a rush and a push: discussion on politics from the g20 protests in melbourne :: April

Some thoughts on APEC organising and G20 aftermath.

Some thoughts on APEC organising and G20 aftermath.
Or ‘I hate George Bush as much as the next person, but’

There seems to be a number of different camps developing around the question of ‘why APEC’. For some, its an anti-corporate summit opportunity, for others an anti-Bush protest; for still others, an anti-Howard action. But the anti-Bush stuff is definitely a big focus.

These are all good reasons to want to go to APEC. But I want to talk about the opportunity that APEC provides us to talk about things that are surprisingly absent from the Australian activist community: the question of solidarity with comrades in the Pacific, the trajectory of the domestic political debate about troop deployments that aren’t Iraq, and the aftermath of G20 as the part of the ruling classes attempt to ‘bring the war home’.

Bringing the war home - but not as we know it.
Many have talked about the need to: bring the war home. By this, we usually mean the class struggle at home - us against our rulers. But in these times, with an increasingly right-wing and militaristic ALP, bringing the war home can have more sinister meanings. The role of the Australian military in the Pacific is something that is little talked about - but if the ALP succeeds in pushing for the rapid withdrawal of troops from Iraq, those troops will be redeployed - not simply in Afghanistan but possibly also in the Pacific. And it remains to be seen if there will be any military or quasi-military mobilisation for the APEC summit in Sydney.

In an article in the ALP’s national magazine, written on 26th November 2006, Robert McClelland, Shadow Minister for Defence, makes an argument for the increasing deployment of stabilisations forces - police and military, in the Pacific. A concern that I have about focussing APEC solely around George Bush is that it runs the risk of obscuring a platform for discussion about Australia’s military role that goes beyond a kind of left nationalist whinge about being bullied by the Yanks. I would not like our protest to fall in behind the ALP’s security strategy, which is essentially to bring our troops home in order to keep en eye on our comrades in the Pacific. Don’t take my word for it - read McClellan’s speech.
http://eherald.alp.org.au/articles/1106/natp28-01.php

Whilst I think it is important to harness that justifiable anger around the presence of George Bush, I think that considering the situation in Tonga in particular (ongoing emergency regulations in the aftermath of the riots in Nuku’alofa just before G20 last year - see uriohau.blogspot.com for ongoing updates and good links on the Tonga situation and more) and the fact that we already have police and troops deployed all over the Pacific, it is important to open up the debate about what APEC actually means: the continuation of the war by other means.

Deployment of troops in the Pacific, the use of stabilisation forces and technical support for neo-liberal restructuring, is about ‘total supply chain management’ managing the resistance to the economic imperatives of WTO accession and the Bogor Goals of APEC. If we get a Rudd government, we may be dealing very quickly with the reality of a ‘victory’ for the left: the withdrawal of troops from Iraq - in a context that leaves me feeling not quite so triumphant.

The Bogor goals of free trade and investment in the Asia-Pacific region by 2010 for industrialized economies and by 2020 for developing economies were targets set out in the Bogor Declaration in 1994, and will be a major focus of discussion at APEC. The Australian government, it was revealed by DFAT in 2005, has a security budget of ‘38.0 million for the Protective Security Coordination Centre to coordinate security for the APEC year, including an accreditation and access control system for all APEC 2007 meetings and recruitment of 30 specialist personnel. $19.7 million for the Department of Defence to meet its national security obligations, particularly in relation to the APEC Leaders and Ministerial meetings.’
http://www.foreignminister.gov.au/releases/2005/joint_vaile_apec_2007_100505.html

After G20 -and we thought the squat busts were bad!
In the aftermath of the G20 protests came the arrests. It is important to note that there have been very different responses by the state to Sydney and Melbourne arrestees, thought they are all being charged under the same jurisdiction - breaches of Victorian state law. First, some Melbourne arrestees have been slapped with bail conditions that prevent them from meeting with other arrestees, along with being prevented from leaving the state and the country. In Sydney, on the other hand, no arrestees have been prevented from meeting with each other. Its not entirely clear to me why this is the case - though perhaps it is part of an attempt to paint certain Sydney kids as ringleaders and dangerous types (evident in the warnings that some in Sydney have received from cops about hanging out with certain individuals). I suspect there’s a hope that people will ’slip up’ and be caught doing naughty things at APEC and that this can be used against them in their G20 trials. Both G20 arrestees and others, specifically those involved in the Cheney protests, have been stopped by police and specifically warned off any involvement in anti-APEC activities.

Curiously, and contrary to initial assumptions, Counter-terrorism cops are playing an ongoing role in the surveillance of G20 arrestees. The police claimed initially to the Sydney arrestees that the Terrorism Investigations Squad was used only because they were the only kids available on the day. The business cards provided to G20 arrestees since demonstrate otherwise. One business card provided to a Sydney G20 arrestee is that of ‘Plain Clothes Senior Constable’ of the ‘Counter Terrorism Co-ordination Command’.

