On November 16, NSW deputy coroner Dorelle Pinch ruled that five journalists from Australias Seven and Ten commercial TV networks who died in the East Timorese town of Balibo on October 16, 1975, were not killed by crossfire (which is what Australian authorities have previously maintained) but were deliberately murdered by invading Indonesian forces, on orders from above in what Pinch ruled to be a war crime.
Tony Iltis
Over 50 military and civilian dissidents remain in custody following the storming of the Manila Peninsular luxury hotel on November 29 by troops loyal to President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo to dislodge a group of soldiers who had seized the hotel and used it to hold a press conference calling for a “people’s power” uprising against the unpopular president. Civil society and religious leaders joined the rebels at the press conference.
On November 22, Pakistans Supreme Court ruled that General Pervez Musharrafs re-election as president (by his hand-picked National Assembly in October) was legitimate, despite his role as head of the armed forces. This ruling is hardly surprising given that, after declaring emergency rule on November 3, Musharraf sacked the judges then in the Supreme Court, putting them under house arrest and stacking the court with his stooges. Musharraf has stated that once his puppet Supreme Court had legitimised his re-election, he would resign from the armed forces to become a civilian president.
While Pakistans dictator General Pervez Musharraf has justified his November 3 imposition of emergency rule with the supposed threat of Islamic terrorism, the brunt of the crackdown has been felt by students, trade unionists, the left, the mainstream opposition parties, civil society and the movement of advocates (lawyers) who have been in the forefront of resistance to the regime since March.
On November 3, Pakistani military dictator General Pervez Musharraf initiated an intensified crackdown against all opposition to his increasingly unstable regime, with the decleration of a state of emergency. While the militarys spin doctors have attempted to make a distinction between this state of emergency and martial law, it has seen thousands of people put into preventative detention, mobile phones jammed, all non-government broadcasting stations taken off air and the abandonment of what pretence of rule of law still remained under Musharraf, who seized power in a coup in 1999.
In 1975, when Indonesia invaded East Timor, beginning a 24-year occupation that cost over 200,000 Timorese lives (over a third of the population), Australias support for this genocidal occupation was predicated on a policy outlined in the infamous Woolcott telegram: that Australias interest in East Timor was derived from the oil and gas resources in the Timor Sea.
In the wake of mass protests for democracy spearheaded by Buddhist monks, triggered by five-fold increases to fuel and public transport costs, Burmas major cities of Rangoon and Mandalay have become the scene of an intense crackdown by the military, which has ruled the country since 1962.
What began on August 15 as protests against escalating fuel and transport prices and deteriorating economic conditions has developed into a mass uprising in Burma. From September 17, mobilisations by Buddhist monks and nuns emboldened thousands of Burmese to take to the streets in the largest protests since the pro-democracy uprising in 1988 that was brutally crushed, with over 3000 people killed, by the military regime that has ruled Burma since 1962.
That opinion poll results, released on September 18, showing the Howard government trailing the ALP opposition by 10% were widely reported as good news for the federal government is an indication of the dire straits that the Liberal-National Coalition is in. While these figures do represent a comeback from those of the previous week, which had the Coalition 18% behind the ALP, the government has consistently been more than 10% behind the opposition all year.
Alex Bainbridge, chairing the Stop Bush/Make Howard History anti-APEC rally told the massing crowd that there were at least 10,000 people gathered at 11am at Sydney’s Town Hall. Despite an intensive campaign aimed at keeping people away, and provocative policing on the day, up to 15,000 people come out on September 8, asserting their right to protest against US President George Bush and Australian Prime Minister John Howard.
SEPTEMBER 8 — Alex Bainbridge, chairing the Stop Bush/Make Howard History anti-APEC rally told the gathered crowd that there were 10,000 people gathered at Sydney’s Town Hall. A contingent of hundreds of high school students arrived at Town Hall, chanting “Troops out now!”, while a contingent of hundreds of trade unionists arrived chanting “The workers united will never be defeated!”
On August 29, 60 people attended a public meeting in Dulwich Hill to launch a sister-city relationship between the inner-west Sydney municipality of Marrickville and the Palestinian city of Bethlehem in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
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