Fires still burn against murderous Intervention policies

 

Written by: Lindy Nolan on 12 July 2021

Notes from a landmark conference marking NT Intervention’s 14 years

Aunty Elaine Kngwarraye Peckham recalls walking into Centrelink that first day, “All our people standing in line, like cattle to water.” 

“Even today,” she says, “it brings tears to my eyes.”

Aunty Barbara Shaw’s prodigious CV includes current Deputy Chair of the Central Lands Council.  Yet she is not judged ‘worthy’ of managing her own affairs. Her income was immediately quarantined, and remains so, simply because she is an Aboriginal resident of one of Mparntwe’s (Alice Springs) town camps.

Aunty Barbara has been on the front lines against the Intervention since the beginning, says Celeste Liddle speaking at a two day online conference at which Barbara Shaw and Aunty Elaine were also speakers. Both were founding members of Intervention Rollback Action Group (Mparntwe) which jointly organised the conference with Stop the Intervention Collective Sydney and Victoria’s concernedAustralians. 

Aunty Barbara condemns the ALP’s so-called Stronger Futures, which continued the five-year Intervention for a further ten years.

“We get scrutinised, stereotyped and demonised, especially our men.

“As a youth worker I find more people on the streets, more homeless.

“We still challenge the governments that come looking for our votes,” she says.

In bed with oil and gas companies

Noongar Yamatji woman Dorinda Cox is a preselected WA Federal candidate for the one parliamentary party that has opposed the Intervention from the beginning, the Greens. 

Dorinda Cox stated that in the Intervention’s first month, permits to uranium miners went from 19 to 36. 

She says, “Both major parties are in bed with all the oil and gas companies.” Others reiterated this.

She condemns “cookie cutter policies” like welfare quarantining and Basics Cards trialled through the Intervention. Steve Kumerungi Hodder Watt speaks of these “guinea pig” policies then used against other “marginalised, oppressed and poor people”. 

How many hundreds of millions have been spent on police complexes in even the smallest communities? How many children are dragged to Darwin allegedly for “community safety”?

Actor David Gulpilil says in the documentary ‘Another Country’, directed by Molly Reynolds, "No one from any government has ever known our language. ... How can they know us?" 

Gulpilil relates that $25 million was spent on a police centre as part of the Intervention in his Ramingining community in Arnhem Land, while houses crumbled and people went hungry. 

40 percent of Aboriginal families in the Territory report running out of food. 

Associate Professor Thalia Anthony concentrates on the impact on children. “Fourteen years on… the issues are just as real as in 2007.

“We are locking up children and torturing them.”

This month the Labor Government announced Don Dale’s extension, instead of closing it as promised, she says. This “increased the ability for guards to commit violence”. 

“Only one independent voted against bail laws” that will see more children imprisoned and for longer periods.

“It undermines the rule of law for Aboriginal Peoples,” Ms Anthony states.

She condemns “top down and wilfully neglectful” policies.

Rule of police terror

NSW Greens MLC, David Shoebridge lists the worsening of every so-called Closing the Gap priority area in the NT.  

He illustrates two: the dramatic drop in school attendance and skyrocketing incarceration rates. Unsurprisingly, parents refuse to send kids to schools when toilet blocks have no water. 

In speaking of a “rule of police terror”, he notes that if the NT were a country it would have the second highest incarceration rate in the world, and would be the worst in the world for the incarceration of children, 100 percent of them Aboriginal.

Dr Paddy Gibson from Jumbunna Institute at UTS says, “The 500 pages of the Intervention have now been broken up into a range of pieces of legislation.

“Police do not need a warrant to enter your home if you are on Aboriginal land.” He says that the prohibition of alcohol is regularly used as a pretext. 

“Ten bull wagons will arrive in community,” he says and are used to “persecute outspoken Aboriginal Peoples.”

“You can get jail time for a bottle of beer.”. 

Nothing about us without us!

Mr Hodder Watt says, “In a way, it fuels you with that fire in the belly to keep going.”

“The ‘SWAT team’ chased a car … because they saw a toy gun on the dashboard.” 

He speaks of police “audacity and licence they give themselves to do whatever they want to do”.

Aunty June Mills says royalty money due to First Peoples is being stockpiled, but also “being spent to abuse us. We are an industry. It’s true!” 

She rails against over-policing. Even the tiniest communities have seen millions spent on police stations and accommodation while Aboriginal housing crumbles.

She says, “Women are powerful. They need to be protected?

WHO FROM? Government systems. The police!”