There was an initial desire to downplay the reaction to the use of anti-terrorism police - to not be seen to be screaming blue murder about uni students being targeted by anti-terror cops, as if it is illegitimate to use them against uni students and/or white kids, but okay to use them against Muslims. However, I think that we do need to take note of their ongoing involvement in the G20 aftermath in Sydney - connected as it is with the desire to test the waters re: the criminalisation of protest on a much broader level. The fact that Civil Rights Defence have agreed to work with ORGASN in Melbourne to highlight this is a good step forward in terms of opening up the
debate about the G20 arrests to a wider audience, but also to challenge the minimalist civil rights terms of the debate around the treatment of Jack Thomas, David Hicks and the Barwon 13. We have a capacity to launch a vigorous public defence of our actions in a way that encompasses our opposition to the terrorising of the Muslim community.

Very little has been said about the fact that a public holiday has been called in Sydney for APEC. It is hard to know this far out what is the purpose of this. Does the state hope to empty the city on the day? Is it hoped that those opposed to the G20 will be more easily picked up because they are the only ones around? Have these measures been used in other cities, for other summits? I’m not
familiar with any precedents. This action seems to me to go beyond even the partial shutdown of the city that has greeted previous summit protests. It is more reminiscent of the Green Zone - to try to empty out a city entirely so that these bastards can meet in comfort, without ever having to confront resistance to their agenda. Very very different from s11. But of course, with a public holiday, it will be much easier for some to get time off to attend any actions!

report from public meeting last night

Report from ORGASN/CRD solidarity meeting

It was a big turnout – I counted a few over 70 people. Good mix of ages.

Anita from ORGASN gave a fantastic speech encompassing the history of the G20 as it developed from the G7. She reiterated the ridiculousness of the claim to representation of the G20 (cos governments don’t represent the populace) and defended the attacks on the police van as an important step in confronting the fear that people have over the police, whose role is to enforce submission to capitalist social and economic relations. Anita invited people to be part of court solidarity actions and to join us in calling for the charges to be dropped.

Marcus Banks from Austudy 5 talked about the history of diverse, militant actions in the lead-up to the Austudy 5 cases in 1992. From the AIDEX Arms Fair in 1991 (3 day demonstration involving 3,000 people, including students, the Food Preservers Union, Domestic Violence and Incest Survivor activists) at which the Defence Minister Robert Ray was forced to cancel his speech because of the tripods, demonstrations, etc. The Arms Fair organisers actually asked the government to declare a state of emergency, and activists were accused of bizarre things like hurling oranges with syringes stuck in them at police, and covering themselves in shit. The Anti-Bush (snr) demos in early 1992 followed.
Marcus put the Austudy demonstrations in the context of the ALP/Keating neo-liberal assault, and the Gulf War. He gave an entertaining description of the Melbourne National Day of Action on March 26th, which was described as a”riot” in all the dailies. 4 people were de-arrested from a police van which was surrounded, rocked, graffitied and had its tyres let down. Those in the van were released. The day before the next action, 5 members of the ISO were raided and charged with unlawful assembly, releasing people from police custody and a number of other charges. These raids were co-ordinated with the media for maximum negative exposure. Marcus passed around a newspaper article in which the police declared the establishment of a new police unit to destroy the ISO. Marcus talked about the support he got from his trade union because he had gone to the demos in his role as delegate. Police claimed that they arrested the ISO activists because they couldn’t find the people from the police van – one of these, an NUS Education officer, issued press releases informing the cops that he’d been in the van. He wasn’t arrested. At the trial by jury that eventually ensued, a deal was struck by which all charges would be dropped except lawful assembly, and all would 5 would cop a 2 year good behaviour bond. Marcus emphasisied that the language of the defence campaign was frame in terms of rights, but rights that were political, social, economic – not framed in terms of limited legal rights.

Colin Mitchell and Lisa Farrance from CRD spoke of the victimisation of Jack Thomas and the Barwon 13. Colin emphasised that the Barwon 13 are being treated as guilty before being charged. He also talked about the truly terrifying case of Faheem Lohdi. Lohdi, a Sydney architect, was convicted in June 2006 of preparing for a terrorist act, and sentenced to 20 years in prison. He was convicted on the basis of downloading photos of various “sensitive sites” some of which he had worked on as an architect, of making enquiries about obtaining chemicals that the prosecution alleged could be used to make explosives [note: for those who want an example of what kind of chemicals can be hypothesised by cops desperate for a conviction as “potential explosives” please see the cases of the Guildford Four and Maguire Seven – people might know the movie “In the Name of the Father” based on these cases…], and of having “radical” Islamic views – whatever that means…

Rob Stary – now, I don’t like lawyers as a general rule, but this guy was great. He publicly acknowledged the work of Civil Rights Defence in defending Jack Thomas, and gave us a bit of a reminder of the history of the persecution and then failed prosecution of Jack Thomas. Stary, Mark Taft and Lex Lasry are now being called as witnesses by the prosecution to prevent them from representing Jack.
Rob talked about the flimsy evidence against the Barwon 13. Basically, that they have been charged with being members of an unnamed terrorist organization, of which they are members (and which bears a striking resemblance to their prayer circle), then of financing and supporting this unnamed organization. And they have been charged with “possession of a thing”. A thing can be anything that is connected to “terror” a computer with naughty documents on it, for example. It seems unclear exactly what the “thing” that they possess is. But, they did go camping together, and this apparently seals the case against them. The trial judge is the same Public prosecutor in charge of pursuing the Austudy 5, Bernard Bongiorno. Rob reminded people of the crazy charges used against anti-Nike crew and the Austudy 5, and against forest activists, and that the new National Security Information Act means that people can be tried in their absence and the absence of any legal representation.
Rob talked about being swamped with DVDs and evidence and that this is a tactic to make the legal reps lives very difficult.
There will be a mention this week of the G20 case. But Rob indicated that the May 11 court appearance would only go ahead if people pleased guilty. So its not that likely….

