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dear friends and benefactors
Parting report on the Peacebus Mission to Darwin 2012
emailed to Mission benefactors 31 August 2012
The 2012 Mission to Darwin is now behind Peacebus, dust on its hatchback. This written from a desert camp over 2400 km south of that fair city.
Other factors beside the odometer are present to convince me of my separation. For one thing it is the first time in 3 months that i have been obliged to don long trousers and light a camp fire to keep warm. For another it is the first time in 3 months my bank account has run dry and i must await my age pension to arrive before i can get the petrol to roll on.
I want to acknowledge that it was your collective generosity and kindness that sustained me on my Darwin Mission. Here below is a brief report. I may write a longer, deeper reflection in due course.
The US Marines not have been yet driven into the sea by a surge of outraged public opinion but for sure their presence is now received with more articulated dissent and a deeper and broader concern for the future of peace in the Pacific.
Context
During my time in Darwin I worked closely with Justin Tutty of Base Watch, the group that formed in response to the Obama/Gillard Marine base announcement last November. A mathematician and logician by trade, Justin is a long time anti-nuke campaigner and on the board of the Darwin Environment Centre.
Like all community action groups Base Watch depended on activist volunteers and the pool for such in Darwin as elsewhere is small with most such volunteers already over committed.
From its first meeting Base Watch had taken a position of not opposing but rather demanding cooperation from the military for the assessing the social consequences and ensuring adequate planning would take place. After all Obama had promised Darwin people that the Marines would be around for a 100 years.
A passive position, it put Base Watch at effect of the military, ever waiting for responses that the military was not much motivated to supply. Major General Krause, the urbane and supremely confident door opener for the US Marines, was happy to make empty promises and spin things along with haughty assurances.
His was a 'thin end of the edge' tactic. If Krause could keep the first rotations of Marines low profile, then Darwin people might neither bother nor be bothered much and, before anyone could say "my frog is boiled", Darwin would be complacently hosting a garrison of at least 2,500 US Marines and assume it to be normalcy.
Promising big and delivering little, Krause was banking on Base Watch shriveling up and dying of apathy.
Already tracks were being covered: it was discovered that distribution of the documents and reports from the first and only public meeting regarding the Marines set up in Darwin were restricted, unavailable to citizens who had not attended the meeting.
What need Krause care? After all a (dodgy?) Lowry Institute survey had suggested 73% of Australians supported Marines in Darwin and as a result media, both local and national, was initially quiet on the issue.
But not for long with Peacebus on the ground.
Before i left Darwin it had been a joy to hear that Krause had taken to explaining the blooming grass roots opposition to the Darwin Marine base as the work of "a small elite". Talk about projection and inversion!
Peacebus in action
Peacebus set out to be noticed, best i could, using opportunities as they arose.
Getting noticed is easy to do when one is driving about with horn speakers on the roof racks and a mural on the side: "Marines out of Darwin. No more U.S. wars!" But i put more effort in getting noticed than that.
I went out of my way to contact and meet activists, particularly peace activists and more particularly, faith based peace activists. This latter led me to the Nightcliff Uniting Church. More later.
But anyone really. At every opportunity, with check out chicks and strangers in the street, i would ask how folk were feeling about the Marine base.
At the prompting of Justin Tutty and in his company i presented a 4 July SpeakOut at the gates of Robertson Barracks and a few other public place banner displays.
Peacebus was also a presence supporting other activist events such as an anti NT intervention rally, the 2012 Naidoc parade, a rally by Muckaty elders and MUA in opposition to the proposed nuke dump, a pro West Papuan independence rally when the Indonesian President came to Darwin, a CPSU rally and most productively, public opposition to the jet noise of Operation Pitch Black.
This latter action was done in collaboration with the Greens candidate for Nightcliff, Owen Gale, in the Territory elections which took place 25 August.
Darwin is unique amongst Australian cities for having a RAAF Base only 5 km from the CBD. This year, Operation Pitch Black. the biennial air war games, was bigger and noisier than ever and extending for over 4 weeks right up to the elections.
"End the jet noise! Demilitarise Darwin!" became my slogan and it won me notoriety in the NT News, Darwin's daily Murdoch.
As a result i had series of letters to the editor published challenging Pitch Black, the US Marine (not a) base and the preparations for a US war with China.
Now i am not a great devotee of letter columns in the corporate media though friends tell me they are one of the truer indicators of public opinion and its changing currents. In the NT News like never before my dissent was given good editing and prominence. Peacebus signage i noticed soon began attracting more thumbs up toots in the traffic and me more positive regard generally.
