Alice Springs activists had worked hard all the year and before. The Alice is the geographical centre of Oz and the focus of a contradiction. Local Arrernte people are engaged in struggle for restoration of land from which they were driven two generations before. The U.S. spy station is at Pine Gap, twenty K from town.
The lines of the contradiction, internal and external, cross right here.
The Australian Anti-Bases Campaign Coalition was formed in 1986 after years of activity. It made 1987 a year to challenge the existing ten year agreement giving amerikan rights to the base.
The Alice Springs Peace Group researched the project. An office, workers' wages for a year, computer, photocopier and whatever. It was a lot of money unless you said it quickly. As always when the need is great committed friends come good. The money was found.
You'd have to know the Alice to realise the enormity of getting 500 plus bodies to the place in October for ten days. How they would eat, sleep and shit and where? Once again the nameless and unknown starting acting as though they'd done it all their lives. It all came together.
The week of seminars, cross cultural gatherings with Arrernte people, workshops, Non Violent Direct Action (this NVDA gets me), media collectives, garbage collections, shit disposal units, kid disposal (sorry) child care centres, print facilities, transport coordination, womens' committees, bolt cutters (no connection? No?), and so on. I'm still not clear on NVDA policy when a copper's got you down and his balls are in easy reach.
It was all great and the unsung heroes did it all. What everyone learned in the two days of action that followed was matched by the direct eye-ball stuff with the real 'owners' of the patch of desert on which sits the abominable amerikan and his pile of high technology jeopardy.
And so we come to the crotch of the problem. That should be crux but the NVDA question intervened. The problem is - what to do about the yank at the front line. And so it came to the last two days. People made their own internal resolutions as to whether to be arrested or not. Mine was, seeing that I owed them still for the bike ride, to keep out of it. You never know anyway. These things have their own dynamic.
A lot of stuff is on video. Jumping fences, shinning up the gate surveillance camera tower and superglueing themselves to the metal, cutting fence wire, running from police, climbing trees. Dozens got themselves knocked off. In the heat of summer and the events I went over the fence, done the thongs and got a feet full of Centralian thorns and lumbered by one of the most inept pigs you'd never want to meet.
The yanks kept out of direct contact. Cunning. Protection of the external base area was handled by Federal Police. Complete hoons, more used to patrolling the corridors of power in Canberra where they are pretty useless anyway, they were innocents at large in the desert.
One fat slob was after Doherty. Now Dennis is not one of your Speedy Gonzales over either a short or long course but he left this prawn for dead. The copper fell turse over arkey on a rock. Ever the solicitous Christian, Den went back, picked him up and asked if he was alright. The ungrateful bastard grabbed our mate and told him he was under arrest. My Arrernte brother Blue Tongue, when I told the story said. 'Brother Dennis shoulda kicked shit out of him while he was down.'
The septic tanks had built three adjoining holding pens (great foresight or rather a spawning of the despicable CIA/ASIO coupling) a few hundred metres inside the base. Women in one, blokes in the others. Sexist pigs. Our captors even gave us oranges and water, again showing they weren't real police. Then, as Steve said later, 'You'd whinge either way.' After a while, out of the hills comes Polly and her Melbourne mob. They had been camped there all night. Dumb? Not the Vics, the Feds.
We were finally photographed and processed. Big Lance from Adelaide used the time as always to lecture and educate. Everything from the Soviet Union, China (where he'd spent some time), the class struggle, power politics, health, the coming end of capitalism, whatever. Lance is always good for few hours.
Our protectors (Christ help us) finally loaded us in a bus for Alice Springs lock-up. More crazy demonstrators were at the main gate so we were taken on one of the back roads out. Get to a gate and the dills haven't got the right key. Radio base for instructions. More delay. Boring. Off again and we pass a small herd of prime beef. It was long past brunch.
'Jesus, Doolan,' I said, 'Look at the arse on that. How would a slice of that go. Right off the rump.' The nice lady from Freedom for Animals sitting behind said. 'Haven't you thought that that little cow has a mother?'
Momentarily stunned all I could say was. 'So do all these bloody coppers in the bus with us. Some mothers do have them.' And so to the familiar surrounds of the watch-house.
That night the Grandparents drew up a petition for next day.