Discussion centred around the desire to get unions on board, and the need to get together some simple info to spread around (i.e leaflets) so people can hand out the info at workplaces. People also talked about the importance of APEC organising, and the direct link between the intense pressure on Sydney arrestees in particular, and APEC organising.
At the pub, we talked about fun ideas for organising APEC proxies, for those who can’t leave the state cos of bail conditions…

speech delivered by Anita at public meeting

Last November, about 3000 people, predominantly from Australia and a handful from overseas, converged in the Melbourne CBD to protest at the G20 summit meeting. People with many different backgrounds and experiences, histories and ideas, attended the g20 protests, for a wide array of reasons and purposes – they saw the g20 as an opportunity to voice their challenge and critique; of the g20 itself, its composition, claims to representation, its existence; of its policies and the wider capitalist system of which it is a part; or of the police and their often violent role in the protection of this system and the state; among countless other things.

The G20 or Group of 20 was created in 1999 when members of the G7 – seven of the world’s largest and most powerful economies – invited several countries described as “systematically important”, together with the IMF, World Bank and EU to join them in creating a new international economic body. The G20 Accord details its global economic vision: free movement of capital; deregulation; “flexible” market conditions for labour; privatisation; private property and Intellectual Property rights; a climate favorable to Foreign Direct Investment; and global trade liberalisation through the WTO and bilateral free trade agreements – basically, the expansion and entrenchment of neoliberal capitalism.

The inclusion of countries usually described as “third world” or “developing” has led to assertions, fostered by the G20 itself, that the G20 is a more representative and inclusive body than other economic bodies such as the g8, and therefore is an opportunity for countries of the global South to have more of an impact on the world economic system. Officially, the role of the G20 is deliberative, designed to encourage “the formation of consensus” among its members. Yet the securing of “consensus” – often through bullying and coercion - around the G20 Accord merely serves to legitimize the initiatives and decisions of the g8, providing an illusion of democratic participation and inclusivity.

Furthermore, to suggest that the governments of countries such as Brazil and India are in any way representative of the “world’s poor”, aka the populations they claim to represent, ignores the fact that, all around the world, whether it be in Western countries such as the United States and Australia, or in countries of the Majority World such as Argentina, governing bodies and representatives emerge from the elites within countries – elites that stand to benefit from the policies formulated within institutions such as the g20 like free trade.

“Representative” bodies like the g20 always – and purposefully – leave out the voices of those directly affected by the neoliberal capitalist system they are designed to extend and reinforce. Many of those who attended the November protests took issue with the fact that 20 rich men can sit in a closed room alone, shielding their discussions even from the corporate media, and make decisions that will contribute to the suffering of millions around the world, for the benefit of the few - elites, corporations, and so on. Even organizers of Make Poverty History, a group that generally buys into the discourse of inclusivity around the g20, commented on the negative effects of last year’s summit on the world’s poor.

And so to many, the protests around the g20 presented an attempt to directly confront and attempt to stop or shut down the g20 meeting. To many, lobbying, simply trying to ask these 20 men nicely to take the effects of their decisions on the suffering of everyone else into account, was not going to have any practical effect – the institution itself is structurally corrupt and undemocratic, motivated only by the flow of capital, not any concern for the suffering of the multitude. Many of us did not believe that 20 people should have the right to make decisions on the behalf of those that would be directly affected – people should be able to make those decisions themselves. Attempts to breach barricades were, for many, challenges to the g20’s entire existence.

The g20 is one element of the global capitalist system. Capitalism is a set of lived social relationships in which our lives become tied to systems of production, ownership and exchange; of exploitation, competition, alienation and inequality; of hierarchy, repetition and abstraction. Capitalism is inherently violent. It is what we are compelled to live out and reproduce everyday in our activities, our thoughts, our interactions with others. Institutions like the g20 are small parts of the administration of this global capitalist system, providing opportunities for the control or implementation of certain strategies, goals and structures in the wider capitalist order. Beyond simply protesting the g20 itself, for many people, the summit presented an opportunity to attempt to actively, directly disrupt the functioning of the global capitalist system; to intervene in the normal operations of power, and to manifest our resistance and rejection of these hierarchies and systems autonomously, through our own definition.

And for sections of those who attended the demonstrations, autonomous rebellion meant direct action and civil disobedience; an embrace of the concept of diversity of tactics in deciding for ourselves how best to confront the g20, how best to express our challenge, rather than abiding by the forms of protest condoned by the state merely because we were told to. This is not to suggest that any form of protest is necessarily more effective than any other. It is rather to emphasise the autonomous evaluation of how one chooses to express their own resistance as being part of the realization of one’s own autonomy and emancipation or freedom.

