Newsletter No. 3 & 4 - March/April 2007

Peace Radio Program
'A Peace of the Action' is dedicated to commentary on peace and social justice issues. Radio Adelaide 101.5 fm every Sunday at 12.30pm.
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Palm Sunday Peace Carnival - for a peaceful nuclear free future.
1.00pm, Tardanyangga/Victoria Square, Adelaide, Sunday 1 April
Join us for a family picnic, concert and carnival and a parade through the city for a peaceful, nuclear-free future! Contact Joel (joel.catchlove@foe.org.au) for details.
FEATURING: Heather Frahn, Peter Combe, Poetikool Justice, Soursob Bob, Miranda Bradley (Raw Honey), the Trade Union Choir, DJ Jimi and many more to be announced! Puppeteers! Clowns! Buskers! Streets Performers! Come in costume!
Fly a kite! Make a mask! Decorate your bike!
SPEAKERS INCLUDE: SCOTT HICKS, Dr IRENE WATSON
NO EXPANSION OF URANIUM MINING!
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National Peace Convergence 2007 - Stop Talisman Sabre! -
From the end of May to 2 July, Australia will play host to the largest military exercise in Australia. There will be a National Peace Convergence at Shoalwater Bay (north of Rockhampton) in June 2007.
For details see website http://www.peaceconvergence.com/

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A MOVING PROTEST : 20 March 2007 - 4 years on - How many dead? - How much longer?
Mark the 4th anniversary of the war on Iraq and protest the planned war on Iran!
NoWar will be holding a moving protest to mark the 4th anniversary of the invasion of Iraq and to protest the planned war on Iran. We will walk continuously across the pedestrian lights when they turn green at the North Terrace - King William St intersection in Adelaide, while holding relatively small, light weight placards. We hope to do this in three different time slots on the day. This would require about 1 and half hours of your time (1 hour walking, plus assembly time and dispersal time). This kind of protest proved very successful last year and protected protesters because they were pedestrians moving lawfully across the road at the correct time. They just kept crossing the same intersection. This was also effective because many motorists and other pedestrians "got the message" and many of them supported us by tooting their car horns or joining in as pedestrians. We have taken legal advice about our plans and it appears that there is little possibility of there being any problems with this kind of protest. These are the time slots: 7:30am-8:30am; 12-1pm; 5pm-6pm. NoWar is preparing sufficient placards. The slogans contain messages relating to the loss of life and the chaos that 4 years of war have brought to the Iraqi people as well as messages about the impending war on Iran. NoWar will coordinate everything, all you need to do is turn up at a designated point, take a placard and walk across the four points of the intersection for an hour. Then you can leave the area. NoWar will collect the placards at the end of the hour. We need as many people as possible to do the three time slots. If you are able to attend any of the above sessions, please let us know by telephoning Jeanie on 0414 773 918. Thanks for your support and hope to hear from you. Jeanie Lucas, Secretary, NoWar SA . email: nowar@ihug.com.au website: www.nowar-sa.net Ph: 0414 773 918 Postal address: GPO Box 1156 Adelaide SA Australia 5001
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4th Anniversary of the War on Iraq
As this awful anniversary approaches, we see the same type of rhetoric and manoeuvring that we saw prior to 20 March 2003. While more than 655 000 Iraqi deaths have occurred since the start of the war and thousands of combatants have died, we see the same players, Bush, Blair, Howard, and now Olmert, talking up a strike on Iran, prepared to put the world in further peril and bring about more death and destruction for their own ends. The war in Iraq has cost the US almost $US370 billion to date. This does not count the monetary cost to the rest of the "coalition". This also does not count the dollar value of the destruction to Iraq this war has wrought. In spite of all of this, the US and its allies intend a strike on Iran. If the US doesn't strike, Israel may.

