The Eureka152 Dawn Lantern Walk will this year be conducted as a remembrance of the injustice being suffered by David Hicks.

"David Hicks is an Australian citizen and a great great grandson of a Eureka stockader," said the Dawn Walk producer Graeme Dunstan of Peacebus.com .

"In the 5 years since he was abducted in Afghanistan and ransomed to the US military, he has been tortured, incarcerated in Guantanamo Bay, held in solitary confinement, stripped of all rights and liberties, denied a fair trial, declared an outcast and abandoned by the Australian government," said Mr Dunstan.

"John Howard PM (and to his ever lasting shame) may have abandoned David Hicks," he said. "But we, who hold that the Eureka "fair go" tradition is core to what makes us, as Australians, an honorable nation, will never abandon him." said Mr Dunstan.

The Eureka152 Dawn Lantern Walk (the ninth annual) will assemble:

Candle lit lanterns will be provided. The lantern lit story telling Walk will follow the 2.5 km route taken by the British soldiers in their fateful dawn attack of 1854.

The Walkers will arrive at the Eureka Stockade Memorial in time foir the Dawn Oration and join others, including Dr Joe Toscano and his Reclaim the Radical Tradition of Eureka project (see program in the Anarchist Age Weekly Review), commemorating the 152nd anniversary of the blood sacrifice and the "times changing courage" of the Eureka Stockade.

"Come carry a light for David Hicks," says Mr Dunstan.

Graeme Dunstan is the founding lantern maker of the Dawn Walk. He describes himself as a long time artist, story teller and peace activist, now a gray haired nomad journeying for peace, justice and sustaining Earth in these times.

His vehicle, Peacebus .com, is both a mobile home with poles and speakers on the roof racks, signage on the side and flags and banners under its bed; it is also a website and blog.

Each Summer Peacebus.com migrates to Ballarat for the Eureka commemorations but in other seasons it is on the ground, witnessing and assisting at protest actions in Sydney, central west and north east NSW, Brisbane and points north.

Dunstan flies the Eureka flag and tells the Eureka story to new generations of political activists.

Without local or State government funding, Mr Dunstan says he does expect this year's Eureka Dawn Lantern Walk to draw a crowd of the size generated by the publicity of the 150th anniversary of two years ago.

"We do best we can with the resources we have; and those resources are, significantly, a great nation building story and the artful means to recall it as sacred," he said.

"When it comes to the sacred, size of crowd is no indicator of success," Dunstan said.

"When two or more are gathered by lantern light and in sacred remembrance of the ancestors and their courage in the face of tyranny, Eureka Spirit is evoked and ever present. That experience is more than enough to fill the cup of anyone thirsty for an affirmation of rights and liberties in these times."

Further information
Graeme Dunstan
0407 951 688
www.peacebus.com

For reports and pics of recent Eureka storytelling by Graeme, see Independence from America Day, Byron Bay, 2 July 2006
and the 2005-6 Woodford (Qld) Festival