She makes the way forward clear.

“Nothing about us without us.”

Unprecedented national link up demands the end of the NT Intervention

 Written by: Lindy Nolan on 11 July 2021

Aunty Cathy (in foreground at 2018 Sydney rally) introduced the conference

The homelands of Utopia, hundreds of kilometres northeast of Mparntwe (Alice Springs), used to be one of the healthiest communities in Australia, black or white, says Arrernte woman now resident in Melbourne, Celeste Liddle.

Never conquered or missionised, Alyawarre and Anmatjere Peoples lived in family groups, still practising land and resource management, culture and decision-making with significant self-determination. 

In 2007 the “Emergency” Intervention brought invading troops and police into First Peoples’ communities across the NT, including Utopia. 

Utopia lost its water supply, allowing disease to spread, after the Intervention’s white-run Barkly Shire Council replaced Urapuntja Aboriginal Corporation and broke a bore. It took crowdfunding to shame the NT Government into fixing it. Urapuntja had successfully managed community services for over three decades before the Intervention stripped it and all other self-determining NT Aboriginal organisations of their power.

Humiliating signs banning alcohol and pornography also went up. 

In Utopia, Elder Rosalie Kunoth Monks and her daughter Ngarla, outspoken from the first day, had to explain to Elders what pornography was. 

“It broke our men,” says Rosalie Kunoth Monks’ granddaughter, Amelia Kunoth Monks. 

“Our kids fear… It’s a bleak future for them,” she says.

Based on a lie

Anger is still palpable about the lie on which the Intervention land and resource grab was based. ABC’s 2007 Lateline reporter Tony Jones made no attempt to scratch the surface of allegations that Elders led paedophile rings in communities. 

A so-called long term NT youth worker, Greg Andrews, the allegations’ source, was soon exposed as working for Minister Mal Brough’s office. He had never been a Territory youth worker or worked in communities. Andrews is now High Commissioner to Ghana.

“When we found out it was a lie, it should have been disbanded then!” says Aunty June Mills, a Larrakia musician, artist and Elder of great renown, who recently featured in ‘Ernie Dingo’s Going Places’. 

Neither Tony Jones nor the ABC apologised. Jones was promoted.

Amelia Kunoth Monks and Celeste Liddle, a writer, unionist and now Greens candidate for the upcoming federal election, were two of 17 speakers at a ground breaking online conference over two days, marking the Intervention’s 14th anniversary on June 21. 

Three groups: Intervention Rollback Action Group from Mparntwe, Stop the Intervention Collective Sydney and concernedAustralians from Victoria, coordinated the event. First Peoples’ law professor, writer and filmmaker Larissa Behrendt, and Gomeroi poet and legal researcher Alison Whittaker were moderators. 

Assimilation enforcing compliance

Some spoke of the Intervention as assimilation rebadged. 

Emeritus Professor of Economics and Anthropology Jon Altman states, “The intervention sought to revisit and amplify an earlier colonial attempt by the Commonwealth from the 1950s to assimilate Indigenous peoples, some then still living at or even beyond the frontier, speaking Aboriginal languages, largely adhering to their own laws, customs, beliefs and values. Government policy looked to reform those with tradition-influenced ways of living into compliant mainstream subjects.”

Such “reform” was and remains deceitful and violent. Altman says the Intervention deploys “constitutional powers, as well as fiscal and military might.”
Many people are enslaved in the Community Development Program (CDP). Jon Altman slams the 500,000 CDP penalties suspending payments since 2015.

“It’s colonialism on top of colonialism,” says Steve Kumerungi Hodder Watt, a writer, media and theatre worker. 

A Lardil man who has long resided in the Territory, Mr Hodder Watt was particularly enraged when recalling the threat of sexual medical tests on all children, eventually defeated by refusal of families like his and by doctors to allow them to proceed.

Meanwhile, Aunty June tells the conference that she is being evicted from public housing. The first time she was contacted was when a court notice was served. It’s daily life these days.

Aboriginal royalties to fund mining

Indigenous Law Centre’s Professor Greg Marks exposes a secret Memorandum of Understanding not part of the original legislation. 

“It fell off the back of a truck,” he says.

It bans ANY Commonwealth funding for housing in 500 homelands. Most houses are 30 to 40 years old, and have had zero maintenance since 2007. Between 2018 and 2023 NO money is budgeted for homelands, despite their indisputable success in improving the lives of First Peoples.  

Professor Marks also condemns a related announcement by former Deputy PM Michael McCormack at Barunga Festival a week earlier. 