The plans are in place, see: Cheney hints at Iran strike 24/02/2007
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,21279082-5005961,00.html

American armada prepares to take on Iran 25/02/2007 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/02/24/wiran24.xml

Israel seeks all clear for Iran air strike 25/02/2007 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/02/24/wiran124.xml

Australian Sekai Holland gravely injured in police custody in Zimbabwe -
14 Mar. report [Sekai Holland lived in Australia for much of the 1970s and took a leading role here in the struggle against Apartheid.] Mrs Sekai Holland is suffering from fractured hands and feet, head injuries and internal injuries, and is now held under policy custody at the Avenues Hospital in Harare, Zimbabwe, according to her nephew who visited her yesterday afternoon. Mrs Grace Kwinjeh is also held there, with a damaged ear, a neck brace, heavy bruising and cuts. Both these women are senior leaders of the Movement for Democratic Change. Their injuries are consistent with massive physical assault. All the arrested MDC leaders have been injured and remain in detention after yesterday's court appearance by some of them, including the gravely injured MDC President Morgan Tsvangirai.

Sekai Holland beaten for hours by 15 secret police
Jim Holland - 15 March report. I have just arrived back in Harare from Tanzania, and at 11 pm managed to get to see Sekai in hospital. She has been badly injured, suffering from extensive bruising and lacerations all over her body from many hours of beatings from a team of 15 members of the CIO (secret police). She fell unconscious twice from being beaten in the head. They ended up deliberately breaking her arm and her foot, then forced her to walk on the broken foot. She is due to go into theatre in the morning to have pins inserted to help heal the breakages, and she will also need a CAT scan to see if she has any hidden head injuries. Sekai and the others appeared in court today, in spite of the fact that many of them were badly injured. The prosecutor kept trying to delay proceedings so that they would be able to send them back to the cells for yet another night without treatment. However eventually the magistrate ordered that all defendants be taken to hospital for examination and possible treatment. Sekai has been there ever since, along with many others of the leadership of the MDC. In spite of the injuries and pain, Sekai was in amazingly good spirits, as she knew that they had won. She said that none of the leadership cracked under the torture, and they are all determined to continue the fight for justice. Regards, Jim

Protest now against the repression in Zimbabwe
Since Sunday Mar. 11 most of the leadership of the democratic opposition in Zimbabwe has been arrested and brutally bashed and tortured in police stations around Zimbabwe, including Morgan Tsvangirai, President of MDC. When they were taken before a mag-istrate yesterday, with shocking injuries, the Magistrate ordered that they be taken to hospital for treatment. They are now in The Avenues Clinic, still under police custody. Meanwhile, police continue to arrest, shoot at and attack militant youth in the democratic movement in Zimbabwe, and the atmosphere is very tense. MDC is the main tar-get. The Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions is planning a general strike over the cost of living on April 3-4, and was raided yesterday. The people are extremely angry at the savage treatment of their leaders. Sunday's repression was a desperate and savage response by the regime to a broad social alliance for democratic change which is more and more asserting itself on the streets. The regime now pres-ides over inflation of 1700% and can no longer contain the people's frustration. Now is the time for the international community to stand with the people and exert maximum pressure on the Mugabe regime. Our demands are that Mugabe must release the democratic leaders, initiate constitutional change and cooperate with the southern African and whole international community to hold free and fair elections to enable Zimbabwean society to recover and reconstruct. Please send letters / emails today to Foreign Minister Alexander Downer, South African President Thabo Mbeki to more forcefully condemn the repression and make these demands on the Mugabe regime. Send your strongest condemn-ation and demand for the release of the prisoners to Pres. Mugabe via the Zimbabwe Embassy in Canberra.

**Hon A. Downer MHR Parliament House Canberra ACT 2600 Fax: 02 6273 4112 Email: Minister.Downer@dfat.gov.au

**Pres. Thabo Mbeki of South Africa Ph: 0011 27 12 300 5200
Fax: 0015 27 12 323 8246 Email: President@po.gov.za

**Mrs Florence Chitauro Ambassador for the Rep. of Zimbabwe
11 Culgoa Circt O'Malley ACT 2606 Fax: 6290 1680 Ph: 6286 2281 Email: zimbabwe1@iimetro.com.au

Gold Aura
by Daniela Dorney, aged 16.

Like a shower of rain, the bombs hit relentlessly
In the constant downpour there were but three thoughts in my head;
a letter in my pocket which had details of my visa to Australia,
the gap in my heart which wondered where my husband was,
and the ever present worry of who of my family would disappear next.

In the depths of my mind I rejoiced as we entered the airport
lines of worry still etched my face,
despite the fact that I wasn't frowning.
A single tear sneaked past my guard
the thud of it as it hit the metal stair,
echoed the thud of the bomb's wreckage
covered my husband's face.