Next morning the camp meeting decided to have another go. At the base main gate, after all the song and dance routines and speeches, the Oldies, led by Blackfellers Mum Shirl, Bobby Anderson, Newcastle Glad and others tried to hand their statement on behalf of their children and grandchildren in at the gate. When they got nowhere the perimeter wires were cut again and they led the new invasion through the perimeter wire. Many more were arrested.
And so to the story of Alphonse Dianiou and his uncle Djoubelly Wea. David Bradbury had turned up to record this new attempt to batter down one of the side gates of history. We drove down to the base and he started swinging his anti-yank cam. I was introduced to Alphonse. Bradbury disappeared.
From Kanaky (French New Caladonia) Alphonse was one we helped to get to the Alice. Along with indigenous mob from New Zealand, Belau, Solomons, Philippines and other South Pacific dwellers. He had met Rosie and her mob.
After the dust from the plodding coppers feet had died down and another big number of souls were safely in the can, Alphonse and I drove back to town.
At Miguel and Christinas' where empenadas reigned supreme, we had lunch and talked about here and there and there and here. After we had thrown the frogs out of Kanaky and won Yamba station and property back from our own invaders, Alphonse said he would like to visit the family. Rosie had invited him to see how our people lived.
That afternoon we drove up to the Walpiri camp where most were staying. Some missing were likely to be in Alice Springs gaol. Introductions. Old man Willie, old woman Hilda. Their offspring Rosie, Janie, Blue Tongue, Mongrel Dog, Carpita, maybe others. And some of their kids, Matthew, Alison, Priscilla, Annie and several others. That old man and woman had a big mob. The deadly Rice gang.
And JB, about three years and less than two stone, wringing wet. We all settled on the verandah. Alphonse starts to talk, Rosie starts to interpret in Arrernte for the kid. He gestures angrily and she shuts up. Alphonse starts again. This is his story.
'My country is over there. Over that desert and ocean a long way. My people are in a big fight to get their land back. Same but different to you.
'I had to make a big journey through the country and the islands. Everywhere people were fighting for themselves and their families. Trouble everywhere. At each of these places I found a nice stone which I kept.
'When we went to the big city where most of the French live, I was arrested and put in gaol. There was nothing to do for a long time. So I would look at my little stones and remember the people there. And make up stories about them, with happy endings.
'So I brought these stones to your place. I would like JB to have them so one day he will come and stay with us for a while. He will learn about my people and teach us about your struggle.'
JB took the stones, looked at Alphonse then put them in his tattered shorts pocket. He got up and walked to a small desert tree, sat down and dug a hole. The kid put the stones in the hole, took them out again, put them back in his pocket. He repeated this routine. He was still doing it as we left.
Alphonse Dianiou cannot challenge this. He is dead.
You see, he led that group of young Kanaks who captured that mob of French SAS murderers and hid them in a cave on the Island of Ouvea, which is his place. And after the French rounded up all the women and children, herded them into the communal longhouse and threatened ten deaths for every Frenchman and after all the negotiations were over and they released the criminals unharmed, Alphonse and his comrades walked out with their hands in the air.
These cultured descendants of those who stormed the Bastille cold bloodedly shot them down.
One day JB - John Patrick Rice/Furber - will go to Ouvea. He'll meet the children of Alphonse Dianiou.
Maybe he'll take some desert stones from the Red Centre.
And Djoubelly Wea? Alphonse's Uncle/Father.
They rang me from Manila. From Peace Brigade headquarters. Could I meet him and mind him for a couple of days? His flight home to Noumea and Ouvea had been rerouted through Sydney. No problem.
His picture's on the mantlepiece alongside the photo of Rosie and the Old Man. I can't describe people very well. You'd have to see for yourself. He looks like the preacher that he was. Dignified. That's about best.
He stayed and we talked a lot. Saw videos at Tranby. Djoubelly was most interested in the action stuff. Anti colonial struggles, like the one Alphonse was in. Got Chris at the Metallies to rush some copies he wanted his people to see. He took them.
I know something about Kanaky. Alphonse and his Uncle Wea told me. In Australia there are too many advisers about what should be done about the problems of others. Often they are people who know least about here on their own dunghill.
On the occasion of the first commemoration of the murder of Alfonse Dianiou and his Comrades, Djoubelly Wea and F.L.N.K.S. resistance leaders, Jean Marie Tjibaou and Yeiwene Yeiwene were killed in a gun battle in which French troops were involved.
At this time of writing I do not know the finer details of how or why this occured. What I do know is that they were all further victims of colonialism.
