NEWS- Direct Action Against East T

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Subject: NEWS-  Direct Action Against East Timor Bloodshed

Title: Direct Action Against East Timor Bloodshed
Author: Various, compiled from mainstream and union sources, Australian
Confederation of Trade Unions, , Reuters, Sydney Morning Herald, etc.
Date: 8-SEP-1999 - 11-SEP-1999
Source: <struggs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, DAMN's labor topic specialist
Reference: Labour Start (www.labourstart.org)/
http://www.smh.com.au/news/9909/09/pageone/pageone4.html
www actu.asn.au
www.abc.net.au
www.smh.com.au

AUSTRALIAN UNIONS

On 8 September, unions disrupted a Garuda flight and prevented the
loading of cargo on three Indonesian-bound ships as the Australian
Confederation of Trade Unions launched a campaign of protest against
militia violence in East Timor. A Garuda flight due to depart at 11am
from Melbourne was delayed when labourers working on the airport
terminal staged a protest, blocking the path of boarding passengers.

The Maritime Union of Australia (MUA) applied bans on ships in Sydney,
Newcastle and Brisbane. The ship Bunga Teratia III was delayed in Port
Botany for almost an hour until its owner, the Malaysian International
Shipping Company, agreed to leave 16 Indonesian-bound cargo containers
stranded in Australia by leaving them in Fremantle.

In Newcastle, the MUA banned the loading of produce bound for Indonesia
on the ship Cape Horn. About 30 containers bound for Indonesia on the
vessel Chekiang were unloaded in Brisbane by the MUA. Bans on another
ship due in Fremantle were being considered.

Eighty thousand tonnes of wheat destined for Indonesia next week is to
be blocked, and MUA members have blackbanned containers bound for
Indonesia in 10 ports nationwide.

The Maritime Union of Australia (MUA) has vowed to continue a blockade
of all cargo bound for Indonesia as long as the militia violence
continues in East Timor. Postal, tele-communications and freight bans
were imposed on Indonesian embassies by Victorian unions, while union
pickets at Melbourne airport continued to severely disrupt the plans of
holiday-makers flying to Indonesia.

On a humanitarian level, Australian Unions have:

o Sent four union delegations to East Timor in the past six months;

o Provided direct assistance to the independence election campaign
including two staff on the ground providing assistance;

o Directed humanitarian programs in education and health areas through
APHEDA - Union Aid Abroad;

o Supported and co-operated with the church based Mary MacKillop
Institute in the Tetun language program and

o Provided emergency medical and food assistance

DEMONSTRATIONS

Thousands of people joined rallies around Australia calling for action
to end the violence in East Timor. In the biggest rally, 25,000 people
in Melbourne marched on the offices of Garuda airlines. They burned
flags and
heard from East Timorese resistance leader Xanana Gusmao during a live
telephone hook-up.

In Canberra, charges are expected to be laid over a protest in which a
banner was draped from the Australian Coat of Arms at Federal
Parliament, and the words "Shame Australia Shame" painted on the
building's facade. A rally in Brisbane involved about 300 people, and
the Indonesian flag was burned during a demonstration of about 600
people in Sydney.

Several hundred students joined a demonstration outside the offices of
Foreign Affairs Minister Alexander Downer in Adelaide, as part of a
national walkout.

On September 11 700 protesters stormed the Syndney Airport international
terminal, intent on disrupting flights by the Indonesian airline Garuda.
Departure gates were blocked to prevent passengers boarding flights to
Indonesia as the East Timorese community and unionists joined the
international campaign to stop the bloodshed. The blockade, scenes of
which were repeated at airports in Melbourne and Brisbane, was declared
a success by unions, with Garuda forced to delay and re-route several of
its Bali flights.

Following the three-hour protest at Sydney airport, bus loads of East
Timorese burst into the Garuda offices in Hunter Street, Sydney,
catching police and the Garuda staff off-guard. The rowdy protesters
occupied the
16-level building for almost two hours, stopping workers from various
other businesses from gaining access as they chanted "Indonesia Out. UN
in."

In Brisbane, four students were arrested for painting a cross in blood
on the floor of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade office, and
at Melbourne airport, about 40 building workers blocked check-in
counters.

In Sydney, scuffles broke out as more than 500 protesters blockaded
Garuda's check-in counters at 8am and then tried to blockade the
departure gate.

Elsewhere in Sydney, almost 1000 high school and university students
stopped lunchtime traffic as they marched through the CBD before joining
East Timorese for a sit-in at the Garuda office.

In Canberra, Parliament House faced another embarrassing security breach
yesterday when East Timorese activists dodged patrolling guards and
spray-painted "shame Australia shame" over the building's entrance.

Four men perched dangerously over the entrance on a glass roof and held
police at bay for about an hour.

One of the four protesters arrested after the incident, Gareth Smith,
who worked as part of the UN mission, later told Canberra Magistrates
Court he had faced a "crisis of conscience", with many of his East
Timorese friends being jailed or killed.

