Talisman Sabre 2015 Media Releases

Peace activist Margaret Pestorius and a companion are currently on a pilgrimage through the Talisman Sabre training area. The two entered the training area sometime this morning.

Range control has been notified that civilians are in the training area and a cease of any live fire has been requested for their safety.

Margaret is the widow of the late Bryan Law, a peace activist who damaged a Tiger attack helicopter with a mattock at 2011 Talisman Sabre military exercises.

This is the second pilgrimage into the live training area by Christian activists undertaken for Peace Convergence 2015, a biennial gathering against the Talisman Sabre military exercises at Shoalwater bay.

International president of women’s international league for peace and freedom, Prof Kozue Akiyabashi at Peace Convergence yesterday, said “peace in our region is threatened by U.S./ Australia / Japan joint military training.”

“Peace pilgrimages are a complex action involving physically getting in the way of the war preparations at Talisman Sabre” Margaret said.

“We are very privileged in Australia, yet we are scared. There are many things we can physically do to stop injustice.”

“I am going on this pilgrimage through the live training area because of the high human cost of civilian deaths in U.S wars, especially with the increasing use of lethal military technology such as drones on civilian populations.”

“We believe that while there are civilians like myself on the base operations need to stop because its not safe. Civilian lives are precious and should not be endangered.”

“I’m not happy about my country becoming more and more part of the U.S and their military activity.” Margaret said.

More information: Marcella Brassett 0411 026 142

Media alert

8 July 2015 4:00pm

Christian pilgrims Greg Rolles, Simon Reeves and Simon Moyle entered the Talisman Sabre training area early this morning to disrupt proceedings and to encounter soldiers to share communion and prayer with them.

The pilgrimages are being made as part of Peace Convergence Rockhampton 2015, a biennial nonviolent protest against Talisman Sabre and the high human, economic and environmental costs of war.

At around 4pm Peace Convergence was notified that the pilgrims had been removed and arrested, and are being held at Rockhampton watch house for processing.

The three peace activists will soon make a decision to sign bail conditions or not, and will appear in the Rockhampton court tomorrow morning.

For more information or an interview with peace pilgrims, call Marcella Brassett on 0411 026 142

Media Release

8 July 2015

Christian Peace Pilgrims enter live military exercise to nonviolently protest US-Australia alliance

Before dawn this morning, three Christian peace pilgrims entered Shoalwater Bay live training area to disrupt the ‘Talisman Sabre’ US-Australian war ‘rehearsals’ as ‘invaders’ are parachuted in to begin the ‘games’.

Guns and missiles are being fired in the training area. Armed reconnaissance helicopters,  armoured tanks possibly lined with depleted uranium, black hawks, guided missiles, US navy surface vessels, and nuclear weapons capable submarines are potentially being used, according to the Talisman Sabre 2015 Public Environment Report.

Range Control for Talisman Sabre have been notified that civilians are present in the training zone and were asked to call a ceasefire. Peace Convergence have been told by Range Control that the concern would be ‘passed on’, and are still awaiting a response.

The activists entered the training area in objection to the Australian-US military alliance, and to the human, economic and environmental costs of those wars into which Australian soldiers and the Australian taxpaying public have been drawn. Pilgrims bear witness to and represent the very real threat to civilians in war.

The three pilgrims, pastor Simon Reeves, Quaker Greg Rolles and the Reverend Simon Moyle, made the following joint statement before entering the training area.

“As Australians with the question, ‘have these wars been worth the cost?’ We are walking into Shoalwater Bay in the midst of exercise Talisman Sabre in the hope of finding a less destructive way of dealing with conflict.

All these lives lost, all this money spent and the world is a more dangerous place since 2001. Bodies of soldiers have been broken, minds and souls damaged. The blood of countless lives has been shed. Is this what we want? Is this the kind of country we want to be?

When we meet soldiers on the base we will be inviting them to share the Eucharist, remembering bodies broken and blood shed, in the hope of finding a better way forward together.

We also invite other Australians to consider whether more military intervention in Iraq will be worth the cost in lives, blood, and money.”

Greg Rolles, who holds a Master’s degree in International Relations said “for first time in Australia, unmanned aerial systems (drones) responsible for 1000s of civilian deaths will be used in the war ‘games’. There are serious unanswered questions about this technology”

“The ADF has refused to say whether these unmanned aircraft, each capable of carrying a 250kg payload, will be armed as they fly over Rockhampton and the surrounding region.”