Those 20 men who comprise the g20 are members of governments that are responsible for countless instances of violence – economic, physical, emotional – around the world. Men like Paul Wolfowitz, the architect of the ongoing Iraq invasion that has caused the deaths of millions. A representative of our own government, responsible for the ongoing genocide of indigenous people and the imprisonment and abuse of refugees. A representative of the government of Argentina, responsible for the “disappearing” of thousands. A representative of the government of Mexico, responsible for the brutal oppression of ongoing indigenous resistance. Representatives of governments responsible for mass murder, theft, destruction of communities, starvation, environmental desecration, suffering and hardship, control, the denial of autonomy and freedom.

The enormous hype and discourse, predominantly channeled through the corporate media – institutions which, by the way, are also beneficiaries of global capitalism and therefore have vested interests in the demonisation of protestors as apolitical thugs – seems pretty ridiculous when faced with the incalculable violence of the members of the g20, its policies, and the wider global capitalist system. Yes, governments kill people. Yes, capitalism produces starvation and inequality. But an ordinary person threw a bin at a barricade. Surely, they’re the real “thugs”. They’re the real criminals.

In 2003, millions of people around the world engaged in peaceful demonstrations against the invasion of Iraq. Millions of people marched the streets of cities everywhere to express their collective “NO” to the United States and friends – no, it is not okay to invade Iraq. No, you will not do this on our behalf. They were the biggest pre-war protests in history. And what happened? In March, 2003, a “coalition of the willing and or coerced” invaded Iraq. Over a million people have died, and the numbers are still rising.

Many of those who participated in the demonstrations against the war also participated in the protests against the g20 last year. Many of them were frustrated with their inability to achieve their aims through more traditional forms of protest. They didn’t believe that lobbying, that marching, that asking nicely would achieve their aims, any more than asking governments not to invade Iraq had any real impact whatsoever. And so they looked to other ways to express their challenge, to shut down the meeting, to disrupt global capitalism, to stop g20.

Direct action and civil disobedience have a proud history of success, from the suffragettes movement, to the struggle for the eight hour work day, to the gay rights movement in Tasmania. Direct action means taking active control of resistance and desires, attempting to achieve your aims with no mediation by anyone else. It means acting outside the expectations of the state, rejecting conceptions of what kind of protest is “good” or “allowed” by the state and organizing amongst ourselves, with each other, to undertake autonomous action without regard for the controls of the state, including the law. It rejects all forms of domination, and embraces freedom. It can take any form – including breaching barricades, pushing through police lines, reclaiming the streets.

In directly confronting the g20, we do not act simply on our own behalf. Rather, we become part of a worldwide movement against global capitalism. Several days before the G20 protests riots broke out in the Tongan capital against the refusal of the Tongan monarchy and parliament to address the social impacts of Tonga’s restructuring of its economy, restructuring designed to create precisely the “favourable investment climate” promoted by the G20. People around the world, disillusioned with their ability to successfully lobby governments to act in certain ways, are expressing their resistance directly, confrontationally, rejecting calls for politeness or to obey.

Much of the populist discourse that has followed the g20 condemns protestors for attacking police or their equipment and vehicles. The police are held up as “protectors of society”, attacked while trying to do their job.

I do not dispute that the police were considered by some to be a justifiable protest target. And its true – the police were doing their job. Yet this job is most definitely not the protection of society. The police merely enforce the law. And the law itself is an imposition of order and control by the state.

At the beginning of the protest the police handed out little blue notes telling us that we would not be allowed to protest around the Hyatt. Rather, we should take ourselves down to the Birrarung Marr and have a little demonstration down there. The police are not a neutral body. Rather, the police are used as a tool of the state – in this case, to shut down the city and protect those 20 men in the Grand Hyatt from the expressions of dissent and challenge of the ordinary people outside. They were there to keep the meeting closed. To keep people out. To allow the meeting to take place unchallenged. To protect the workings of capitalism from the threat of disruption.

The police, too, are fundamentally violent. This violence is inherent in the role of the institution itself, being the imposition of order and control. There are countless instances of police violence towards protestors over the weekend. Many people were hit with batons, causing bruising and concussion – even cheerleaders, who cannot be conceived of as violent by any means. Police baton charged a group of non-violent, dancing protestors outside the Melbourne museum with no warning, sending one protestor to hospital. A man was abducted and beaten by plain clothes, unidentified police, despite the fact that he was not even at the protests.

And yet these accounts of police violence are relatively minor when compared with the continual violence and brutality of the police most particularly against Indigenous or other non-white persons around Australia, and indeed around the world. From the murder of Indigenous people in custody by police members as seen most recently in Palm Island, to the violent repression of subsequent protests by the local Indigenous community, the police repeatedly appear as a violent and often racist institution. The police are used worldwide to crush resistance and rebellion, to protect the state from the people it claims to represent.

The police rely on fear in upholding order. In positioning an empty police van across a road in order to keep people off the streets of the city in which they live, the police are relying on fear of the institution and the violence that it represents in assuming that people will obey the symbolic blockade. To confront the police, to attempt to penetrate their lines to reach the powerful men they are there to protect, to attack a police van which represents the enormous wealth and power of the police force, is not simply to confront the violence of the police, to confront the sexism and racism of the police, but also to confront the fear that they create to ensure obedience to the dominant order. To break the law for what one believes in is to throw off the fear that keeps people “in line”, that keeps the system in place, the discipline that keeps the system functioning smoothly.