A “charter for development” on Aboriginal lands, it foreshadows amendments to the Land Rights Act to facilitate mining, all funded by the Aboriginals Benefit Account (ABA). The ABA distributes royalties from mining on Aboriginal lands. So, Aboriginal royalties will fund mining!

“Undermining traditional custodians, there is no mention of housing,” Professor Marks says, “instead a new statutory body gives crumbs for art centres.”

Tellingly, he is investigating “international Crimes Against Humanity and Genocide, and the potential relevance of the development and jurisprudence of these international laws to the Australian context.”

Ironically, Covid restrictions have allowed remote voices to be heard more widely. 

Instead of bringing small numbers of speakers from communities, where they have obligations and needs to survive, to far away Sydney and Melbourne for small forums and yearly anniversary rallies, these strong women and men, mostly First Peoples, but also committed allies, have united online.

The conference’s strength is enough to ensure that some mainstream media will share the truth widely. 

More importantly, it concentrates knowledge of the Intervention’s colonialist aims and methods. It helps crystallise the way forward. 

Pentacostals and alleged branch-stacking in SA Liberal Party

 

Written by: (Contributed) on 7 July 2021

The recent announcement that the South Australian Liberal Party State Branch had terminated the membership of a large number of members on the basis that their views were politically unacceptable may not have had much of a national focus.

The SA problem, however, has national implications for the Liberal party and those Pentacostalists, like PM Scummo Morrison, who are embedded in its leadership.

A tendency for far-right political standpoints to be assimilated in mainstream political culture has been a feature for decades, with social media now assisting in a proliferation of questionable political views.

Alex’s antics

In mid-June the SA Liberal Party terminated the membership of 150 'conservative' members together with a further 400 required to 'show cause' why they should not be treated in a similar manner. (1) Matters came to a head after a party recruitment drive targeting hundreds of Pentecostal Christians after controversial legislation passed by the Marshall SA Liberal government about euthanasia and abortion. (2)

The membership drive was organised by the right-wing SA Liberal Senator Alex Antic.

Antic’s paternal family is Serbian.  In his maiden speech to the federal parliament, he said “Theirs was a family of small-business people on a postwar collision course with the rise of communism in the Balkans. My grandmother's distrust of the communist regime, which had already stripped her family of its modest assets, led her to lecture my father about the importance of private ownership, entrepreneurship and basic freedoms.”

Elected to the Adelaide City Council, Antic proved to be a ruthlessly ambitious member of the hard right faction in the SA Liberal Party.  His first victim was Kenyan-born Lucy Gichuhi who had come into the Senate in 2017 as a replacement for SA’s Family First Senator Bob Day who was deemed to have been ineligible for election. Although a social conservative, she disagreed with the merger of Family First with SA Senator Cory Bernardi’s short-lived Conservative Party and subsequently sat in the Senate as an Independent. She joined the Liberals in 2018, but Antic challenged her for the third position on the SA Liberal Senate ticket. Despite her endorsement by then PM Turnbull, former PM Howard and SA Liberal Party President John Olsen, and despite her unique position as the first black African woman elected to parliament, Antic was able to defeat her and was elected to the Senate in 2019.

His enthusiasm for knocking down women in his Party from a non-Anglo background saw State Liberal Member of the Legislative Council Jing Lee, a Malaysian-born Chinese-Australian, become his next victim. 

In the developing atmosphere of anti-Chinese racism, Lee was prevented from being elected as President of the Legislative Council despite having been preselected for the position by the Liberals and personally backed by State Premier Steven Marshall. She was attacked for having attended a function of the pro-Chinese Xinjiang Association of SA.  The attack was led by Antic, and MPs Nicole Flint and Tony Pasin. All are aligned with the hard right led by Peter Dutton. Jing Lee was the Premier’s choice.  Mud-slinging by the Australian alleged that Jing Lee was a threat to Australia on national security grounds.  Liberal MLC John Dawkins was persuaded to run against her, and was expelled from the Party when he won. Nothing was done to Antic, however, who proved to be more powerful than the State premier.

Antic and his allies in the SA Liberal Party clearly had the so-called moderate faction led by Marshall in their sights. Antic personally attended Pentecostal gatherings and urged them to join the Liberals. Exploiting their opposition to the abortion legislation, he had enough success to really concern the Marshall faction. Following protests against the Party’s decision to review the membership of the new recruits, the SA Branch decided to soften their decision by re-considering the 150 members affected by earlier decisions and abandoning their insistence upon statutory declarations for party loyalty with the remainder. (3) The moves, nevertheless, reflect deeper problems inside the Liberal Party with fears of branch-stacking by Antic and his supporters.