“I am also walking because 200 years ago, Shoalwater Bay belonged to the Indigenous Peoples of the area. It’s one of Australia’s first war sites, with European settlers attempting to kill off or remove the Darumbal People. I will pilgrimage into Shoalwater Bay to remember those First Peoples who lost their lives and culture on this land,” said Greg.

From left: Peace Pilgrims Simon Reeves, Rev. Simon Moyle & Greg Rolles

About the Peace Pilgrims

Since 2005 Peace Pilgrims have created a legacy of walking on to the Shoalwater Bay training area during the Talisman Sabre exercises – sometimes for days at a time – to call a ceasefire.

For the pilgrims, who have travelled from around Australia to participate, the protest is an outwork of peace that is rooted in their Christian and other faith traditions. An interfaith commitment to the principle of nonviolence in the tradition of Jesus, Gandhi, The Buddha, Martin Luther King, and Desmond Tutu is shared and practiced by all activists.

“A pilgrimage is a sacred journey to a significant place’, says Margaret Pestorius, a pioneer of the peace pilgrim actions. ‘Our pilgrimage is a journey to the traditional lands of the Darumbal people where the military is rehearsing for war and testing weapons. Here we are exercising the values of our faith for the preservation of life and against the costs of war”.

About Talisman Sabre

This year’s Talisman Sabre biennial combined war exercises will be the biggest of military exercise of its kind in Australia’s history. It will span across multiple locations in Australia and involve US, New Zealand and Japanese defense personnel. It will cost Australians fifteen to twenty million dollars.

About the Shoalwater Bay Training Area

The Shoalwater Bay Training Area comprises of 454,500 hectares of Marine and terrestrial areas, with a range of riverine plains, sand and mud flats, swamps, dunes, estuarine inlets, coastal cliffs and mountains. It also encompases part of the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area and contains a number of rare and endangered species. The land is also of historical and cultural significance to the local Darumbal people, who retain only limited access to the land.

Media Release

7 July 2015

Military activity ramps up in “peace-a-bull” Rockhampton

As Talisman Sabre begins its military activity in the region, people at Peace Convergence took the opportunity to re-brand Rockhampton’s iconic beef country bull statues.

In a playful gesture, Rockhampton’s bulls were decorated with peace signs and messages.

Rockhampton could now be Australia’s peace-a-bull capital instead of a military training area.

Rockhampton, the major centre that services the military exercise, is the beef capital of Australia.  Large concrete bulls dot the town and are visible on its major thoroughfares.

Peace Convergence stands against the human, environmental, social justice costs  and high “steaks” political ramifications of conducting these large-scale military exercises in our region. Talisman Sabre is a strategic part of a ‘bull-headed’ and destructive war machine, which supports US led military operations further afield.

Furthermore, the purported benefits of Talisman Sabre to the local community are “bull”. The Australian government spends $70 million a day on its military. The so called economic benefit to the Rockhampton is a mere fraction of that.

According to the Talisman Sabre 2015 Public Environment Report (p 30) “the ADF spent “over AUD 4 million [on local goods and service] in the Rockhampton area.

Peace activist Robin Taubenfeld said ”stopping the war games and diverting military spending to the local economy would be of greater benefit; and without the costs and pollution of war making, of which Talisman Sabre is a part”.

Peace Convergence calls on the local community, and people around Australia “to grab the bull by the horns and reject the US military alliance as it stands. As a key ally, Australia can help “steer” the US down a Peace-a-bull path”, said Robin.

Media Release

6 July 2015

Japanese Academic and Peace Activist Coming to Rocky

Professor Kozue Akibayashi from Kyoto will be visiting Rockhampton to speak about the hidden impacts of hosting U.S military bases on the island of Okinawa, as part of the Peace Convergence being held during Exercise Talisman Sabre.

Professor Akibayashi is the International President of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF). Active in Europe since World War I, WILPF is this year celebrating its centenary.

Professor Akibayashi lectures in gender, peace and militarism at Doshisha University.

She asserts that the U.S. military has been granted what amounts to diplomatic immunity for whatever they do in Japan, including sexual violence.

Her research has revealed perpetrators are not punished and the victims rarely acknowledged.

Professor Akibayashi will be speaking at the Fitzroy Room in the Rockhampton Regional library at 5pm on Saturday, 11 July.

At the same event, awarded Australian filmmaker David Bradbury will be premiering his documentary War on Trial, about the events surrounding the late Bryan Law’s disabling of an army helicopter during Talisman Sabre 2011 and the trial of another Peace Pilgrim, Graeme Dunstan.