With this notoriety, and again at the prompting of my Darwin guide, Justin Tutty, i attended two live-to-air election forums organised by local media (one by ABC Radio Darwin on 20 August, the live NT News/Sky News on 23 August).
At each of these i was forceful and provocative in targeting Chief Minister Paul Henderson (ALP) by raising the US Marine presence - "dumped by PM Gillard on Darwin with neither debate in the national parliament nor consultation with Darwin people" - and demanding a social consequence assessment.
In each case Henderson followed the Gillard line and denied that it was a military base; rather he claimed it was a "joint rotational facility". The weasel words sounded false and insincere, so compounding his credibility troubles. He lost the election with a 6.5% swing.
May this be another nail in the coffin of the duplicitous, US kowtowing, war mongering Gillard government.
Fruit of the Peacebus Mission
Base Watch met for the first time during my 2 month stay, and at my prompting of Justin, on Saturday 17 August at Frilly's, the op cum coffee shop of the Nightcliff Uniting Church, Darwin's most popular place for meetings of community activists.
About 12 people attended and from Justin's report of the meeting attached you will gather that it was a meeting fired with energy and commitment.
In particular i am pleased to report that the conference of Indo/Pacific US bases watchers, provisionally called Children of the Indo/Pacific, which i had proposed for Darwin in 2013 was taken up with enthusiasm and that my new found Darwin friend, Bill Foster, offered to take carriage of it.
Born and bred in the Territory (very important for credibility in the NT) Bill is an ex copy writer with the NT News and an ex cop beside, well connected and great with the people skills. Now on a disability pension he has time on his hands and a passion to work for peace.
Bill read my letters in the NT News and made contact. He has since become a letter writer himself with two about Pitch Black and the US Marine base published since my departure.
At the meeting Bill proposed fortnightly Base Watch discussion meetings at Frilly's advertised via public notices in the classifieds of the NT News at $80 each. So well was the idea received that bank notes were slapped on the table and $360 raised for it in 30 seconds.
Here is the copy for the first such meeting, next Saturday 1 September:
NO
I do not want
a US War Base
in Darwin
Say yes to American visitors.
Say no to armed Marines,
drones, much more jet noise
and warships in Darwin.
Meeting at Nightcliff Uniting
Church, Cummins Street,
Rapid Creek,
next Saturday
1st September, at 11am.
All welcome!
(Coffee, tea, cakes available)
BaseWatch
Justin 0424 028741
contact@basewatch.org
When Bill inquired of the new pastor of Nightcliff Uniting Church, Basil Schild, if it was okay to use the premises and advertise his Church that way, Basil responded by saying "yes and forever."
Such is the state of goodwill for Base Watch.
Below is a letter of appreciation for the Peacebus Mission from Justin Tutty in which he acknowledges the success of the Mission. Better heard from him than me.
Thank you again, dear friends, for the faith you have had in me as an agitator for peace in this time of endless war, peace in the Pacific, peace in our times for this and future generations.
May it be so.
Graeme Dunstan
30 August 2012
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Dear Graeme,
just a quick note to thank you for your good work over the past few months during the Peacebus 'Mission to Darwin'.
You hit the ground running on day one, attending first a public meeting held by ADF regarding construction on the base, immediately followed by an opportunistic presence at an ALP fundraiser that caught a Federal MP off guard with sensible challenges over the base decision.
I am very much aware of the useful addition your rig (painted bus and large colourful banner display) made to the emerging revitalisation of peace activism in town. Your protest-in-a-box allowed us to literally fly the flag against US bases at prominent locations in and around Darwin, including outside the base, on our major roads, at our busy markets and at various community events. Your departure leaves an obvious hole in our signage capacity, and I'm sure your example will inspire some local creativity on that front.
But I'm also aware that your lobbying efforts in Darwin were very affective. You had an excellent run of letters to our only daily paper, that were not only excellent arguments for independence, but were effective in raising the profile of the issue, and encouraging ongoing public debate. I'm pleased to inform you that, following your final departing letter, that debate has continued, including a number of featured letters from BaseWatch members, and beyond our ranks. Your assertive participation in multiple public forums during our recent general election was entirely successful in getting both major parties to commit to pursuing the Social Impact Assessment which the ADF and Federal Minister have tried so hard to dodge.
Finally, I'd also like to express my appreciation for your contribution to building local active opposition. BaseWatch continues to meet, and our agenda continues to develop some of the excellent proposals you shared.
I do hope that you can return to Darwin sometime soon, perhaps this time again next year, and I'm confident you'll recognise that local activists will have built on the success of your too-brief but very welcome 2012 mission.
with thanks and respect
Justin Tutty
30 August 2012
Bill Foster, 31 July 2012
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