Pentacostalism 

Coming so soon after the recent federal parliamentary inquiry into political extremism there may also be an added twist to previous and later decisions taken by the SA Liberal Branch. It was noted, for example, that 'Christian leaders … were … demanding answers as to how it came to pass that the SA Liberals regarded their involvement in politics as a threat'. (4)

While the timing of recent developments may have been coincidental, the creeping inroads by far-right political organisations into the Liberal Party was a topic given discussion during the recent parliamentary inquiry. 

Pentecostalism is a conservative religious doctrine with an emphasis upon literal biblical teachings and strict codes of conduct not favouring “adventurous behaviour”, together with a preoccupation on reducing sexual temptation and desires. It is socially divisive in approach, and in many ways, reactionary: in fact, their websites reveal the denomination to be more akin to a sect, with strong beliefs and an easily recognisable command structure. It is a manifestation of petty-bourgeois individualism, promoting the seeking of salvation in the afterlife through euphoric personal experience of God (speaking in tongues and “happy-clapping”), and earthly rewards of wealth and riches (“prosperity theology”).

Federal implications for Liberal Party 

The controversial euthanasia and abortion legislation in the SA parliament had included lengthy and heated political debates which were politically divisive; the euthanasia legislation only passed the lower house with 33 for and 11 against, the abortion legislation passed the lower house with 29 in favour and 15 against. (5) But the debate soon spilled over into the federal sphere.

A great deal of the political drama has been played-out in the federal seat of Boothby, held by Nicolle Flint M.P., who is part of the Liberal Party conservative wing. (6) Boothby has been regarded as a safe Liberal seat for over fifty years, although with recent boundary changes is now only held by a 2.8 per cent majority. A swing in favour of the ALP would effectively end Liberal control of one of their most prized political possessions in South Australia.

The statement by Antic that the recent expulsions would 'cost the government the seat of Boothby at the next poll' reveal how developments inside the local Liberal Party are regarded as having implications for Canberra. (7)

Long history of religious manipulation

Political parties attempting recruitment through religious denominations has a long and troubled history in Australia. While Catholic divisions split the ALP in the 1950s, effectively keeping the main party out of government for decades, recent moves by the Liberals to recruit large numbers of Mormons and Catholics in Victoria in 2017 led to allegations of branch stacking. Similar moves by the hard-right in Sydney-based Liberal branches have also been recorded. (8)

Behind the recruitment drives of religious denominations, however, lie some very murky forces; right-wing and far-right political groups have long used religious bodies to shroud their agendas and provide a cloak of respectability.

In South Australia two such political organisations have had a long history of involvement with religion.

The shadowy National Civic Council (NCC) is a predominantly Catholic body lurking in a respectable suburb behind a glitzy website. The equally shadowy Australian League of Rights (ALOR), likewise, has a long history of involvement with the Liberal Party.

It has become a common feature for issues and causes raised by such organisations to enter into the mainstream political culture of the Liberal Party. While the far-right are usually united over nationalism, racism, opposition to 'alien' immigration and a general distain for democratic values, evidence of a more paranoid style of political thinking linked to endless conspiracy theories is also commonplace. (9)

It is not difficult to find numerous examples.

One particularly noteworthy example of such behaviour included a former federal Liberal M.P., Ken Alfred, with involvement with the NCC, who openly flouted a conspiracy linking Israeli intelligence with money-laundering scams in Victoria together with labelling Michael Costello, then head of Foreign Affairs, with accepting bribes from Israeli agents and having links with Latin American drug dealers. (10) No evidence to support the claims was ever tabled.

The ALOR, likewise, has a long history of similar political behaviour; former leader Eric Butler believed 'Churchill, Roosevelt and Curtain were covert communists and the Russian revolution was a Jewish plot'; he was later labelled as being regarded as 'nutty as a fruit-cake'. (11)  

The ALOR, however, has also been noted for 'great value on any contacts … with clergymen', and their various publications have included religious items with contemporary political commentary which, interestingly, coincide with similar concerns raised by the SA 'conservatives' in the recent controversy. (12) Whether hidden hands have been at inside the SA Liberals has yet to be established; numerous questions, nevertheless, arise.