At least four of Alfonse's audience on that day in October '87 at the Walpiri camp, all young like him, are now also the dead victims of colonial/capitalist genocide.
The lines of the contradiction, internal and external, cross right here.
The Australian Anti-Bases Campaign Coalition was formed in 1986 after years of activity. It made 1987 a year to challenge the existing ten year agreement giving amerikan rights to the base.
The Alice Springs Peace Group researched the project. An office, workers' wages for a year, computer, photocopier and whatever. It was a lot of money unless you said it quickly. As always when the need is great committed friends come good. The money was found.
You'd have to know the Alice to realise the enormity of getting 500 plus bodies to the place in October for ten days. How they would eat, sleep and shit and where? Once again the nameless and unknown starting acting as though they'd done it all their lives. It all came together.
The week of seminars, cross cultural gatherings with Arrernte people, workshops, Non Violent Direct Action (this NVDA gets me), media collectives, garbage collections, shit disposal units, kid disposal (sorry) child care centres, print facilities, transport coordination, womens' committees, bolt cutters (no connection? No?), and so on. I'm still not clear on NVDA policy when a copper's got you down and his balls are in easy reach.
It was all great and the unsung heroes did it all. What everyone learned in the two days of action that followed was matched by the direct eye-ball stuff with the real 'owners' of the patch of desert on which sits the abominable amerikan and his pile of high technology jeopardy.
And so we come to the crotch of the problem. That should be crux but the NVDA question intervened. The problem is - what to do about the yank at the front line. And so it came to the last two days. People made their own internal resolutions as to whether to be arrested or not. Mine was, seeing that I owed them still for the bike ride, to keep out of it. You never know anyway. These things have their own dynamic.
A lot of stuff is on video. Jumping fences, shinning up the gate surveillance camera tower and superglueing themselves to the metal, cutting fence wire, running from police, climbing trees. Dozens got themselves knocked off. In the heat of summer and the events I went over the fence, done the thongs and got a feet full of Centralian thorns and lumbered by one of the most inept pigs you'd never want to meet.
The yanks kept out of direct contact. Cunning. Protection of the external base area was handled by Federal Police. Complete hoons, more used to patrolling the corridors of power in Canberra where they are pretty useless anyway, they were innocents at large in the desert.
One fat slob was after Doherty. Now Dennis is not one of your Speedy Gonzales over either a short or long course but he left this prawn for dead. The copper fell turse over arkey on a rock. Ever the solicitous Christian, Den went back, picked him up and asked if he was alright. The ungrateful bastard grabbed our mate and told him he was under arrest. My Arrernte brother Blue Tongue, when I told the story said. 'Brother Dennis shoulda kicked shit out of him while he was down.'
The septic tanks had built three adjoining holding pens (great foresight or rather a spawning of the despicable CIA/ASIO coupling) a few hundred metres inside the base. Women in one, blokes in the others. Sexist pigs. Our captors even gave us oranges and water, again showing they weren't real police. Then, as Steve said later, 'You'd whinge either way.' After a while, out of the hills comes Polly and her Melbourne mob. They had been camped there all night. Dumb? Not the Vics, the Feds.
We were finally photographed and processed. Big Lance from Adelaide used the time as always to lecture and educate. Everything from the Soviet Union, China (where he'd spent some time), the class struggle, power politics, health, the coming end of capitalism, whatever. Lance is always good for few hours.
Our protectors (Christ help us) finally loaded us in a bus for Alice Springs lock-up. More crazy demonstrators were at the main gate so we were taken on one of the back roads out. Get to a gate and the dills haven't got the right key. Radio base for instructions. More delay. Boring. Off again and we pass a small herd of prime beef. It was long past brunch.
'Jesus, Doolan,' I said, 'Look at the arse on that. How would a slice of that go. Right off the rump.' The nice lady from Freedom for Animals sitting behind said. 'Haven't you thought that that little cow has a mother?'
Momentarily stunned all I could say was. 'So do all these bloody coppers in the bus with us. Some mothers do have them.' And so to the familiar surrounds of the watch-house.
That night the Grandparents drew up a petition for next day.
Next morning the camp meeting decided to have another go. At the base main gate, after all the song and dance routines and speeches, the Oldies, led by Blackfellers Mum Shirl, Bobby Anderson, Newcastle Glad and others tried to hand their statement on behalf of their children and grandchildren in at the gate. When they got nowhere the perimeter wires were cut again and they led the new invasion through the perimeter wire. Many more were arrested.
