investor in the environmentally destructive mining company Rio Tinto.

We do not believe these people are part of the climate change movement. They are climate criminals and should not be provided with more space to tell young people that their “business-as-usual” organisations are part of stopping climate change.

Politicians such as Rann and Rees and companies such as Westpac have platforms from which they are able to spin their fake climate change policies everyday.

What’s worse, these speakers were given an audience to the exclusion of progressive groups that don’t have the same resources. Instead of Rees speaking in front of thousands, we could have heard from Graham Brown, a retired coalminer who is fighting for a just transition to a green economy: a transition that does not disadvantage current coal workers.

Instead of Rann, we could have heard Rebecca Bear-Wingfield speaking about the actual impacts of uranium mining on Indigenous people.

Perhaps most concerning were the active attempts to stifle the dissent of participants who wanted to challenge the people, organisations and ideas that would lead us to a climate disaster.

When participants turned their back on Rann and chanted in disgust at his policies, security forcibly removed them. When participants tried to hand out material criticising the environmental records of some of speakers, they were told to stop or security would be called.

One of the reasons given was that the material would “upset the sponsors”. Big fees were also charged to hold campaigning stalls.

If a power shift is to occur, those who hold power and refuse to act need to be confronted: people need to be told the truth about their actions.

By silencing those who seek to expose the climate vandals, you line up with the politicians who continue a business-as-usual approach.

By shutting down campaigners because they may offend sponsors, you are effectively saying that those with enough money can buy their way out of any criticism. By charging exorbitant fees for non-profit organisations, you are effectively saying that the views of groups without much money aren’t worth being heard.

Many speakers argued for the climate movement to draw on past social movements, such as the movement to abolish slavery or the civil rights movement in the United States, or the anti-Vietnam war movement.

These are all great examples, but what they had in common was that the movements themselves were hotbeds of ideas.

Many different groups and individuals put forth their views on the best ways forward for the movement. It was through the battle of ideas that the movements worked out how to proceed, and how to win.

To win a safe-climate future, the climate movement must be one of the biggest movements in human history: the only way it can succeed is if freedom of speech and freedom of ideas flourish.

We sincerely hope that the AYCC will take this on board and commit to freedom of speech for all those in the climate movement at future events.

A call to protest at the ALP National Conference

Via the Socialist Alliance

---

The Rudd Labor government has betrayed the expectations of millions who voted for progressive change in the last federal elections in Australia.

Workers and unionists are now working under a "Fair Work Act" that restricts basic rights and violates International Labor Organisation conventions. In the words of Dean Mighell, secretary of the Southern States' branch of the Electrical Trades Union: "'Mr Rudd and Ms Gillard were elected on the back of working people and the Your Rights at Work campaign. Now they are in parliament, they have blatantly disregarded their promises to Aussie workers." For more see http://www.etu.asn.au/newsandevents/news/fair-work-for-whom The incrementalism of Rudd's Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme is, in the words of Greens' senator Christine Milne, "worse than useless in the face of the climate crisis. Just as you can't be a little bit pregnant, you can't stop climate change by doing 5% of what is necessary. Or even 25%." For more see http://www.carbonequity.info The "intervention" into Northern Territory Indigenous communities is a disaster, provoking the resignation of long-standing NT Indigenous ALP minister Marion Scrymgeour. The latest news is that a group of 30 Indigenous leaders from Ampilatwaja have set up a protest camp three kilometres from their township, about 300km north-east of Alice Springs. According to their spokesperson Richard Downs: "Our people are demoralised, hurt, embarrassed, outcast on their own community. We no longer have any rights to exist as humans in our own country..." For more see http://stoptheintervention.org Then there's environment minister Peter Garrett, approver of uranium mines. He used to say: Just four powerful reasons to join the protests outside the Australian Labor Party's 2009 national conference in Sydney Darling Harbour Convention Centre, July 30 - August 1. Here are some more:

Climate Change |Social Change Conference - REGISTER NOW!!