It has long been noted, however, that 'many politicians flirted with the League … and … the trick was to denounce the League in public but use obscure members as workhorses in the electoral office. In this way parliamentarians could rejoice in a cosy chat with Butler'. (13)

The ALOR is also the main Australian affiliate with the far-right World League for Freedom and Democracy (WLFD), formerly the World Anti-Communist League (WACL). (14) The organisation has been described by one former member as 'a collection of oriental fascists, militarists, right-wing terrorists who put bombs in civilian aircraft, death squads, assassins, criminals and many people who are as much opposed to democracy as they are communism'. (15)

It is not difficult to establish Liberal Party links with the WLFD/WACL. (16)

The 1989 22nd WACL conference held in Brisbane, for example, was attended by John Howard and fellow Liberal M.P. Bruce Goodluck, amongst the 120 delegates representing fifty countries. (17) Howard has long been applauded by 'conservatives' as their leader of choice, who still remains popular with those sections of the party. Bruce Skeggs, a leading Victorian Liberal, likewise, was an executive member of the WLFD and under his leadership there were three major conferences in Australia. (18)

Such examples were well known inside Liberal Party circles: the publication The Liberals by Ian Hancock 'portrays John Howard as a powerful supporter of the Right faction, willing to intervene at key moments and block democratic reforms when it suited the faction's interests'. (19) The publication also threw light upon the Liberal Party in NSW as 'dysfunctional, factionalised, and rife with branch-stacking'. (20) Those portrayed in mainstream media as squeaky-clean political men of the centre, had a carefully prepared image. They carried, however, considerable baggage which was kept well hidden by senior Liberal Party officials.

Perhaps those responsible for investigating recent internal problems in the SA Liberal Party should cast their nets a little wider than a few hundred devout Christian zealots and identify the puppet-masters in their midst. Their chosen method of communications and extensive use of social media might also prove a treasure trove of political intrigue. That is, if those concerned actually want the truth to be known; the WLFD, for example, use locked websites for affiliates and the general membership to hide their identities. Their secure communications, presumably, include reports from their activists and their localities. There is nothing open and transparent about the WACL/WLFD and the role their affiliates provide.

While seek, as the old saying goes, and you might find, is one approach, opening political disadvantage as both SA State and federal election campaigns loom on the horizon is, perhaps, something else for both Steven Marshall and Scott Morrison.

It will be interesting to see how the Australian Liberal Party deals with the problem.

By their actions, or lack of them, they will be known!

 

1.     Libs fury over a party 'purge', Australian, 16 June 2021.
2.     Nicolle Flint slams Liberal membership move, ABC News, 13 June 2021; and, 'Your views', InDaily, 7 June 2021.
3.     Christian soldiers fight back in Liberals' holy war, The Weekend Australian, 19-20 June 2021.
4.     Ibid.
5.     Voluntary assisted dying law,  ABC News, 9 June 2021; and, Abortion decriminalisation,  ABC News, 19 February 2021.
6.     Tensions within Liberal Party, ABC News, 18 February 2021.
7.     Australian, op.cit., 16 June 2021. Wikipedia: Branch-stacking, 18 June 2021.
9.     The far-right's creeping influence on Australian politics, The Conversation, 13 August 2018.
10.   Putsch to extremes, The Weekend Australian, 17-18 September 2005.
11.   Anti-Semitic zealot held surprising political sway, Australian, 13 June 2006.
12.   Voices of Hate, K. D. Gott, (Melbourne, 1965), page 38; and Advance on Global Religion, Intelligence Survey, ALOR., April 1998; and, Organ Transplant Morality, June 1998, which raised questions about brain death, which in turn raised questions about euthanasia.
13.   Australian, op.cit., 13 June 2006.
14.   Inside the League, Scott Anderson and Jon Lee Anderson, (New York, 1986), page 276.

15.   Ibid., Foreword.
16.   Ibid., page 59, which has reference to the Australian section of the WACL being composed of Conservative M.P.s, interspersed with Neo-Nazis, racists, and Eastern European immigrants whose roots lay in the fascist collaborationist armies of World War Two.
17.   Wikipedia: WLFD., 12 December 2020.
18.   Wikipedia: Bruce Skeggs (1932-2013).
19.   Veteran Lib slams party's far right, Australian, 24 September 2007.
20.   Ibid.

Geelong librarians fight for better pay

 Written by: Duncan B. on 3 July 2021

On Friday July 2nd librarians employed by the Geelong Regional Library Corporation walked off the job in an escalation of a long-running dispute over wages and conditions.

Over 100 staff joined by about another 100 supporters from other unions protested outside the Geelong Regional Library.