Entry is by donation. Inquiries 0458 298 297 Bookings 07 4914 0087.

Further information

Kozue Akibayashi (in Brisbane via Maree Klemm) 0419655383

Graeme Dunstan 0407 951 688

Media Release

5 July 2015

Awarded Filmmaker Premieres Documentary in Rockhampton

Australian filmmaker David Bradbury is premiering his latest documentary War on Trial in Rockhampton next Saturday night,  July 11 at 7pm in the Library’s Fitzroy Room. The event is part of this year’s Rockhampton Peace Convergence which gathers in response to the Talisman Sabre war rehearsals.

Mr Bradbury has won many Australian and international film festival awards, including five Australian Film Industry prizes and two Oscar nominations.

Bradbury asserts his latest film War on Trial will not be shown on Australian television “because it’s too radical.”

“It tells the story of the trial of Graeme Dunstan, his relationship with the late Bryan Law, and how together they disabled an Australian military helicopter during the 2011 Talisman Sabre exercise. The film questions the basic nature of the Australian-US military alliance and why we go to war.

“In today’s conservative political climate, where the media is often self censoring, to challenge our armed forces being embedded with the American military is regarded as unpatriotic. To question the notion that Australian forces should NOT invade Middle Eastern countries because there is no direct threat to Australia, just like the disaster that was Gallipoli, is seen as a green flag to ‘Terrorism’.” says Bradbury.

“Our politicians and military commanders have learnt little after 100 years of defining our nation through war” Bradbury says.

“After 40 years of covering wars and civil strife in Vietnam and Cambodia, East Timor, West Papua, the Middle East and South America, I think America goes about solving conflicts the wrong way. And as America’s faithful ally, Australia is constantly being drawn into unnecessary wars.”

“Is it really making us safer here in Australia?” asks Bradbury.

“The international arms manufacturers are the only ones to gain. They laugh all the way to their hidden Swiss bank accounts on the back of the poor Australian taxpayer and the traumatised war dead of the countries we invade. That is not the Australian way, the Anzac way,” the twice Oscar nominated war cameraman and foreign correspondent Bradbury says.

Regarding her late husband Bryan, featured in the film, Margaret Pestorius says “The action against the Tiger killer helicopter, was, for Bryan, the culmination of thirty years of campaigning for social justice. Nonviolence was always at the heart of his work.”

“But he was ultimately and quintessentially a Queenslander. He believed that ordinary people in regional Australia could make a significant difference to the future of this country, and that we can stop further militarisation through our creative actions.”

At the premiere, Japanese academic and renowned peace activist, Professor Kozue Akibayashi will be speaking about the hidden social and environmental costs the people of Okinawa have paid for hosting U.S. military bases on their small island.

Entry fee for both is $5 at the door.

War on Trial is David’s third film set in Rockhampton and surrounds. He made

Shoalwater: Up for Grabs (1994) with then Midnight Oil lead singer-turned senator Peter Garrett about shifty white-shoe brigade businessmen’s’ proposal to sand-mine in Shoalwater Bay to produce white paint from the mineral sands of the ancient coastal dunes. Within three weeks of the documentary airing on Channel Seven, the Government moved to protect the area.

Blowin’ in the Wind (2007) examines Australia’s secret treaty with the US, which allows their military to train and test their weapons on Australian soil and water. ‘Blowin’ questions whether ‘depleted’ uranium has ever been used in the military training area by the US military in the light of our own experience in Woomera and Maralinga atomic bomb sites and overseas. Depleted uranium causes birth defects. The US military denied its use in Okinawa and Puerto Rico training grounds but later evidence concluded they lied.

Media Release

5 July 2015

Anonymous group Provocateurs for Peace challenge an Australian armed forces General to a playful game of hide and seek with a cat in a hat

Today, Major General Stuart Smith, commanding officer of the Australian forces at Talisman Sabre military exercises, is receiving up to fifty invitations in the ‘slow’ mail in Canberra to seek a ‘cat in a hat’ hiding at Talisman Sabre.

The invitation advises the general to ‘watch out for the Cat in the Hat’ and includes a picture of the hat worn by the famous Dr Seuss character.

The invitation was written ‘in the spirit of civil disobedience’ and playful disruption to  the Talisman Sabre war ‘rehearsals’.

Provocateurs for Peace are from all over the country and have sent numerous copies  to make sure that the major general ‘gets the message’. He is invited to play a game  of hide and seek for peace, not war games. Innocently and playfully challenging and countering the war narrative.

