BY TIM STEWART & MIKE BYRNE
BRISBANE — Spurred on by the threat of US military strikes, the CHOGM Action Network (CAN) has decided to add the slogans "No to war!" and "No to racism!" to the October 6 march on the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting.
In the same spirit, a September 21 indigenous community meeting resolved to continue plans for a tent embassy at Musgrave Park demanding a treaty between Aboriginal people and the Australian government.
These decisions follow attempts by the Brisbane Courier Mail to link protests outside CHOGM with the September 11 attacks in New York and Washington. Federal parliamentarian Peter Slipper has called on all protests outside CHOGM to be banned.
CAN has decided that even if CHOGM is cancelled because war has broken out the protest will go ahead to demand peace and global justice, and will link up with the Aboriginal Tent Embassy.
CAN spokesperson and Socialist Alliance candidate for the Senate Karen Fletcher said the decision reflected a consensus in CAN that the movement against corporate globalisation must oppose the US war drive. "Many of the leaders attending CHOGM have given unqualified support for the so-called war on 'terrorism'", Fletcher, who is also a member of the Democratic Socialist Party, told Green Left Weekly.
London-based queer rights activist Peter Tatchell will join the march and speak at Musgrave Park. Tatchell plans to bring torture affidavits from Zimbabweans as the legal basis for dictator Robert Mugabe's arrest under the Crimes (Torture) Act 1988.
Tatchell has also been invited to speak at the CHOGM counter conference on October 7 at the Kelvin Grove Campus of Queensland University of Technology. The conference is being jointly organised by activists from CAN and the Stop CHOGM Alliance.
Zimbabwean activist Tafadzwa Choto will address the opening session titled "Globalisation, racism and war". A founding member of the Movement for Democratic Change, Choto was involved in organising the 1996 general strike. She is the national coordinator of the International Socialist Organisation. The session will also be addressed by indigenous activist Sam Watson and an Islamic activist.
Workshops will discuss the US war drive, refugees, feminism, the environment, Zimbabwe, East Timor, Aceh, West Papua, alliance building and non-violence.
The conference will conclude with a discussion about tactics in the anti-corporate movement led off by Karen Fletcher, Friends of the Earth member Hamish Alcorn, Natasha Holmes from the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union and a member of the International Socialist Organisation.