They are taking action in support of EBA negotiations that have been going on for over 12 months. A union representative said that Geelong library staff are among the lowest paid in Victoria despite the library being ranked the state’s best. Geelong library staff are seeking parity with the top paying libraries in Victoria.

We wish them well!

 

US war preparations: push for NATO to expand into Indo-Pacific region

 Written by: (Contributed) on 2 July 2021

US-led moves to expand NATO into the Indo-Pacific region to counter China has raised serious questions about the future designated role of Australia. 

If Australia was used to host expanded NATO facilities the country would be placed in the front-line of US-led regional military and security provision and become a large-scale player in a future war with China.

Throughout June a flurry of media releases surrounding the recent high-level diplomatic meetings of the G7 and NATO publicised US military planning to step-up regional military and security provision in the Indo-Pacific. 

A number of official media releases actually advocated US-led plans to transform NATO 'from a European to a global security collaboration', with specific interest in the Indo-Pacific. (1) It was noted that 'NATO would bring an established defence network and command structure to Asia, decades of operational experience and military capacity', leaving little to the imagination about future planning for real-war scenarios. (2)

The statements coincided with two further additional media releases from the Australian Defence Department that a war with China was possible and Australia was planning to increase the US troop presence in the Northern Territory. (3)

A statement from the US diplomatic services also high-lighted that 'pre-positioning of US weapons in Australia offered strategic advantages … and that … it just makes sense to forward deploy US war stocks in Australia', drawing Australia ever closer to US-led regional military planning. (4)

In recent times there has also been a dramatic increase in western military activity in the Indo-Pacific. While most European countries have historically had involvement in US-led regional military exercises, from a standpoint of being previous colonial powers and possessing present-day neo-colonial ambitions, the Indo-Pacific has always been regarded differently. The region is vast and composed of thousands of small islands: 'policing' type action has been extremely difficult. The many smaller island countries have historically, nevertheless, existed under US-led tutelage and relied upon Australia and Japan as major regional hubs for 'US interests' although geographical distances remain problematic with their involvement in military and security provision.

Faced with the rapid rise of China, however, the US appears to be now panicking as their traditional hegemonic position across the vast region has entered into competition with China. In fact, as early as 2018, a US Congressional Commission found 'the US is no longer clearly superior to the threats it faces around the world and that it would struggle to win wars against China or Russia'. (5)  

At the recent G7 summit a separate trilateral meeting took place between US President Biden, British PM Boris Johnson and Australian PM Scott Morrison, who subsequently issued an official diplomatic statement that they had 'discussed a number of mutual concerns, including the Indo-Pacific region'. (6)

The three countries form part of the elite 5-Eyes intelligence-sharing network; a major player inside NATO, with nineteen members of the 54 British Commonwealth countries in Asia and the Pacific. It is, therefore, hardly surprising to find the three countries agreed 'that the strategic context in the Indo-Pacific was changing and that there was a strong rationale for deepening co-operation between the three governments'. (7)

The move would appear set to counter geo-strategic problems experienced by the US in the region: many countries with strong relations with China have been reluctant to take sides between the US and China; they have too much to lose. The US has, therefore, been confronted with a credible challenge to their existing military and other agreements and alliances.

Expanding NATO would appear the favoured realistic option for the US, Britain and Australia; they appear set to foist the European-based structure upon the Indo-Pacific in due course, as a fall-back position to already existing US-led military and security provision.

Two further factors have to be taken into consideration.

A recent defence publication announced Australia was in a prime position as part of the US present global force posture review to work even more closely with the Pentagon and that discussions had already taken place about considering the establishment of a new US fleet headquarters in the Indian Ocean, with the specific reference to siting the facility at HMAS Stirling in Western Australia. It was, furthermore, noted that 'while the South Pacific will remain vital to Australia's national security … the Indian Ocean and South-East Asia far out-rank the South Pacific in every key measure of importance'. (8)

The announcement coincided with a report from a leading Canberra government advisory organisation, the Lowy Institute, that 'Australia is well positioned to become a crucial hub for an enlarged NATO'. (9) The matter would also appear to have been discussed in Canberra as it was officially acknowledged that the Morrison government have 'enthusiastically endorsed' such a proposal. (10)

The announcement that Australia had officially joined the US Maritime Safety and Security Information System (MSSIS), based with the US 6th Fleet in Naples, Italy, which in turn, is part of NATO Forces Europe, would appear to signify Australia had established near real-time communications inside NATO. While ostensibly concerned with monitoring and tracking suspicious maritime vessels, the MSSIS is a sophisticated signals satellite facility linking 75 countries with the US military. (11)

In conclusion, moves appear well under-way to expand NATO into the Indo-Pacific region with active support from the present Morrison Coalition government: Australia has been drawn even closer to Pentagon regional military planning as a target and as an active participant for real-war scenarios across the wider region should they take place.