The group has also released a photograph of an unidentified person wearing the hat, placing mail in a mailbox ‘somewhere in Australia’.

About the Shoalwater Bay Training Area

The Shoalwater Bay Training Area comprises of 454,500 hectares of Marine and terrestrial areas, with a range of riverine plains, sand and mud flats, swamps, dunes, estuarine inlets, coastal cliffs and mountains. It also encompases part of the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area and contains a number of rare and endangered species. The land is also of historical and cultural significance to the local Darrambal people, who retain only limited access to the land.

About Talisman Sabre

This year’s Talisman Sabre will be the biggest of military exercise of its kind in Australia’s history. It will span across multiple locations in Australia and involve US, New Zealand and Japanese defense personnel.

Media Release

4 July 2015

Faith-Based Peace Pilgrims  Prepare to Disrupt Military Training Area During US-Australian War Games

Faith-based peace advocates from around the country are converging in Rockhampton, Queensland to participate in what has become a tradition of protesting  during US-Australian military training exercises.

Since the first Biennial Talisman Sabre war ‘rehearsals’ 10 years ago in Shoalwater Bay outside of Rockhampton, peace activists have met the military presence with their own non-violent efforts to protest the Australian-US military alliance and the global human, economic and environmental costs of war.

“A pilgrimage is a sacred journey to a significant place’, says Peace Pilgrim Margaret. ‘Our pilgrimage is a journey to the traditional lands of the Darrambal people where the military is rehearsing war and testing weapons. Here we are exercising the values of our faith for the preservation of life and against the costs of war”.

Since 2005 Peace Pilgrims have created a legacy of walking on to the training area–sometimes for days at a time–to call a ceasefire for the practicing troops. This year’s military exercise will be the biggest in Australia’s history and it is also expected that there will be more pilgrims than ever to participate.

Quakers Helen and Jo will be travelling from interstate to join the convergence. “We Quaker Grannies have a different vision of the future. We do not want Australia to be, for all intents and purposes, a US military base furthering American interests in the Asia Pacific.”

“We Quakers have a 350 year old tradition of resisting war, refusing to profit from war, and working for peace and reconciliation”.

The ‘Quaker Grannies’ will be joined by other groups from various Christian and other traditions for whom the protest is an outwork of their faith and belief in peace. An interfaith commitment to the principle of nonviolence in the tradition of Jesus, Gandhi, The Buddha, Martin Luther King, and Desmond Tutu is shared and practiced by all activists.

As a former soldier and holder of a Master’s Degree in International Relations, Greg Rolles who has been preparing for the convergence says his first concern is “for the victims of war, the Australian soldiers and innocent people being killed” but also says that “it’s an issue that isn’t talked about much in Australia, and yet which sucks so much of our social and economic capital.”

“Australia has blindly followed the US into wars since 2001 that have killed 1.3 million people.”

Peace Pilgrims plan to hold faith-based journeys to disrupt Talisman Sabre 2015 over the next two weeks.

About the Shoalwater Bay Training Area

The Shoalwater Bay Training Area comprises of 454,500 hectares of Marine and terrestrial areas, with a range of riverine plains, sand and mud flats, swamps, dunes, estuarine inlets, coastal cliffs and mountains. It also encompases part of the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area and contains a number of rare and endangered species. The land is also of historical and cultural significance to the local Darrambal people, who retain only limited access to the land.

About Talisman Sabre

This year’s Talisman Sabre will be the biggest of military exercise of its kind in Australia’s history. It will span across multiple locations in Australia and involve US, New Zealand and Japanese defence personnel.

Media Release

28 June 2015

4 July – Independence from the USA Day

Fourth of July will be celebrated in Rockhampton as Independence from the USA Day with a public SpeakOut

11 am Saturday 4 July 2015 at the gates of Western Street Barracks,Western Street, Rockhampton.

“Consider it a pre-emptive strike for peace,” said SpeakOut host, veteran peace activist Graeme Dunstan of Peacebus.com.

“With an open mike, the event will be an opportunity for all those concerned about the endless wars into which the US military alliance has led us to speak up and speak out.”

“Far from bringing Australia security, the US alliance threatens our security by making enemies out of trading partners and engaging us in foreign wars in which no national interest is at stake.

“US Asian Pivot for example, which has stationed US Marines in Darwin and maybe a USAF B2 bomber base too, is aimed at “containing” China, our largest trading partner,” he said.

