By Greg Ogle
ADELAIDE — This week the Magistrate's Court conducts another round of trials from last Easter's Nurrungar peace protest. More than 270 people were arrested and charged with trespass while protesting against the US base in the South Australian desert.
Nurrungar is built on land taken from its Aboriginal owners, the Kokatha people. It is a ground station for US military satellites and a key part of US war fighting strategy.
The people who were arrested at Nurrungar have used many different tactics when under arrest and in the various court hearings.
From the first, some refused to play the game at all. They gave false names and heard no more of the matter.
Another approach was taken by the "Spanner Action" group. Having planned the Easter Saturday auction of the base, they and the auctioneer (their large puppet Frederica) crossed the fence and were arrested.
But five of the group (excluding Frederica) declined to attend court at Her Majesty's Pleasure, preferring to present themselves for jail at a time which suited them. Thus in December, they returned to Adelaide and, after some media work and street theatre, proudly walked into the cental police station and off to jail. They refused to legitimise or reward the state by paying a fine.
Another approach has been taken by officials of the state branch of the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union. They have pleaded not guilty to trespass charges, arguing that they were denied their right of access to workers on a building site within Nurrungar. They may appeal against the conviction of the union's secretary, but the officials have stated that they are prepared to go to jail to defend their union rights.
The major trial to date has been of a group of mainly Melbourne-based protesters whose defence highlighted the theft of the land from the Kokatha people. Originally represented by a barrister, they argued that they had an honest belief in their right to enter the land because they had visas and had been invited there by the Kokatha people.
Their trial, in September, was designed as a joint trial of 30 people, but the magistrate decided to make life difficult for everyone (unless they pleaded guilty) by refusing a joint trial. Only one case was heard then, resulting in a guilty verdict, but the highlight was the appearance of Kokatha elder, Joan Wingfield, as a witness for the defence. The remainder of these trials are being held throughout February.
Most protesters have taken the more traditional civil disobedience line and pleaded guilty, stating that they will not be bound by unjust laws. Others have used the same argument but gone one step further, refusing to plead guilty under such laws. One magistrate, in dealing with a protester who cited Gandhi's doctrine that it was a moral duty to disobey unjust laws, apologised for finding the defendant guilty.
Others have argued along Nuremberg lines that Nurrungar contravenes Australia's obligations under international law because it is involved in the planning and prosecution of war. Some have even invoked the common law defence of necessity, arguing that, faced with the threat of war, it was necessary (and therefore lawful) to break the law.
Thus far, everyone has been found guilty. Fines have ranged from $25 to $125, with court costs of $80-$300 — except for the Melbourne test case, which warranted over $800 costs.
But the verdict is not the point for many, as a final approach used by protesters comes from the socialist tradition of using the court to demonstrate the nature of the system.
Eighty years ago, Rosa Luxemburg was one of the few leading socialists who opposed nationalism and war. As a result, she spent most of the war in jail, and shortly after, she was murdered by a right-wing paramilitary group during the Sparticist uprising.
At the time Rosa Luxemburg was imprisoned in 1914, thousands of young men were jailed for refusing to be conscripted to fight the "war to end all wars". Hundreds of Australians were also jailed for opposing the war, antiwar and left-wing organisations were banned, and 12 radical anti-conscription and antiwar activists were framed and convicted of conspiring "to burn Sydney".
When the second world war started, opponents were again jailed. Later thousands more, both here and in the United States, were jailed for refusing to take part in the invasion of Vietnam, or for protesting against it. And of course, faced with the potential of nuclear war, many antiwar protesters have been arrested in the last two decades.
While the courts have dutifully convicted all these "law breakers", more than 90 million people have died as a result of war.
The Nurrungar trials, like the Nurrungar protest, combine various traditions of resistance and are part of a long campaign against war and militarism. As the protesters have made clear to the courts, that campaign will continue for as long as governments continue to plan and wage war, and for as long as Aboriginal peoples are dispossessed by the military occupation of their land.