To my right sit my children,
my hand covers the empty seat to my left
in the vain hope that my husband will arrive to occupy it.
I look at the faces of those seated near us,
some are reporters and investigators from the press,
others are as ragged and tense as we are.
The tension dissipates as the plane leaves the runway.

Our family has joined the list of Australian citizens,
there is no news of my husband and every day my hope lessens.
I feel like a numbered suit from my children's card pack,
the one that is always left after a game of memory.
I know that I should feel lucky,
we're safe now.
I understand these people and their language.

I feel like one of the smarties that my children love so much
They put a bowl of them between them,
and only ever eat one colour at a time.
They say it looks pretty when there is only one colour left.
I feel like the last red smartie of anger and sadness,
around me is a sea of yellow,
smarties of happiness and innocence.
My children are orange,
a mixture of memories both good and bad.
When they grow up they may not remember,
that once they were red too.

A wave of morning sickness,
a blue line sears my mind.
My pregnancy weighs heavily on my already overburdened heart.
Do I destroy a life
that may be the spawn of my rapist,
or keep what may be
the last child of my husband's line.

***

The most delicate of fingers clasps my own,
a child of pure yellow,
My fiancé has a hand clasped to my shoulder,
he swears he will care for the child as though it is his own.
My other children surround me,
their auras yellow now, with the barest streak of orange.
The baby in my arms has my eyes,
but there is little else I recognise.

I'll bring him up to have my husband's heart,
my fiancé's sense of humour,
the optimism I once possessed,
and a life untainted by the deaths my children witnessed.

I close my eyes,
my aura is gold,
a mixture of red, orange and yellow.
One day the memories of the past
will be but streaks
in a soul of yellow and a heart filled with love.
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International Women's Day - 2007
letter to the Editor, published in The Advertiser on 9th March, 2007.

Today is International Women's Day (IWD). The purpose of IWD is to recognise that securing peace and social progress and the full enjoyment of human rights and fundamental freedoms requires the active participation, equality and development of women; and to acknowledge women's contribution to the strengthening of international peace and security. For women around the world it is an occasion to review how far women have come in their struggle and an opportunity to unite, network and mobilise for meaningful change - here and overseas. Marked by women's groups around the world, it is rooted in the centuries-old struggle of women to bring about a better world. Its commemoration began in 1911 in Europe with a March 19 rally for women's right to vote and took on new momentum after more than 140 working women lost their lives in a fire in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in New York City a week later. It grew in following years as women held rallies each year to protest the devastation of World War I.

