BY AARON BENEDEK
SYDNEY â Despite Washington's military victory in Iraq, residents of Sydney's south-western suburbs are determined to maintain the anti-war organisations established in the area earlier this year and build opposition to the US occupation of Iraq.
On May 3, just days after US troops killed dozens of Iraqis protesting against the US occupation, the youth anti-war group Bankstown Books Not Bombs organised a conference on "How can we stop the US empire?".
Forty people, including Bankstown Mayor Helen Westwood, attended the conference, which was endorsed by a range of progressive organisations in the area, including the Canterbury-Bankstown Peace Group, Sawiyan Coalition for Palestine, the socialist youth organisation Resistance and the Bankstown Socialist Alliance.
Conference attendees included local high school and university students and members of the University of Western Sydney (Milperra campus) No War collective.
Westwood, Raul Bassi from the Canterbury-Bankstown Peace group and the Bankstown branch of the Socialist Alliance, and Emma Clancy, joint national coordinator of Books Not Bombs, opened the first plenary of the conference.
Westwood said the war on Iraq had been predicated on a lie and welcomed Books Not Bombs' efforts to increase community discussion and analysis of the US, British and Australian invasion of Iraq. Bassi and Clancy examined the Bush administration's plans for world domination.
"We should not forget the strength of the peace movement", Bassi told the audience. "It delayed US invasion plans for months and caused a major crisis amongst the imperialist countries of Europe and the United States which they still have not recovered from."
Workshops during the day discussed the rise of racism in Australia since the US launched its "war on terrorism"; why and how the US supports the Israeli occupation of Palestine; and the Books Not Bombs organised anti-war student strikes around Australia.
The final session of the conference discussed ideas and plans for action in the area. These included supporting Palestinian solidarity events, snap actions against forced deportations of Iraqi refugees, organising a Bankstown Youth against War concert with local rappers, and organising an outdoor anti-war film night.
Bankstown Books Not Bombs meets every Saturday at 2pm, at the Bankstown Resistance Centre, Old Town Plaza next to Andulas Islamic Bookshop.
From Green Left Weekly, May 21, 2003.
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