“More than ever we need an independent voice. Yet our politicians aren’t listening. Time for the voices of the people to be heard.”

The SpeakOut will mark the official start of the Shoalwater Peace Convergence, with people coming from all over Australia to Rockhampton to protest and non-violently disrupt the Talisman Sabre military exercises.

“Instead of spending $50 million on Talisman Sabre to train for future US wars of aggression, we need to step out from US patronage and make our own path, one in which we build a peaceful future with our neighbours and address our greatest security threat, climate change.”

Further information
http://peaceconvergence.org
http://peacebus.com
Graeme Dunstan 0407 951 688

Media Release

15 June 2015

Media alert: Peace activists gear up in Rockhampton for resistance to the Talisman Sabre war rehearsals

Peace Convergence 2015 will be the sixth gathering of peace activists from all over Australia, converging on the Talisman Sabre ‘war rehearsals’ at Shoalwater Bay, a coastal wilderness area at the southern end of our world heritage Great Barrier Reef.

Graeme Dunstan, ‘captain’ of the Peacebus has arrived in Rockhampton to prepare for his fifth Peace Convergence. Along with the late Bryan Law, Graeme was arrested for disabling a new Australian Army Tiger Attack helicopter during the Talisman Sabre 2011.

‘This will be my fifth Talisman Sabre season so I have a lot of friends in Rockhampton. There are lots of people in Rocky who are unhappy about the endless wars which the US alliance has led us into.’ Graeme said.

Graeme describes Peace Convergence as a celebration of peace and war resistance. It’s program will include speakouts, debates, concerts, parades, protests, blockades and ‘Peace Pilgrim’ intrusions onto the Shoalwater Exercise Area, all aimed at disrupting the ‘war rehearsals’ and creating counter narratives to highlight the cost of the U.S. – Australia military alliance.

First up Graeme is painting a new mural for his Peacebus. It’s message is strong:  ‘No more U.S. wars’.

The mural is being painted at Havachat, a community drop in centre and arts workshop at 20 East Street, Rockhampton.

Havachat will the organising base for Peace Convergence HQ.

“We are making banners, placards, lanterns, a couple of backpack puppets for street theatre and generally organising events for the peace convergence. People are imvited to drop by, say hello and have a chat about what we are doing and how they feel about the wars,’ Graeme said.

Further information
http://peaceconvergence.org
http://peacebus.com
Graeme Dunstan 0407 951 688

Media Release

26 May 2015

Militarisation – the unchallenged false economy

 While the Abbott government continues to cut money from education, health and other services, it is ramping up its spend on war and terrorism and encouraging local politicians such as the Member for Capricornia, Michelle Landry to spruik the economic benefits of 30,000 US, Australian, New Zealand and Japanese troops coming to the region for the biennial Talisman Sabre exercises.

Peace Convergence, a coalition of groups who oppose war for many reasons, argue that militarisation presents a false economy blindly accepted by tax payers and should be heavily scrutinised.

“Australian tax payers foot the bill for our defence, but few are aware that we have a policy to largely outsource military logistics. Essentially, we are paying for private contractors to get rich,” says Graeme Dunstan for Peace Bus, a member of the Peace Convergence Coalition.

The bulk of the Talisman Sabre exercises are being held in Shoalwater Bay. Local Member Michelle Landy is an advocate for militarising the Capricorn Coast.

“For Michelle Landry, the bells of cash registers ring as Australian’s and American’s practise war in her electorate,” says Graeme Dunstan.

“The Peace Convergence asks what will aiding and abetting militarism bring to the community? Is the temporary job creation as virtuous as it sounds?

“We know from the Okinawans that along with greater military presence comes more violent crime and more subtly, an increasing military presence militarises local culture. It was also learned that militarising the process of policing made deceit and secrecy in government the norm,” says Dunstan.

It was revealed in 2011 that Mayor Brad Carter and his CEO had engaged in secret negotiations to obtain a permanent U.S. military base established in the Rockhampton Region.

“The secrecy and deceit aspect of militarism’s baleful influences in the local area should already be known to Ms Landry, yet she advocates for more military presence,” says Dunstan.

“We challenge Ms Landry to defend in public debate the morality and efficacy of promoting militarism in the lead up to the Talisman Sabre exercise and encourage everyone to scrutinise the true cost of war rehearsing for Australia,” concludes Dunstan.

Media contacts:

Justin McKee, Media Officer 0404 824 020

Graeme Dunstan, Peace Bus 0407 951 688