Climate Change |Social Change

A conference to strengthen radical social action to stop climate change

Redfern Community Centre (Fri April 11), and Sydney Girls High School (Fri April 11 evening, Sat and Sun April 12 & 13, near corner Anzac Parade & Cleveland streets, Surry Hills) Sydney

The world is teetering on the brink of unstoppable climate change. Many now recognise the need for serious change in the way we produce and use energy, our transport systems, food production, urban design and forestry practices. Yet politicians are still mouthing platitudes while allowing corporations to continue to profit from polluting our atmosphere and destroying our ecosystem.

The need for social change has become an urgent part of preventing catastrophic climate change. Can the market fix the problem? What is the real record of carbon trading? How can we build a social movement capable of averting this disaster? What models and experiences can offer real solutions?

To strengthen the exchange of ideas and contribute towards that urgent action Green Left Weekly is organising the Climate Change | Social Change conference from April 11-13, 2008, in Sydney.

We are pleased to have confirmed:

• John Bellamy Foster — author of Marx's Ecology: Materialism and Nature; editor of Monthly Review.
• Patrick Bond — director of the Centre for Civil Society, University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa; editor of Climate Change, Carbon Trading and Civil Society.
• Roberto Perez — Cuban biologist and permaculturalist (featured in The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil) from the Antonio Nunez Jimenez Foundation for Nature and Humanity, Havana.

Speakers from Australia speakers include:

• Matt Thistlethwaite — Unions NSW deputy assistant secretary
• John Kaye — Greens NSW MLC
• Stephanie Long — Friends of the Earth Australia's international climate justice spokesperson; works on FoE International's climate change campaign
• Dr Mark Diesendorf — Institute of Environmental Studies, University of NSW
• Tim Anderson — senior lecturer political economy, Sydney University
• David Spratt — co-editor, Climate Code Red
• Marlene Obeid — solidarity activist
• Dr Jim Green — Friends of the Earth anti-nuclear campaigner
• Dick Nichols — author of Environment, Capitalism and Socialism
• Renfrey Clarke — Green Left Weekly environment correspondent
• Cam Walker — Friends of the Earth, Melbourne
• John Rice — Adelaide Ecosocialist Network
• Adrian Whitehead — Zero Emissions Network
• Pat Eatock — elder from the Kairie community in central Queensland and secretary of the National Aboriginal Alliance
• Stuart Rosewarne — co-editor of Journal of Australian Political Economy and Capitalism, Nature, Socialism
• Donna Jackson — Larrakia/Wulna woman who helped establish the Top End Aboriginal Conservation Alliance
• James Goodman — researcher on social movements at the University of Technology Sydney writer on Southern responses to global warming

If you would like to register interest in the conference email climateconf@greenleft.org.au.

To see the agenda (pdf), click here.

To download a registration form (pdf), click here.

To receive updates about the conference, send an email to climatechange_socialchangeconf_announce-subscribe@yahoogroups.com.

Registration costs

	3 days/whole conf	1 day/session
Waged	$100	$55
Unwaged	$40	$25
High school	$20	$10
Solidarity	$120	$65
Public meeting	$6/$4 (included in registration free)

Latest news & background

• Labor: Garnaut climate report just 'early thinking'
• The new climate science: Governments gamble with our survival
• New report warns of runaway climate change
• Cuban permaculturalist to tour Australia
• Climate change | Social change conference

Communiqué from the Central Secretariat of the General Staff of the FARC-EP

The Wombats have just got hold of the FARC-EP's communiqué in response to the death of Raul Reyes. Amongst other things, it notes the identity of Reyes'successor, Joaquin Gomez (pictured, right, with Reyes in 1999).

For any readers interested in a deeper view of what the FARC-EP are about politically, rather than relying solely upon corporate media and its distorted drivel, there is a very recent interview with the FARC-EP's international spokesman Rodgrigo Granda, and an interview with Reyes himself, from the middle of last year.