The role of the police in protecting the interests of the state is blatantly obvious in the witch hunting of protestors following the g20. The dedication of vast resources to the police by the state to undertake extensive surveillance and dawn raids of protestors, the repressive bail conditions that have been imposed on those arrested – including reporting of up to 3 times per week and no association with the co-accused – as well as the ludicrous charges that have been handed down, makes clear the politicized nature of policing. The anti-protestor campaign represents the criminalization of a particular form of protest, in order to scare people into channeling their dissent into a unified set of protest tactics that can be more easily controlled.

This is particularly obvious in the lead up to the APEC summit meeting in Sydney in September. The date of the summit has already been declared a public holiday, making it easier for the state to use the police force to shut down the city entirely, to keep people off the streets in order to shield world leaders of countries such as Burma, China and the United States from critique and criticism.

I, as a member of the Ongoing G20 Arrestee Solidarity Network, support direct confrontation of violent, undemocratic and corrupt institutions such as the G20 and APEC. I support the direct disruption of global capitalism. I support the challenge of the violence of the police, and the exposure of their role as protectors of capitalism through the medium of the state. These acts of confrontation can be seen as both attack and self defense, self defense against a system that is in a state of perpetual attack against all of us. I fail to understand how it is okay to invade another country and kill millions, allegedly in order to ‘depose a dictator’, yet it is not okay to attack an institution or system that maintains and reinforces the suffering of millions more everyday around the world. I fail to see how the wearing of a uniform gives a person any more right to use violence than anyone else.

The charges against G20 protestors are politically motivated. They are ridiculous. The Ongoing G20 Arrestee Solidarity Network is calling for all charges to be dropped now.

On May 11, the bulk of arrestees have their first court appearance. We will be maintaing a presence outside the Magistrates Court on this day, and are calling for support. There are flyers and a mailing list going around, and we have organizing meetings on Fridays at 6.00pm at trades hall bookshop.

To quote Liz Thompson: “The criminalisation of solidarity and resistance will not prevent us from taking actions in our own defence – it simply makes the law look more and more like an instrument of the rich and powerful to use against the poor and powerless.”

See you outside the courtroom.

media release - court appearance this morning

This morning the first four arrestees appeared in the Melbourne Children’s Court, part of the continuing politically motivated police and state campaign against protestors following the demonstrations at the G20 in November. A solidarity action was held at 10am outside the courtroom in support of the arrestees. These arrests have taken place as part of a wider campaign of repression against those who took to the streets to directly confront the illegitimate institution that is the G20, whose neo-colonialist policies perpetuate inequality and suffering around the world, and whose member countries engage in war, violence, and internal repression every day. “The Ongoing G20 Arrestee Solidarity Network supports protestors directly confronting institutions such as the G20 and the wider system of which it is a part,” said Anita Thomasson, of the Ongoing G20 Arrestee Solidarity Network. “Direct action and civil disobedience have long been part of a worldwide campaign against global capitalism and other issues. These tactics have a proud history of success from the suffragettes movement, to the struggle for the 8 hour work day, to the gay rights movement in Tasmania.” In the past months, vast resources have been dedicated by the government to the police to carry out dawn raids, undertake extensive surveillance, and slap protestors with ludicrous charges and repressive bail conditions. “This demonstrates the politicized nature of policing in this country,” says Anita Thomasson. “These charges are simply an attempt to allow only a certain form of protest that can be more easily contained and ignored, especially in the lead up to the APEC summit in September, where global leaders including George Bush will meet in Sydney.” On Saturday the 21st of April, Liz Thompson, speaking at the David Hicks rally in Melbourne, drew links between the ongoing prosecution of G20 arrestees and broader attacks on civil liberties as seen in the case of David Hicks. “Why is it that the full force of the state, snatch squads, federal police, anti-terror units, have been deployed against the G20 protestors, when Paul Wolfowitz, architect of the Iraq invasion, a man whom almost a million Australians, and millions more around the globe protested against, gets a special invitation?” she asked. “The criminalisation of solidarity and resistance will not prevent us from taking actions in our own defence – it simply makes the law look more and more like an instrument of the rich and powerful to use against the poor and powerless.” We are calling for all charges to be dropped. For more information call Liz Thompson on 0421979694 or Anita Thomasson on 0411680052.

Liz Thompson’s speech delivered at Hicks rally

At midday Sunday 19th November 2006 a man was abducted from a Foodworks minimart in the city by three men dressed in casual clothes and taken into an unidentifiable white van, where another 5 of them helped hold him down and handcuff him. The men did not identify themselves or inform the man why he was being abducted. He was told ‘that they would ‘Bash him up and smash his face’, and they held his legs behind his back, pushing his head against the floor of the van and sitting on it. They drove around the city continuously terrorising him with these comments and physical force. They pulled his pants down, searched him and cut his backpack off his back. ‘I thought I was going to die, I could hardly breathe and I didn’t know who these people were’, the man said later.

Several hours after his arrest, the police worked out that they had arrested someone who was nowhere near the events of which he was accused of being a participant.

The Senior Constable told the man that ‘He should understand that in these circumstances they (the abductors) can’t take any risks’ and that ‘They need to apply considerable force when dealing with violent suspects’.”

