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Release 8 July 2013
Peace Pilgrims to Obstruct
Talisman Sabre War Rehearsals
During the 2013 Talisman Sabre US-Australian military exercises, peace activists will gather in Byfield, the village closest to the southern perimeter of Shoalwater Training Area in Central Queensland, to plan, prepare and commit trespass excursions aimed at disrupting the war rehearsals.
'We will be calling ourselves Peace Pilgrims, " said long time peace pilgrim, Graeme Dunstan of Peacebus. "Our incursions will be undertaken as sacred walks or wilderness pilgrimages, in which we will, through our witness, strengthen our faith and our courage and more deeply commit our lives to peace."
In doing this, the Peace Pilgrims will be walking in the footsteps of the great peacemakers of the past such as Buddha, Jesus, Gandhi, George Fox, Dorothy Day, Martin Luther King Jnr and the Berrigan brothers, and also in the footsteps of peacemaking trespassers at previous Talisman Sabre war rehearsals.
For example in 2011, a team of three led by Margaret Pestorius and calling themselves the Jaegerstaetter Amigos, carried a 10kg plaster angel and set up a shrine within the Training Area dedicated to the Blessed Franz Jaegerstaetter, the Austrian peasant who was executed by the Nazi for his resistance to the military.
While there, the Amigos also blockaded a US Marine armoured column during the night and a supply convoy the next morning before surrendering themselves to police, arrest and a trespass conviction, which they happily accepted as a badge of courage.
"We have the GPS location and the challenge will be for another generation of Peace Pilgrims to find the Jaegerstaetter Shrine and offer a pray there," said Mr Dunstan.Ê
"Or maybe create a another shrine to another peacemaking saint."
"Let's populate Shoalwater Bay with shrines dedicated to peace," he said.
Mr Dunstan said he intended more than disruption of what he describes as the "wasteful, environmentally destructive and evil-fruiting military exercises."
The long term aim, he said, is to end the war rehearsals, evict the military and establish Shoalwater Bay, the biggest relatively intact piece of coastal rainforest in Queensland, as a sacred wilderness for everyone and forever.
"To this end we aim to embolden a new generation of faith-based peace activists,Ê old warriors mentoring your warriors," he said.
Further information
http://www.peacebus.com/CampPeacePilgrim/CampPeacePilgrim2013.html
FaceBook event pagehttp://tiny.cc/06jvzw
Graeme Dunstan, elder Peace Pilgrim, Peacebus.com, 0407 951 688
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