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Issue No. 190, Autumn, 2005

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Issue No. 190, Autumn, 2005 -I __Australasian _____________ Number 190 Autumn 2005 50 cents Australian Military Get Out of Aceh Now! Indonesian Troops Out! Australian Imperialists Seize On Tsunami Catastrophe casting images of Australian soldiers in Science in Service Aceh domg some work apparently to pro­ vide clean water supplies. The "Aussie" of Humanity military is being portrayed as saviours of the dark-skinned Asian masses. Don't Could Have buy a word of this! This is the same mil­ itary that three years ago was kidnapping Saved Thousands Afghan, Near Eastern and South Asian asylum seekers on the high seas and The massive tsunami that crashed onto dumping them on the remote Pacific the shores of eleven South Asian and island of Nauru. This is the military that African countries on 26 December last has been used in the past to smash work­ year has left hundreds of thousands dead, February: Prime minister Howard ers strikes (the coal miners in 1949, the and millions without housing, food, water with Australian soldiers in Aceh. airline pilots in 1989 who struck against Australian imperialists have been the Labor government's pro-business and employment. The scope of the deva­ expanding military presence in Asia­ "Accord") and which will be used in the station and the terror delivered on the Pacific reijion. Right: Troops take peoples affected is hard to comprehend. over Solomon Islands, July 2003. future when struggles of workers and the Now disease and starvation haunt the oppressed threaten bourgeois class rule. traumatised survivors seeking to recon­ This is the military whose white soldiers struct shattered lives, which overwhelm­ immediate and generous outpouring of regions under the pretext of providing from the elite lRAR Townsville regiment ingly were already defined by poverty monetary and other aid by trade unionists "aid." The U.S. despatched planes and were photographed in 2000 dressed as and oppression. As pointed out by our and individuals across Australia. Geelong helicopters and 20 U.S. warships, along fascist Ku Klux Klansmen humiliating comrades in the U.S., in Workers Van­ oil refinery workers voted to increase with 13,000 military personnel to the non-white soldiers. This is also the mili­ guard No. 839, 7 January 2005, "The their union's initial proposal of ten thou­ Indian Ocean. The USS Abraham Lin­ tary that is today taking part in the mur­ mind numbing death toll, and the deaths sand dollars for the victims of the disas­ coln and Seahawk helicopters were derous U.S.-led colonial occupation of yet to be counted, are the result of disas­ ter to one hundred thousand dollars. ostentatiously positioned off the coast of Iraq including, as described by Australian ter magnified by class inequalities and the These are real expressions of solidarity Aceh. Meanwhile Japan also rushed defence intelligence scientist, Dr. Rod subordination of science to capitalist by the working class for its sisters and 1,000 troops to the area. The Australian Barton, directly carrying out brutal inter­ rule." Indeed, in a society where science brothers in South Asia and fly in the face imperialists, for their part, stationed the rogations of Iraqis. is wielded in the service of all human­ of the deep-going white racism of this warship Kanimbla, C-130 Hercules air­ To fully comprehend the motives ity-instead of for the profits of a tiny backward and insular society. craft, helicopters, landing craft and up to behind the military expedition to Indone­ class of exploiters-tens, if not hundreds, However, the various imperialist pow­ 900 military personnel in and off the sia one needs to understand imperialism of thousands could have been saved. ers seized on the disaster to position their coast of Aceh. as the highest stage of capitalism and how Following the tsunami, there was an blood-soaked militaries in the affected The capitalist media have been broad- continued on page 2 HerOic Aboriginal Militants Hit With Heavv Sentences Free Redfern Political Prisoners Now! FEBRUARY 23-Ten days ago, hun­ others have received non-custodial sen­ dreds of Aboriginal people and leftists tences. Last week, Raymond Carr, a marched in protests in Sydney and Mel­ cousin of TJ, lost his appeal against a 12- bourne to mark the one-year anniversary month jail sentence for his participation of the killing of Thomas "TJ" Hickey. in last year's struggle. We say: Free the The 17 -year-old Kamilaroi Murri youth Redfern political prisoners now! Drop died after being pursued, and by all indi­ all the charges! cations rammed, by a police vehicle From arrests of picketers during the while riding his bicycle in Redfern. But 1998 MUA struggle to the violent cop today, those in jail are not the racist cops attacks against the 2003 high-school stu­ who caused the youth's death. No, those dent strikes against the Iraq war, there has in jail are the Redfern Aboriginal mili­ certainly been plenty of vicious state tants who, following TJ's killing, heroi­ repression meted out against struggles of cally defended their community against the working