Since our last post, both Venezuela and Ecuador have withdrawn their ambassadors, and expelled the Colombian ambassadors (Venezuela has expelled the entire embassy), and have sent troops to the border. Venezuela's president Chavez has said that if Uribe tries this kind of stunt in Venezuela it will be war. Correa too, has threatened to pursue this to the "ultimate consequences" and have issued a statement of protest.

Both Correa and Chavez have called Uribe - who has longstanding links with the drug-trafficking paramilitaries - a liar and a mafioso, and Chavez compared the role of Colombia in the region to that of Israel, in the Midle East (an apt comparison, in far too many ways to take up here, although Vietnam is another, very pertinent, option).

In response, the Colombian government, through the Chief of Police (whose brother is apparently a convicted drug trafficker) has claimed to have found 3 laptops with the guerrillas, and has claimed to have found evidence of Venezuela paying the FARC-EP US$300 million, and accused Ecuador's Interior Minister, Gustavo Larrea, of having met with Reyes. Never mind that the money (if it existed) may have been used to free the recently released hostages, and that Larrea has admitted to having met with Reyes, in a third country to negotiate hostage releases. As has the French government, of course, but their not being taken to the Hague...

Probably sensing that these claims would soon be seen as specious, Colombia has now claimed that Venezuela was helping the FARC-EP get 50kg of uranium (an accusation which is a sure sign of political desperation, and outrageous dihonesty, on Colombia's part), and now wants to take Venezuela to the Hague on charges of "Genocide".

The rich hypocrisy of Uribe, who is the narco-presidential son of a wanted drug trafficker; grew up with the children of drug king-pin Fabio Ochoa; was a former good mate of drug baron Pablo Escobar; and was an architect of the blood-soaked paramilitary group the Convivirs (when he was Governor of Antioquia state) trying to take Chavez - of all people - to the Hague on such charges really underscores the desperation of the Colombian oligarchy and their US puppet-masters. There is, however, the danger that some of these lies could rub off into popular consciousness, so the left, as a whole, needs to be equipped with the facts of the matter, and to join in the international protests on March 6 for peace and justice in Colombia.

The FARC-EP communiqué follows below:
*********************************************************

Communiqué from the Central Secretariat of the General Staff of the FARC-EP

March 4, 2008

Communiqué

1. We informed the Colombian people and international opinion, that Comandante Raul Reyes, has been killed. He was a comprehensive and exemplary revolutionary, who gave his entire life to the cause of the exploited, for national liberation and for the Great Fatherland that Bolivar dreamed of. We pay our respects to him and to the other 15 guerrillas killed at his side.

2. The Comandante fell fulfilling the mission of acheiving, through President Chavez, an interview with president Sarkozy, in order to progress in finding solutions to the situation of Ingrid Betancur and the goal of humanitarian exchange.

3. The treachery of the attack, the viciousness and cynicism of the liar Alvaro Uribe in distorting the circumstances of the death of Comandante Raul, not only dangerously intensifies the relations of this government with its sister republics, but is a grave blow to the chances of Humanitarian Exchange and annuls the political solution to the conflict with this paramilitarised and pro-Yankee regime.

4. To Presidents Hugo Chavez, Nicolas Sarkozy, Rafael Correa, Daniel Ortega, Cristina Fernandez, Evo Morales and all Governments who are friends of peace, to the families of the prisoners, and to the overwhelming majority that supported the Humanitarian Exchange, we encourage you to continue fighting for the clearing of Florida and Pradera.

5. The cause of peace based on social justice, for which the commander Raul Reyes gave his life, still waves from atop the mountains of Colombia, from the Bolivarian Platform, the Strategic Plan for the FARC, and the unfailing determination of the guerrillas and people to fight throughout the country. Raul will always be remembered with deep affection, especially for contributing his revolutionary steadfastness, his perseverance, his persistence and effectiveness to publicise to the international community the reality of the FARC as a Revolutionary Army, and his fortitude to energise the strategy of Bolivarian Continental unity .