Elsewhere in Canberra, people tooting their horns in support of
protesters outside the Indonesian embassy were yesterday hit with $90
fines by Australian Federal Police.

TRAVEL EMBARGO

Meanwhile, travel retailer Flight Centre has become the first tourism
operator to react to the Indonesian tragedy, threatening to pull the
plug on millions of dollars of business to Bali.

Flight Centre - which sends around 100,000 travellers to Indonesia each
year - has written to Indonesian embassies around the world warning that
it will encourage its clients to holiday elsewhere, chief executive
officer, Graham Turner, stated.

"We will also be advising people not to fly with Garuda, the
(Indonesian) national carrier," Mr Turner said.

Flight Centre's business to Indonesia amounts to between $130 million
and $150 million a year, or 10 per cent of their business out of
Australia.

VOICES OF RESISTANCE

More than 25,000 protesters packed the centre of Melbourne to hear East
Timor independence leader Xanana Gusmao appeal to his Australian
"brothers and sisters" to pressure the Howard Government to send peace
enforcers into East Timor.

East Timorese guerilla leader and Falintil chief of staff Taur Matan
Ruak earlier spoke to the rally by satellite phone and appealed for a
food airlift from Australia directly into the hills of Timor to aid
starving refugees.

Born out of the violent political chaos that swept East Timor in 1975,
Falintil, the armed wing of the independence movement, has maintained a
24-year struggle.

When the army-backed militia campaign of killing, arson and kidnapping
erupted across the territory last Sunday, Falintil operatives had
enteredmost major town centres in East Timor to help organise resistance
against the pro-integration campaign of terror. In the lead-up to the
vote the Falintil maintained exceptional discipline in observing a
ceasefire, despite the militia's terror tactics. The cantonment
requirement technically expired after voting, and although there are no
reliable first-hand reports from the violence-wracked territory, it is
likely Falintil is reactivating its fighters.

They were active in Dili last week in the pro-independence suburb of
Becora in the town's south-east, helping organise road blocks and
checking the identity of vehicles and drivers passing across their lines
of control. Over the years Falintil's tactics have shifted. In the early
days they engaged superior Indonesian forces in set-piece engagements,
earning a reputation for aggression, and severely undermining Indonesian
claims of a swift, successful occupation.

As the Indonesian military machine increased in strength, Falintil took
heavy losses and was forced to reorganise its strategy, adopting
lightning ambushes and assassinations targeting Indonesian soldiers,
their militia
allies and government officials.

One of the biggest setbacks for Falintil followed the capture in 1992 of
the front's commander, the charismatic Xanana Gusmao, freed from a
20-year jail sentence by Indonesia on Tuesday.

Though small in number, the well-trained Falintil currently operate with
light infantry weapons, mostly captured or bought from Indonesians. In
recent years the focus of the independence movement has turned away from

direct armed confrontation to diplomacy and the garnering of
international support for the independence cause.

In a statement, Falintil's field commander, Taur Matan Ruak, appealed
for international help to save East Timor from Indonesian military
atrocities and what he described as an ethnic cleansing program. "The
international
community must intervene urgently in East Timor or tomorrow there will
be no Timor to save. I call on Timorese everywhere to mobilise to press
in every way they can for international intervention," he said.

EUROPEAN DEMONSTRATIONS

On 11 September, in Brussels, Belgium, union activists from the FGTB and
ICFTU protested for two hours in front of the Indonesian Embassy, which
was protected by the police and anti-riot units, while a delegation
tried to negotiate to hold a meeting with the Ambassador. However, the
Ambassador refused to see representatives from either the unions or from
any of the NGOs which had taken part in the demonstration, although he
had earlier allowed several of the politicians into the compound.

Meanwhile, in Helsinki, Finland there were 3 demonstrations against
Indonesia. A moderate one in the city center, and 2 hours afterwards one
militant group of 20 people demanded an immediate withdraw of
Indonesian troops from East Timor by occupying the roof of the embassy
and by spreading a banner. Lastly, another group concentrated on
breaking the embassy windows. Four windows were trashed and WITHDRAW!
was spray painted in Finnish on the embassy wall. Those who occupied the
embassy roof are still arrested.

If you support either one of the radical actions, fax endorsements to
the Finnish ministry of foreign affairs, and demand that Finland as a
president of European Union takes an uncompromising approach in
pressuring Indonesia to withdraw it's troops from East Timor.

fax: +358-9-629 840
phone  +358-9-1856 8000

If you are East-Timorian or an Indonesian group, please fax also to the
Finnish press to endorse these radical actions.

STT news agency,
fax: +358-9-6958 1335
phone: +358-9-695 811

Helsingin sanomat-paper
fax: +358-9-605 709
phone: +358-9-1221 (central)

Hufvudstadsbladet-paper
fax: 358-9-642 930
phone:358-9-12531 (central)