class and oppressed in the marauding police in a nine-hour pitched last several years. BuUhe heavy jail sen­ battle. tences handed down to Redfern militants. Several of the 35 or so people arrested and the sizeable jail term received by Vic­ ASp photo over the battle on 15 February 2004 have torian trade-union leader Craig Johnston Redfern, 13 February 2005: March commemorating one-year anniversary of already been convicted on charges in­ last year, is a new mark in right-wing death of T J Hickey. Spartacist League supporters joined protest, called cluding "riot" and "affray." Some have political repression in the recent history for union/black actions to protest killing of the Kamilaroi youth at hands of been hit with lengthy jail terms while continued on page 9 racist state. ---~----...... ~ the "lion's share" devoted to assist Aus­ North Korean and Vietnamese deformed ~?.# Tsunami ... tralian and New Zealand companies to workers states against imperialist attack (continued from page 1) gain a foothold in Aceh. and internal counterrevolution! In the r The entire Australian ruling class, and face of renewed imperialist hostility in that plays out in this region. As explained its Labor Party (ALP) lackeys, are ecsta­ response to North Korea's announcement by Russian revolutionary leader, VI. tic over the intervention into Indonesia. that they hold nuclear weapons, we assert Lenin, this system is one in which the Australia's increasing militarism in the again our stand for the right of North ruling classes of the richest capitalist region had been widely viewed in Asia Korea and China to hold such weapons countries are compelled, through their with deep suspicion. In the months before to defend themselves. very inner workings and thirst for profits, the tsunami struck, even the pro-imperia­ into an unrelenting drive for new markets, list leaders of the semicolonial countries For Class-Struggle Opposition ever-greater natural resources and sources in ASEAN protested the Howard govern­ to Australian Imperialism! of cheap labour in the neocolonial coun­ ment's repeated assertion of Australia's Australia and the other imperialist tries. The various imperialist bourgeoisies "right" to military strikes into Asian powers have relished the chance to tryout enforce this neocolonial looting abroad countries without their permission. Now, military techniques in Aceh. They are and exploitation of the working class at however, Australian troops have been sta­ also gaining practice in establishing the home, and protect their own spheres of tioned in the most populous country in kind of support infrastructure that would exploitation from rival powers, through Southeast Asia without overt opposition inevitably accompany future colonial the deadly coercive power of their state and with the support of that country's expeditions. What this has meant is that apparatus. The military, alongside the president. Even if this particular expedi­ while tsunami victims face death from police, courts and prisons, is at the core of tion ends up being temporary, it has set a hunger, lack of water and poor sanitation, this capitalist state, which is constantly precedent for future military adventures purported disaster "relief' has often been into Indonesia and other large Asian Paul Jones being strengthened. inappropriate. The Indonesian minister October 2003: Thousands of union­ While much weaker than their coun­ countries. coordinating the relief effort in Banda ists protest attacks on workers' terparts in the U.S., Japan or Germany, The expansion of Australian military Aceh, Alwi Shihab, revealed that the safety fol/owing death of 16-year-old the Australian ruling class is a wealthy and police in Southeast Asia is a deadly World Health Organisation (WHO) had worker Joel Exner. Struggle against imperialist bourgeoisie in its own right. threat to the region's toiling masses. It asked Germany to tum around a hospital bosses' assaults on unions at home Alongside defending strategic geo-politi­ was the Australian Secret Intelligence ship because it was not needed. "We don't must be combined with opposition to cal interests, its post-tsunami interven­ Service stationed in Jakarta, that in want them to come over from a far dis­ Australian imperialist militarism. tion into Indonesia has much to do with collaboration with the CIA, helped tance just to have a very limited number protecting and expanding the vast profits orchestrate the 1965-66 anti-Communist of patients ... [but] they insisted on com­ plunder of raw materials, to blood-suck­ that Australian companies such as BHP- bloodbath in Indonesia. This led to as ing," he said. "I said no, but they are ing debt peonage. In 2003 alone, the tourists, too, they want to see, so I said eleven countries hit by the tsunami 'let them come.'" The exasperated co­ repaid a total of 68 billion dollars to for­ ~ January: eign creditors in debt repayments, more Women stand ordinator of WHO in Aceh, Professor Ronald Waldman declared, "When I think than eleven times what they had been amid ruins of promised in aid as of 18 January! Kuede Teunon, medical, I think public health, I think Aceh.
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