Refugees
The Canberra Convergence on November 16 sounds fantastic. Some people question the purpose of demonstrations. They do not know the pressure they constitute, or the terrific buzz and morale lift for all involved.
One stateless asylum seeker whose case really needs to be known, is that of Peter Qasim. He has been locked up for six years, and counting. Peter is from Kashmir. In its wisdom, the High Court says that stateless people can be locked up forever. And the fearless mainstream press and the ABC do not mention this scandal.
There is a bigger question behind the locking up of Peter and 12 other stateless people in Baxter, the thousand people locked up here and on Nauru, including 80 kids — are they providing a reason for these detention centres where, later, Australian political prisoners will be locked up, victims of "anti-terror" legislation? What is really going on?
We think the Canberra Convergence initative is great. We must support refugees for their own sake. But also Howard's ambitions for the wretched detention centres may be something we do not even want to think about.
Stephen Langford, Gai Smith, Toni Pollard, Jean Lopez, Mary Gibbon
Paddington, NSW [Abridged]
Craig Johnston
The jailing of Craig Johnston is a savage attack on the working class. The aim of this attack, aided by a treacherous union leadership and by Victorian Premier Steve Bracks, is to weaken the trade union movement. Marx warned in Wage Labour and Capital that we had to be wary of union leaders who use working class institutions, as a spring board into capitalist parliaments with the object intention to serve capital, against labour. Marx said the struggle between capital and labour is eternal.
The members of the recently founded Socialist Alliance Bendigo branch give our utmost support to free our comrade and fight the right-wing leadership of the AMWU for their complicity in betraying a much-respected member of the trade union movement.
Frank Muldoon, Claudine Holt, Roger Davies
Bendigo, Vic [Abridged]
Out-Foxed
You've heard the stories; you've seen the trailer, now demand to see it on your local movie screen! Out-Foxed provides an in-depth look at the dangers of ever-enlarging corporations taking control of the public's right to know (<http://www.outfoxed.org>).
I urge readers of Green Left Weekly to write to Hoyts, Village and other smaller cinema chains demanding that Out-Foxed be shown. We live in a democracy; we must not accept this blatant act of totalitarianism. No matter what your political beliefs are, it is vital that our cinemas remain open to diverse, informative movies including those which may be considered controversial.
Together we can make a difference.
Madeleine Cahill
Via email
US bastion
Australia has become a bastion for US interests in the South Pacific Region. In your edition dated September 15, Max Lane wrote an article under the heading "Jakarta bombing: symptom of desperation". This article contained a cogent and rational explanation for the continuing violence that besets the world, and a possible solution. The idea the Latham/Beazley policy is any different from the present Howard government is amply demonstrated by Max Lane in his analysis.
Now, like Latham, with his promise to send Australian troops to break up "regional terrorist networks", Howard has just come up with the idea of protecting Australian lives by funding armed units to fight insurgents and "terrorists" on foreign soil. So we see that just as Sharon is willing to carry out extra-judicial murder to "protect" Israeli lives, so we in Australia are prepared to do the same, whichever party wins power in the coming election.
Is it not obvious that just as Israel serves as a bastion for US strategies in the Middle East, we join them as a bastion for US interests in the South Pacific?
Max Lane has pointed out how a solution is possible by a fundamental change in direction; the only party that, in my opinion, can provide this is the Socialist Alliance party.
Michael Goldstein
Enmore, NSW
Criminals
Why do those who call for more domestic law and order not also call for increased adherence to international law? Most people seem to have a blind faith that their own government is law abiding yet the truth is very different. For example, John Howard joins George Bush in supporting a pre-emptive strike against nations they deem pose a threat. Why do we allow this when we would not tolerate this doctrine domestically?
The invasion of Iraq was an unambiguous breach of the Charter of the United Nations. Seventy per cent of Iraq's population are children so how do we square the blitzkrieg of Baghdad with the Convention on the Rights of the Child which insists that states like the US and Australia "shall ensure to the maximum extent possible the survival and development of the child" (Article 6/2)? Never once did Larry Anthony, ex-minister for youth and children's Services (sic!), raise his voice for the protection of these innocents or for those razor-wired refugees in Australia's own concentration camps.
Richmond has ousted an MP complicit in crimes against humanity while most of the rest of Australia has returned Howard and his sociopaths when they should properly be in the dock before the International Criminal Court. Bravo Byron Bay for your commitment to peace and justice and for your investment in law not war! Now we have to help reform the ALP so that it speaks truth to power and support all progressive parties in the gargantuan task of restoring Australia's soul. "For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his own soul?" They killed the man who uttered those words.
Gareth Smith From Green Left Weekly, November 3, 2004.
Byron Bay, NSW
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