What happened to Drasko Boljevic, and the response from the senior constable in charge of the case, justifying the extreme use of force against someone had nothing to do with the G20 protests November 2006, is just another example of how the logic of the war on terror and of Guantanamo Bay, has permeated policing and the response to resistance in this country.

Riot Police and Counter Terrorism Snatch Squads present in Melbourne in November, have also been deployed at the Free David Hicks rallies around Australia, Anti-VSU (voluntary student union) student rallies in Sydney, Anti-War demonstrations, Global Warming Awareness Campaigns and marches against Industrial Relations changes. University Muslim student organisations continue to receive regular phonecalls from AFP and local police, quizzing them on member’s activities, and the occasional impromptu photo shoot after mosque from men in white vans with large telephonic lenses.

That is the practical application of the views expressed by the Australian government towards David Hicks, a man who was judged guilty by his captors, by his jurors, and by his government on the day of his arrest, a man against whom torture has been used, and then justified, by governments and lawyers, a man who until a very recent change of heart was rountinely slandered and demonised by the media through the use of that famous but misleading picture of him posing with a rocket propelled grenade launcher that he never used in Kosovo. Guilty until proven innocent, trial by media and the wielding of new and dangerous legal instrument and police units to circumvent established legal norms and justify brutality and torture - First, David Hicks, then Jack Thomas, then the Barwon 13. And now, anti-terror police have been deployed to raid the homes of those involved in the G20 protests.

In the week leading up to g20, conference spaces set up to hold talks and organise around the G20 were raided by police squads, intent on harassing activists who were holding workshops and conferences on establishing community alternatives to a neo-liberal economic order. The G20 is a gathering of central bankers, and finance ministers of the economies of the Group of Eight, as well as a smattering of representatives from countries like Mexico and Indonesia, and the heads of powerful economic institutions the World Bank, the IMF, and the EU.

In the weeks after the protest, we have seen a demonisation campaign in the media, the seizure of computers and passports, and the gathering of intelligence on actions, political campaigns and individuals not connected with the events of the g20 protest, under the guise of G20-related arrests.

This repression is mirrored by events in the Pacific, very relevant to the actions at G20. Several days before the G20 protests, attended by Pacific solidarity activists, riots broke out in the Tongan capital Nuku’alofa, against the refusal of the Tongan monarchy and parliament address the social impacts of Tonga’s restructuring of its economy, restructuring designed to create precisely the “favourable investment climate” promoted by at G20 meetings. Tonga’s economy has been undergoing restructuring in an attempt to meet WTO accession requirements since 1995, with no public input and significant community disquiet. A state of emergency has been in place in Tonga ever since the November riots – pro-democracy activists whose media outlets have been shut down in the aftermath of the riots, many of whom were involved in attempting to organize peaceful resistance to undemocratic economic imperatives, are warning that continuing emergency regulations will lead to further unrest:

Echoing a statement John F Kennedy in 1962 in a speech to the White House who said that those who make peaceful revolution impossible make violent revolution inevitable.

George Bush’s appointment of former Deputy Secretary of Defence at the time of the Iraq War, Paul Wolfowitz, to head of the World Bank, is the continuation of the war by other means. Wolfowitz’s appointment completes the circle started by the invasion of Iraq in his remarks to the Mineral and Energy Business Council of the G20 in Melbourne last year, about the importance of energy policy for a project of growth and investment. The results of Wolfowitz’s last foray into energy policy, the Iraq war, certainly motivated many of us to attend the G20 protests and to attempt to prevent the meeting taking place.

We went to the G20 protest to challenge the supremacy of a “favourable investment climate” over the right to organize at work and the right to receive benefits in the absence of work. We went to the protest as an act of self-defence against the mission of business – to increase its profits at the expense of us, our right organize in unions, our right to access decent public transport, our right to access health care and indigenous rights over land, and in solidarity with those fighting similar battles in Latin America, and the Pacific. We went to protest the public invitation extended to an architect of the Iraq invasion by our government. By our actions, which have been criticised by some for going beyond the bounds of marching down the street and waving placards, we were defending our right to protest – our right to self defence.

To shut down the city of Melbourne to allow finance ministers and central bankers to meet to make decisions to sell off our assets, further strip back our social security and create a favourable investment climate for corporations and private equity firms was an act of war against poor communities, both here and overseas. The machinery and bureaucracy of the US occupation of Iraq live and work in the Green Zone, protected from the carnage they have created outside those walls. We resisted the creation of a Green Zone in Melbourne, where men like Paul Wolfowitz and Peter Costello meet in blissful ignorance of the carnage their policies create in communities all over the globe.

Why is it that the full force of the state, snatch squads, federal police, anti-terror units, have been deployed against the G20 protestors, when Paul Wolfowitz, architect of the Iraq invasion, a man whom almost a million Australians, and millions more around the globe protested against, gets a special invitation? The criminalisation of solidarity and resistance will not prevent us from taking actions in our own defence – it simply makes the law look more and more like an instrument of the rich and powerful to use against the poor and powerless.

We are part of a meeting to discuss the attacks on protest and civil rights on Thursday, 26^th April at 7pm at the Fitzroy Town Hall. We would like to invite all of you to be part of a critical discussion about these arrests, about our protests, and ask for your support for those arrested at the G20 protests.