We, the women of Adelaide-based peace groups, The Australian Peace Committee, NOWAR and Women's International League for Peace and Freedom pay tribute to those women and implore all women to speak out against any pretext for war. In this critical time in our history the need is for DIPLOMACY not war.
--Sue Gilbey, 8 March 2007
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Questions
from Jack Forward, Wamberal NSW.
1. Why is it that ordinary citizens have to march, rally and demonstrate for peace?
2. Why is it that peace is the exclusive concern of a voluntary, vocal minority using their own meagre resources, in contrast with the billions of dollars and other resources spent on the military; what, in comparison, do governments spend on peace?
3. Why do the people have to ask elected representatives to eliminate war and create the rare condition known as peace?
4. Aren't politicians people who want peace too?
5. Why do they need to be asked for it?
6. Can anybody imagine a media story that says "Your government is appalled by the loss of lives, the destruction, the enormous cost, and the theft from the needy of the world via world military spending of $1.5 trillion a year, and the shadow of nuclear war that always hangs over us, therefore it has designed an alternative, comprehensive world security system that it will try to sell to the world's nations"?
7. Could that alternative be sold to the Australian people if it promises to save the $15 billion a year we now spend on defence and spend it on e.g. health, education, public transport and crime prevention?
8. If elected representatives seem to say the war problem is not important will the public and the media also see it as unimportant so that neither will press for change?
9. Might we learn in the media one day that an Australian blueprint for ending war has been adopted by the world?
10. Worth a sackful of gold medals?
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Belafonte's fires undimmed at 80
By Stephen Evans, BBC News, New York --
Harry Belafonte at 80 has a real story to tell. He remembers, for example, a barely known political hopeful turning up at his apartment on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. John F Kennedy, who was trying to become the Democratic candidate for the presidency, wanted advice and endorsement from the biggest black star in show business.
Nearly half a century on, Belafonte sits in an easy chair and reflects on the meeting: "I listened to him and I refused to endorse him, telling him that his best bet was that he should begin to seek out more details of our struggle and who our leaders were and begin to talk to them rather than just seeking to talk to celebrities." He advised JFK to seek out Martin Luther King, then a young activist preacher in Montgomery, Alabama. "He hardly knew who Dr King was. That pointed out to me that he was really distant from our struggle." But Kennedy listened and learned, and made contact with the black leader. In a tight election, the black vote split 70:30 Kennedy's way, enough to tip the finest balance. Under JFK and then Lyndon B Johnson , Belafonte was Dr King's conduit to Washington, and also the financial provider at crucial moments, particularly when the civil rights leader had been jailed and needed to be bailed out. He also provided support at a cataclysmic moment that Dr King would never live to appreciate. Belafonte took out life insurance on his friend to ensure the family's financial stability after any assassination. "I saw the threats on his life and decided to take out insurance on his life for his family's benefit so that if anything happened to him they would not be economically destitute".
Belafonte's mentor was Paul Robeson, the great American singer who, according to Belafonte, was politically energised when he met a group of Welsh miners picketing in London in 1928. When Robeson was blacklisted and had his passport taken away by the American authorities, Belafonte paid for a transatlantic link for him to sing to the National Eisteddfod of the South Wales miners' union. According to Belafonte, Robeson's advice was "Get them to sing your song and they'll want to know who you are". It was advice well taken. In 1956 Belafonte recorded Calypso, which became the first album to sell more than a million copies. Even today, who can't sing its trade-mark "Daay-oh"?
Fame led to television, which brought its own challenges. He did it on his terms, refusing to do shows which were uneasy about blacks and whites appearing together.
When Petula Clark touched his hand on her primetime show in 1968, the sponsors - Plymouth automobile company - wanted the shot cut. As he remembers: "That touch on the hand wasn't just a white hand on a black hand it was a white female hand on a black male hand and that touches the deepest sensibilities of racist thinking.
"So when Petula Clark in this innocent moment reached out and touched my hand, it was rather a very friendly thing. Nothing was overt or implied by that touch other than a moment of friendly joy". Belafonte and Clark refused to cut the shot, which became a seminal moment in American television, indeed in American life.
He also jolted America when he had his own show, Tonight with Belafonte and chose to invite a string of guests with whom white America was not quite at ease, including Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jnr, both of whom offended hard-line white opinion.
Harry Belafonte at 80 still has a righteous, burning anger. After all, close friends of his have been killed for their beliefs. But has nothing changed, I asked him?
"A lot has changed. I can sit here in New York and talk with you, people of two different races, which when I was born there were laws that prohibited such associations.
"But if you talk about racism it's far from over. The evils of racism are as commanding as ever".
He dismisses the appointment of Condoleezza Rice and before her, Colin Powell, to positions of genuine power in George W Bush's administration. He has described them as "house slaves", and doesn't feel their presence has helped his cause in any way. "He puts them there in the service of power. They are quite powerless - powerless - powerless," he says. "They are extensions of George W Bush, Condoleezza Rice is revered nowhere. She has influence over a nothingness." Does she not make even one millimetre of difference, I asked. "She makes a difference for the worse," Belafonte replied.
Harry Belafonte, despite the rhetoric, does not come over like an ideologue but as a man with righteous anger. He's open to argument. His mind remains alert and curious. Intelligence, curiosity and openness to argument shine out. He's up for disagreement and debate. So, is he hopeful? "I'm very optimistic. That is the only basis on which I can get up every day. If I were not, I'd have long since gone. I'd have either drunk myself to death or shot myself full of heroin or something to try to numb the pain that is so prevalent in so many places in the world. But I see promise. I see promise in the human family. I see promise in human beings. I see promise even in white folks," he says, emitting a loud, warm laugh to this particular white folk.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/entertainment/6420733.stm
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/archivehour/pip/dyfyt/

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Radio Adelaide 101.5FM every Sunday at 12.30.

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