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Direct Action Against East Timor Bl



Subject: Direct Action Against East Timor Bloodshed

In a message dated 9/18/99 11:28:56 PM Eastern Daylight Time, Thakin writes:

<<  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)
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