6. We report that Comandante Joaquin Gomez as of this date becomes a full member of the Secretariat of the Central General Staff.

Eternal Honour and Glory to Comandante Raul Reyes.

For the New Colombia, the Patria Grande and Socialism: Not one step backwards!


Secretariat of the Central General Staff of the FARC-EP

Mountains of Colombia, March 2, 2008.

Russia finds eco-friendly way to massacre millions

The news today brought a huge wave of relief to the Wombats - finally, the danger of a Nuclear Winter has passed. After years of testing - particularly on Chechen civilians, the elderly, pregnant and ill - Russia has announced that it has just tested the world's biggest "vacuum bomb", of comparable magnitude in blowing stuff (and people) up to a nuclear weapon.

The name is a wonderful little piece of warmongering, elitist, spin - redolent of, perhaps, hoovering up the mess on the floor, those inconvenient unsightly crumbs (and people) that might embarass you if a neighbour sees them lying (or bleeding) on the carpet. The true nature of the "vacuum" bomb, described prosaically as "the bomb which has no match in the world" is slightly less tasteful.

It's also known as a "fuel-air explosive" or "gas bomb", and Russia made quite effective use of one of them on the Chechen capital Grozny during Moscow's long and bloody wars of extermination in the 1990's. Issuing a warning to the Chechen capital to evacuate, the Russian military then proceeded to drop one of these nice, clean, devices onto the city, killing thousands.

The bomb works as follows: an initial explosive charge bursts the main container open at a predetermined height in order to allow the fuel to disperse in a cloud, mixing with oxygen, and becoming highly combustible. Then, a second charge ignites that cloud, creating an enormous fireball, large enough to engulf whole buildings, or blocks, depending on the size. Imagine Dresden, but with only one or two bombs. Very humane.

But at least it's not a nuclear weapon. Rest assured, dear friends, the military world is as concerned as the rest of us about protecting the environment. As the report from Alexander Rukshin, deputy head of Russia's armed force chief of staff, points out:

"At the same time, I want to stress that the action of this weapon does not contaminate the environment, in contrast to a nuclear one."

So - no uranium. Must be ok then... The options laid out for humanity by Rosa Luxemburg all those years ago have never been starker: socialism or barbarism.

House raids without warrants in NT

This is the text of a letter from Jennifer Martiniello that has gone to the 7.30 report and several newspapers. Please circulate to your networks.

Jennifer Martiniello is a writer and academic of Arrernte, Chinese and Anglo descent. She is a former Deputy Chair of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait islander Arts Board of the Australia Council for the Arts, and a current member of the Advisory Board of the Australian Centre for Indigenous History at the ANU

Dear Kerry O'Brien and 7.30 researchers,

I have just returned from the Northern Territory. I want John Howard to explain why house to house raids without warrants are being conducted by the AFP in all the Alice Springs town camps.

I also want to know why at least two of the senior women who toured major cities speaking out against a uranium waste dump on their traditional lands have been raided by the AFP on warrants issued by a Federal Magistrate in Canberra, their furniture slashed with knives, belongings damages, laptops and mobile phones seized, and phones tapped. I was told by one of the women that the warrant gave 12 hours access to her home, and that she was told that the measures were justified because of the security crackdown for APEC ministers. One of those women is an elderly grandmother.

I have also been told by town camp residents that the AFP has set up surveillance on all households in the town camps, and have photographed without consent, every Aboriginal child in those town camps. In the 1990s the AFP were successfully taken to court for exactly the same violations in Redfern.

Please report on this disgraceful conduct, and pursue a full explanation from the Howard Government.

regards,

Jennifer Martiniello
Member, Advisory Board
Australian Centre for Indigenous History,
Australian National University

Warning:
This email may contain creative spelling!

Jennifer Martiniello
e: kemarre@optusnet. com.au
m: 0423629470
w: http://www.kemarrearts.com.au