                                         We need an independent foreign policy!

 

1.     Crucial hub for NATO in Asia, Australian, 15 June 2021; and, Forget narrative of decline, this hostile bear still has teeth, Australian, 15 June 2021.
2.     Ibid, Crucial hub for NATO, Australian, 15 June 2021.
3.     'We must get real on possible China war', Australian, 26 April 2021; and, Dutton wants to lift number of US marines, Australian, 11 June 2021.
4.     US eyes Top End military build-up to combat China threat, Australian, 26 May 2021.
5.     Study: US no longer dominant power in the Pacific, Paul D. Shinkman, Information Clearing House, 22 August 2019.
6.     Military exercises 'will turn down the heat', The Weekend Australian, 19-20 June 2021.
7.     Ibid.
8.     Minister must drive force posture review, WA Defence Supplement, The Weekend Australian, 22-23 May 2021.  
9.     Crucial hub, op.cit., Australian, 15 June 2021.
10.   Ibid.
11.   US satellite deal boosts border security, Australian, 29 June 2021.

ICOR Resolution: "We will not be silent - we will not give in"

 

We stand with the women defending the Istanbul Convention!

For years, the women's liberation struggle and the struggle against all forms of thousands of years of exploitation and oppression of the masses of women of the world has been growing all over the world. The diversity of the means of this struggle and the masses taking to the streets against violence against women and LGBTI+, wage inequality, bans on the right to abortion is increasing. The wholeness of the exploitation and oppression of women by the feudal, fascist and bourgeois state and family order is becoming more and more visible, immensely increasing the consciousness of the masses about sexist oppression and its roots, and thus questioning the capitalist social order as a whole, and the search for an alternative of liberated women in a liberated society is clearly growing. The mass movements of women against violence against women, of women workers such as textile workers, the struggle against terrorist and counter-revolutionary oppression and rape of women fighters and revolutionaries are among the strongest mass movements in the world. 

Against this, the resistance of the ruling classes is is also stirring with all its strength, attacking the fought-for rights of women and responding with patriarchal reaction to the legitimate demands for freedom, equality and justice. Thus, the Istanbul Convention of the Council of Europe, a convention of bourgeois states that establishes legal norms for the protection of women against violence with binding effect, has become an important issue of struggle for women. In July 2020, it was announced that Poland would withdraw from the Istanbul Convention. Turkey, the first signatory to the Istanbul Convention, withdrew from the international agreement overnight on March 20, 2021, by decree of Erdogan.

 

In both countries, women have been mobilizing resolutely for their rights for years, putting up enormous resistance against the patriarchal, reactionary, proto-fascist and fascist attacks and repression of their states. For example, women in Poland are fighting against the anti-women policies of the ruling PiS party, which, in addition to the right to abortion, targets fundamental rights of women to protect the bourgeois family order. Also under Erdogan, the current representative of the fascist state, women in Turkey have been pushed into the traditional role within the family. Violence against women and child abuse is to be promoted through a policy of impunity. LGBTI+ are particularly targeted in a new wave of repression. Undoubtedly, the Istanbul Convention is also a bourgeois democratic achievement of women's tireless struggle for equality and self-determination. The resistance of women in Poland as well as in Turkey is an important signal for all women of the world. For it is only through determined and united struggle that the attacks of the rulers can be beaten back and new rights can be achieved. They make clear that the  women's liberation struggle is an indispensable part and a scale of revolutionary struggles.

 

As ICOR we stand in solidarity with all women who are fighting to remain in the Istanbul Convention and implement its legal standards and call for all forms of action and protest on all continents to express this through actions until July 1st.  We also call on the states that have not yet signed the Istanbul Convention to sign or ratify it (for example, Russia, Belarus, Ukraine). This not as struggles for a piece of paper, but as struggles against violence against women, for a life of self-determination and dignity and a future without exploitation and oppression and to strengthen women's forms of organization. We support the women in Turkey who are calling to bring life to a standstill and to fight for their demands. We salute the women of the world who are resisting and shout: Women who fight are women who live!

 

As women, let us unhinge the system in a revolutionary way, jointly with the workers, the youth, the environmentalists, the fighters for human rights!

