Kerryn Williams
Anti-war activists have claimed that the September 9 bombing near the Australian embassy in Jakarta proves that invading Iraq has not made the world a safer place.
"This bombing in Jakarta is a tragedy. But the bigger tragedy is that the illegal war on Iraq by the 'coalition of the willing' is creating the conditions for handfuls of fanatics to unleash their own war", Pip Hinman, from Sydney's Stop the War Coalition, said on September 9.
Hinman argued that "the illegal war in Iraq has done exactly what police commissioner Mick Keelty admitted, but was later forced to retract: It increased the likelihood that terror acts will be unleashed elsewhere — including in Australia."
Raul Bassi, Socialist Alliance national co-convenor and candidate for Blaxland, rejects the whole premise of the "war on terror". "George Bush and John Howard talk of the 'war on terror' as something that may continue for decades. It's as if there is a precise number of terrorists out there, and once they're liquidated the problem of terrorism will cease to exist.
"But terrorists are not born with terrorist ideas. Terrorists are produced by lives of poverty, repression and humiliation — the exact situation that Australia and the other occupying forces are imposing on Iraq.
"In this way the Israelis perpetuate the Palestinian suicide bombings by their ongoing repression of the Palestinian people. And likewise, the Russians in Chechnya, with tragic consequences."
Graham Matthews, Socialist Alliance candidate for Batman, warned that "The Liberal Party will attempt to use the tragedy of the Jakarta bombing to whip up a new fear campaign, and may try to frighten the Australian public into supporting even stricter controls on civil liberties, and more attacks on refugees and those fleeing persecution".
Matthews pledged Socialist Alliance's solidarity with "those Australians of Muslim and Arabic heritage who have borne the brunt of this 'anti-terrorism' campaign to date. We demand an end to the racist persecution of Arab Australians, and an end to the anti-terror fear campaign."
According to Matthews, ending terrorism wouldn't be that difficult: "Just withdraw the troops from Iraq, end the occupation, and stop acting like terrorists in the region. This is the first step to peace and stability."
From Green Left Weekly, September 15, 2004.
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