I was at the same rallies that many of you were at to stop the war of terror – but the war continues – directly in Baghdad, as bombs rip apart markets, massive population transfer takes place, directly in Guantanamo Bay where David Hicks and others sit outside the law, and the Barwon 13 rot in our own version of Guantanamo Bay at the Acacia Unit in Barwon prison, directly through the surveillance and fear experienced by members of the Muslim community here and abroad, and indirectly, through the confluence of interest between the security strategy of the United States and the development strategy of the G20. And the question that we who were at the G20 and in particular, we who stand by not only the motivations but the actions of those who have been arrested, and demonised in the media, pose to you is: how do we stop it? Will you help us?

may 11

this is just a callout to start a discussion about what should/might happen around may 11, the first committal mention of those charged. ideas/thoughts/concerns/etc?

letter

So yesterday, for the first time in nearly two and a half weeks, I went the whole day and night without a drink.
It’s been an interesting few months for myself, and probably for many others also. This letter to those who have been burned is going to be part rant and part rational argument, so please excuse me if I get somewhat pedantic. About the drinking – I was thinking about what the term ‘crutch’ is used to describe – it’s something that supports you when you are sick or infirm, diseased and broken. That’s what booze has been for me in the last few months. Alcohol is everywhere in our communities and families both biological and cultural have been infiltrated by these fucking nefarious bottles and pills and plants. I can hardly see anyone these days without being offered a drink – or worse, having to go somewhere like a bar in order to see them. Don’t get me wrong, I love slamming beers but it’s got to be done with reflection, and in myself at least I find it hard to achieve anything when i’m always drunk.
So I’m quitting drinking, and I’ve decided to take up smoking instead.

Something which I feel relates into this discussion of alcohol use -which really needs to start happening with all of us, (possibly not over a quiet pot of beer though) is the idea of deception and dishonesty. Being a studious type also interested in sideshow circus I’ve been watching a lot of the ways people relate to each other. We had a party here the other night, at my police-germ-tainted house, and I realised that deceptive friendliness can be a more effective weapon against those who you fear or who you mistrust, than aggression. Imagine – I was sitting on the floor in the living room, as the house got steadily more trashed, and watching a tall stranger eyeing off my computer in the corner. Now I know how to pick someone who is casing out a room – it’s the same look as someone who walks into a crowded bar or café and immediately looks for who is there, where they are going to sit, where the power in the room is etc.
So I stood up, walked over, smiled, and said G’day, how you doing, what’s your name, I’m …
And he looked pretty surprised at first – kind of taken aback. A funny picture, the two of us standing there; me in a waistcoat and boots, him in a pushed back baseball cap and geezer jacket, havin an easy chat. But by being friendly (even though I had ulterior motives) it went some way towards defusing the situation – by talking calmly you give the other no reason to get aggressive, and force them to show their hand, reveal their character. It’s pretty easy to just hide behind an image, but it’s a lot fucking harder to come out from behind it and present yourself as a regular person.

That said our societies are based on deception, and that’s something I want to talk about with regards to the g20 and the upcoming committal hearing[1]. Now, being someone who is going to be in that court room with my heart in my throat and my balls (or ovaries) on the line, I want to talk about what I would like to see happen. Granted there are many people and many opinions, but we have until May to start thinking, planning and preparing what is going to happen in that room. The magistrate for this hearing has been confirmed, for those of you interested – HER name is and this is important, because in my limited experience of her judgement she came across as somewhat less of an old white man than I expected a magistrate to be. Which, I don’t think I need to point out, is an enormous stroke of luck. As is the recent, but slightly unconfirmable piece of info that the Victorian police will be trying all of those charged, together. 12 disks of evidence have now been released to the lawyers involved and interested parties are encouraged (by me) to get their hands on at least one of those.

Because (not that we were even there) but some of that evidence has to be challengeable – think about the way it was collected. When the police fucking destroyed my room[2] not only did they rip things off the walls, frighten my housemates (who of course played stupid) but they even took my freakin poetry for Man’s sake?! Where is the freedom to think creatively if at any moment I could find myself being charged by the pigs for a scrambled note I’ve jotted down in my margins? That’s fucked. So if we all started going through those disks of evidence, then some things will happen – people who Know what was going on will hopefully be able to pick out small bits of the information that are infirm, or simply bollicks.
In the last days of my recent bender I was stumbling around with ‘The evidence is challengeable’ written on my chest, under my shirt. That was about two days after I had ‘TRASH’ written there so you can see the change in how I’m feeling already

And this brings me to my final and most important point. When it does come to those few days in May, I have some things for everyone to think about. We have raised our voices time and time again, we have shouted over rooftops, been drunk on the burning fumes of our happy lives and even laughed in front of a whole row of horse-straddling blue-n-whites. But now is the time for reason, and for the quiet voice on the other side of the face to come out, and here we must wear a different type of mask. In my opinion protesting in front of the courts is not going to achieve the desired outcome – did anyone else read that beat up in the Herald Scum after that? Well fuck the scum, but I think we can make our dissent better than that. When I got done, the fat cop (along with the god cop and the bad cop) asked my dad what I did. Dad told him I was studying. Studying what the cop asks. Philosophy, Art History, other things.
Oh, the cop says, that’s funny - because we’re finding the same things about all these kids – they’re all really intelligent. And he was genuinely surprised. That someone intelligent would question the entire system on which his narrow little life revolves. Because he’s had a belief in that system his whole life, been told that it was right, was going to look after him, and keep him in his job, his home, his family, his bed, safe at night. But it won’t. And we know that – each of us, everyone in this country is getting smaller inside themselves – people don’t even talk to each other, wont say ‘excuse me please’ when someone is in their way.