 

Initial signatories - women of ICOR parties and mass women's organizations linked to them:

• Australia: Alice M., Vice-chairperson, CPA (M-L) – Communist Party of Australia (Marxist-Leninist), Louisa L., Vice-chairperson, CPA (M-L) -Communist Party of Australia (Marxist-Leninist) 

• Germany: Gabi Fechtner, chairwoman of the MLPD – Marxist-Leninist Party of Germany

• India: comrade Pramila, President of AIRWO – All India Revolutionary Women's Organisation

• Morocco: Meriam Chhaibi and Btissam –  MMLPL – Moroccan Marxist-Leninist – Proletarian Line

• Nepal : comrade Durga Paudel and comrade Mina Pun, President of ANWA, All Nepal Women's Association

• Portugal: Ana Vomhof, militant woman of the UMLP – Portuguese Marxist-Leninist Union

• South Africa: Gloria Mgaju and Margaret Tini, Abanqobi Women Together.

• Tunisia:  Women's Committee Latifa Taamalah, PPDS – Patriotic Democratic Socialist Party - Nesrine Gharbi,  member of the Political Bureau and responsible for women and comrade Amira Dallech, in charge of coordination with the world and European coordination of women and in charge of the file of the next World Women's Conference in Tunisia

• Ukraine: Alina and the women of KSRD - Coordination Council of the Workers Class Movement 

• Uruguay: Women's Front of PCR-U – Revolutionary Communist Party of Uruguay

 

Signatories (as of 29 June 2021, further signatories possible):

1. CPK   Communist Party of Kenya

2. MMLPL   Moroccan Marxist-Leninist Proletarian Line

3. CPSA (ML)   Communist Party of South Africa (Marxist-Leninist)

4. PPDS   Parti Patriotique Démocratique Socialiste (Patriotic Democratic Socialist Party), Tunisia

5. MLOA   Marxist-Leninist Organization of Afghanistan

6. CPB   Communist Party of Bangladesh

7. CPI (ML) Red Star   Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Red Star

8. Ranjbaran   Hezb-e Ranjbaran-e Iran (Proletarian Party of Iran)

9. NCP (Mashal)   Nepal Communist Party (Mashal)

10. PPRF   Patriotic Peoples Republican Front of Nepal

11. NDMLP   New-Democratic Marxist-Leninist Party, Sri Lanka

12. CPA/ML   Communist Party of Australia (Marxist-Leninist)

13. PR-ByH   Partija Rada - ByH (Party of Labor - Bosnia and Herzegovina)

14. MLPD   Marxistisch-Leninistische Partei Deutschlands (Marxist-Leninist Party of Germany)

15. UC   Unité Communiste (Communist United ), France

16. UPML   Union Prolétarienne Marxiste-Léniniste (Marxist-Leninist Proletarian Union), France

17. BP (NK-T)   Bolşevik Parti (Kuzey Kürdistan-Türkiye) (Bolshevik Party (North Kurdistan-Turkey))

18. KOL   Kommunistische Organisation Luxemburg (Communist Organization of Luxemburg)

19. RM   Rode Morgen (Red Dawn), Netherlands

20. UMLP   União Marxista-Leninista Portuguesa (Portuguese Marxist-Leninist Union)

21. RMP   Российская маоистская партия (Rossijskaya maoistskaya partiya) (Russian Maoist Party)

22. MLGS   Marxistisch-Leninistische Gruppe Schweiz (Marxist-Leninist Group of Switzerland)

23. TKP-ML   Türkiye Komünist Partisi – Marksist-Leninist (Communist Party of Turkey – Marxist-Leninist)

24. MLKP   Marksist Leninist Komünist Parti Türkiye / Kürdistan (Marxist Leninist Communist Party Turkey / Kurdistan)

25. KSRD   Koordinazionnyj Sowjet Rabotschewo Dvizhenija (Coordination Council of the Workers Class Movement), Ukraine

26. UoC   Union of Cypriots, Cyprus

27. PCP (independiente)   Partido Comunista Paraguayo (independiente) (Paraguayan  Communist Party (independent))

28. BDP   Bloque Democratico Popular (Popular Democratic Bloc), Peru

29. PPP   Partido Proletario del Perú (Proletarian Party of Peru)

30. PC (ML)   Partido Comunista (Marxista Leninista) (Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist)), Dominican Republic

31. PCR-U   Partido Comunista Revolucionario del Uruguay (Revolutionary Communist Party of Uruguay)