And so to the story of Alphonse Dianiou and his uncle Djoubelly Wea. David Bradbury had turned up to record this new attempt to batter down one of the side gates of history. We drove down to the base and he started swinging his anti-yank cam. I was introduced to Alphonse. Bradbury disappeared.
From Kanaky (French New Caladonia) Alphonse was one we helped to get to the Alice. Along with indigenous mob from New Zealand, Belau, Solomons, Philippines and other South Pacific dwellers. He had met Rosie and her mob.
After the dust from the plodding coppers feet had died down and another big number of souls were safely in the can, Alphonse and I drove back to town.
At Miguel and Christinas' where empenadas reigned supreme, we had lunch and talked about here and there and there and here. After we had thrown the frogs out of Kanaky and won Yamba station and property back from our own invaders, Alphonse said he would like to visit the family. Rosie had invited him to see how our people lived.
That afternoon we drove up to the Walpiri camp where most were staying. Some missing were likely to be in Alice Springs gaol. Introductions. Old man Willie, old woman Hilda. Their offspring Rosie, Janie, Blue Tongue, Mongrel Dog, Carpita, maybe others. And some of their kids, Matthew, Alison, Priscilla, Annie and several others. That old man and woman had a big mob. The deadly Rice gang.
And JB, about three years and less than two stone, wringing wet. We all settled on the verandah. Alphonse starts to talk, Rosie starts to interpret in Arrernte for the kid. He gestures angrily and she shuts up. Alphonse starts again. This is his story.
'My country is over there. Over that desert and ocean a long way. My people are in a big fight to get their land back. Same but different to you.
'I had to make a big journey through the country and the islands. Everywhere people were fighting for themselves and their families. Trouble everywhere. At each of these places I found a nice stone which I kept.
'When we went to the big city where most of the French live, I was arrested and put in gaol. There was nothing to do for a long time. So I would look at my little stones and remember the people there. And make up stories about them, with happy endings.
'So I brought these stones to your place. I would like JB to have them so one day he will come and stay with us for a while. He will learn about my people and teach us about your struggle.'
JB took the stones, looked at Alphonse then put them in his tattered shorts pocket. He got up and walked to a small desert tree, sat down and dug a hole. The kid put the stones in the hole, took them out again, put them back in his pocket. He repeated this routine. He was still doing it as we left.
Alphonse Dianiou cannot challenge this. He is dead.
You see, he led that group of young Kanaks who captured that mob of French SAS murderers and hid them in a cave on the Island of Ouvea, which is his place. And after the French rounded up all the women and children, herded them into the communal longhouse and threatened ten deaths for every Frenchman and after all the negotiations were over and they released the criminals unharmed, Alphonse and his comrades walked out with their hands in the air.
These cultured descendants of those who stormed the Bastille cold bloodedly shot them down.
One day JB - John Patrick Rice/Furber - will go to Ouvea. He'll meet the children of Alphonse Dianiou.
Maybe he'll take some desert stones from the Red Centre.
And Djoubelly Wea? Alphonse's Uncle/Father.
They rang me from Manila. From Peace Brigade headquarters. Could I meet him and mind him for a couple of days? His flight home to Noumea and Ouvea had been rerouted through Sydney. No problem.
His picture's on the mantlepiece alongside the photo of Rosie and the Old Man. I can't describe people very well. You'd have to see for yourself. He looks like the preacher that he was. Dignified. That's about best.
He stayed and we talked a lot. Saw videos at Tranby. Djoubelly was most interested in the action stuff. Anti colonial struggles, like the one Alphonse was in. Got Chris at the Metallies to rush some copies he wanted his people to see. He took them.
I know something about Kanaky. Alphonse and his Uncle Wea told me. In Australia there are too many advisers about what should be done about the problems of others. Often they are people who know least about here on their own dunghill.
On the occasion of the first commemoration of the murder of Alfonse Dianiou and his Comrades, Djoubelly Wea and F.L.N.K.S. resistance leaders, Jean Marie Tjibaou and Yeiwene Yeiwene were killed in a gun battle in which French troops were involved.
At this time of writing I do not know the finer details of how or why this occured. What I do know is that they were all further victims of colonialism.
At least four of Alfonse's audience on that day in October '87 at the Walpiri camp, all young like him, are now also the dead victims of colonial/capitalist genocide.
