On 5 March 2012 5 peace activists – Andy, Christel , Jim, Cully and Sean – will appear in the Brisbane Magistrates Court to answer charges of causing a public nuisance and disobeying a police direction without reasonable cause. These charges arise from the action on 7 October last year to mark the 10th anniversary of the invasion of Afghanistan.
Gathering outside the Brisbane Magistrate Court
( cnr. Turbot and George Sts. Brisbane)
Monday 5th March 8.30 am for vigil (Court starts around 9.30)
It is from the Gallipoli Barracks that many of the Australian troops are deployed. 25-30 people gathered outside Gallipoli Barracks at Enoggera and after a moving ceremony the five knelt on the road, blockading the entrance of the barracks and bringing traffic to a halt. Joined by those around them, the five prayed, sang and recited the names of many the dead who have perished over the previous 10 years. Traffic was blocked for 30-40 minutes before the group, refusing police instructions to move, was arrested.
The real victims of the invasion have been the Afghani civilian population with a higher casualty rate in the 6 months leading up to the 10th anniversary than any same period since the invasion. Successive Australian governments speak of ‘staying the course’, ‘finishing the job’ and ‘we will not cut and run’. However for many respected Afghani leaders, leaving this war is precisely what they want the Australian military to do. The Australian government is seen as supporting the corrupt Kasai regime where democracy is a farce and our military’s presence brings further civilian deaths and suffering.
We invite those who stand with the people of Afghanistan to join us as we take our witness before the court. The situation has only continued to deteriorate. We will endeavour to put those facts before the court and expose our own government’s complicity in this War of Terror.
Bring the troops home, remember those who have suffered and died in Afghanistan and demand an Australian foreign policy based on justice.
Gathering outside the Brisbane Magistrate Court ( cnr. Turbot and George Sts. )
Monday 5th March 8.30 am for vigil (Court starts around 9.30)
For further information contact Sean (0423 749 946) or Jim (3425 3003)
They lost their lives at Mirabad last night
Jamie died, despite first aid, unable to be saved
Gunshot wounds killed Sapper Larcombe
Air Vice Marshall Houston sighed
Only 21 years old and his interpreter
Buried according to local custom
— Ian Curr, “Ode to lives lost at Mirabad“
ENGLAND Maya Evans jailed for 13 days for nonviolent resistance to the war on Afghanistan – blockade of Northwood HQ in 2009
http://peacenews.info/blog/6658/jailing-maya-evans
The Ghost and the Machine
by Kathy Kelly with research by the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers
February 29, 2012
Fazillah, age 25, lives in Maidan Shar, the central city of Afghanistan’s Wardak province. She married about six years ago, and gave birth to a son, Aymal, who just turned five without a father. Fazillah tells her son, Aymal, that his father was killed by an American bomber plane, remote-controlled by computer.
That July, in 2007, Aymal’s father was sitting in a garden with four other men. A weaponized drone, what we used to call an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle or UAV, was flying, unseen, overhead, and fired missiles into the garden, killing all five men.
Now Fazillah and Aymal share a small dwelling with the deceased man’s mother. According to the tradition, a husband’s relatives are responsible to look after a widow with no breadwinner remaining in her immediate family. She and her son have no regular source of bread or income, but Fazillah says that her small family is better off than it might have been: one of the men killed alongside her husband left behind a wife and child but no other living relatives that could provide them with any source of support, at all.
ARTICLE CONTINUED….
http://vcnv.org/the-ghost-and-the-machine
Diaron
http://www.londoncatholicworker.org