main gate actionyesterday Byron, Rick and Melinda faced Rocky court over actions taken against the US-Aust joint war games held at Shoalwater Bay in June 2007. Byron ‘did the hokey-pokey’ in the prohibited zone, while Rick and Melinda did a ‘make love not war’ action outside the gates :) all three were fined and Rick had a conviction recorded.

It’s not very often that you get tangible evidence that you made a difference to someone. byron credited a research paper i wrote in response to the army’s abysmal Public Environment Report as the inspiration for his actions. you can read said document here: FoEB response to PER [pdf]

what byron said in his speech was inspirational:

“Speeches had failed to stop the wargames. Marches had failed to stop the wargames. Letters to the government had failed to stop the wargames. In my mind, the only alternative left was for people en mass, to peacefully and physically place their whole selves in to the prohibited zone.

If thousands of people had marched, unified as one into the Shoalwater Bay Military Training area I believe the war games would have been stopped. The threat to endangered and vulnerable wildlife and the threat to the Australian environment would have ceased to exist.

What was going on within Shoalwater Bay during Operation Talisman Sabre 2007 was legal. Everything I was concerned about is allowable by law. The only option I saw to represent my concerns about what was happening and the legality of what was happening was to do in a court of law. The only way I could do that was to get arrested.”

more details of the bi-annual Peace Convergence protest actions: www.peaceconvergence.com

* the latest army-related gaffe in environmental management is the tragedy of the Belconnen kangaroos now being clumsily and cruelly culled outside canberra.  listen to this interview at ‘the wire’ www.thewire.org.au/daydetail.aspx?SearchDay=2008-05-21