And so there is a time for making people afraid, and a time for reaching out to them, and in return getting what you want. What I don’t want is the police and the magistrate in court looking around and seeing banners, or seeing the dirty shifty transient (and beautiful!) creatures that we are. We HAVE to play their image game for a while because I feel that we have a real chance of achieving something out of this. Like I said last time – I am determined to learn from this experience, and if anything it has made me more politicised, not less.
And for fuck sake – there is an election coming up this year – a big one. If Howard topples, it will be like breathing fresh air, no matter how shit the ALP is. People all around our nation-state will be thinking that this is a new time, for new ideas.[3]

So. I am from Melbourne. I will be staying in Melbourne until this is finished, and those people who want to bring their ideas down here and really make this into a fucking struggle – you will find a couch and a bed here anytime. And just maybe a bottle of homebrewed cider! Oh and bring your ideas – but leave your black hoodies at home this time

Catch ya’s

MICKEY SKELTON

[1] For those interested, a committal hearing is held before a magistrate to determine whether the evidence provides a just basis to send the case to trial before a different judge, in a different court. That’s about all I know at the moment.

[2] See Issue 11 of Mutiny for this story.

[3] The g20 case’s role in the election is an article I would really like to read if anyone wants to talk or write about it.

Melbourne Social Forum

Sina Brown-Davis, one of the G20 arrestees, will be holding a forum at the Melbourne Social Forum on indigenous resistance to globalisation in the Pacific. The issues presented in this forum are intricately related to resistance to the G20 last year, and to APEC in the coming months.

"Australia and NZ remained unrepentant for their brutal suppression of indigenous independence movements in the Pacific. They rationalized such behaviour as enhancing the welfare of the Islands and the human development of their people – just as they justified similar behaviour towards indigenous peoples in their own countries."

The settler gubbaments of OZ & NZ are forcing a neo-liberal economic agenda on the nations of the Pacific, for 21 years the settler gubbaments of OZ, NZ, Canada, & the US have blocked (and will continue to block) the passage of the DRIP (Declaration on the rights of Indigenous Peoples) though the UN. Things such as these and ancestral rights & treaties are meaningless in the face of economic and "security arrangements", which do nothing more than open up our region for the outflow of capital, (land, people, natural resources), evolutionary processes have run their course and the time for re- asserting a Nuclear free & independent Pacific has come.

It will be on Sunday 22nd April at 10am at CERES.

Sina also has a blog: uriohau.blogspot.com

public meeting

PUBLIC MEETING

Jointly organised by the Ongoing G20 Solidarity Network and Civil Rights Defense.

Thursday 26 April

7pm

Fitzroy Town Hall Reading Room, cnr Napier and Moor St, entry off Napier St

Speakers include: Marcus Bankse from Austudy 5, Anita Thomasson from Ongoing G20 Solidarity Network, Colin Mitchell from Civil Rights Defense, Rob Stary, lawyer representing some of the arrestees.

Benefit Gig

Spirit of Eureka The Right to Protest Benefit Gig

22 April 2pm-late

Lomond Hotel

22 Nicholson St East Brunswick

Featuring: Jono & Jess, Joe Geia, Brunswick Blues Shooters with guest Honeytree, Aintree Sweet, Clint Dylan O’Gradey, Tonchi & Jaezed, Headbelly Buzzard, Sandilands. Special guests: Alex Legg, Jacob Grech, eric Purdy, Anthony Morgan, Dan warner.

$5 entry or donation

auctions/raffles/cultural events

callout for submissions for counter-brief of evidence

hi everyone as part of the ongoing campaign against the g20 charges, we are going to release a counter-brief of evidence. the idea is that we will include information about the g20, its policies and the consequences of those policies, its member countries and the activities they are involved in, as well as what went on during the g20, police behaviour, decisions made in the meeting and criticism of them, and the continuing crackdown on political protest that we have seen in the vast resources dedicated to the g20 ‘manhunt’, the ridiculous bail conditions and ludicrous charges, the use of intimidation tactics, and so on. so WE WANT YOUR SUBMISSIONS!!! BEFORE APRIL 20!!! this is because we want to release this at the public meeting on april 26, so we need time to put it together. you can email submissions to afterg20@gmail.com. the idea is to make this public, to create a discourse that makes obvious the politicised nature of the campaign against protestors, that makes clear the necessity of directly confronting institutions such as the g20 and its member countries. it’d be really awesome to have a really wide range of submissions. thanks anita x

Some thoughts on APEC organising and G20 aftermath.

report from public meeting last night

speech delivered by Anita at public meeting

media release - court appearance this morning

Liz Thompson’s speech delivered at Hicks rally

may 11

letter

Melbourne Social Forum

public meeting

Benefit Gig

callout for submissions for counter-brief of evidence

a rush and a push

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