A: Amnesty International does good work for prisoners of conscience. The ABC takes up the cases of those whom groups like Amnesty Inter-national will not take on because the convicted are guilty of `crimes of violence' which their non-violent pledge excludes.
Self-defence is not an offence when a woman stops a rapist, gays bash back `poofter bashers' or fascists and racists get caught by those they routinely terrorise.Those who fight for their independence from invading Dictatorships like the Timorese, Bouganvilleans, West Papuans and many other indigenous peoples at first try `non-violence' and would go back to those tactics but military, police and mercen-ary death squads dominate the situation. Like most people we are not `terrorists' but neither are we quietly submissive to bullies.
In June 1993 British Aerospace got the 500 million pound contract to supply the Indonesian military 8 Hawk 100 advanced trainer/light attack aircraft and sixteen Hawk 200 single-seat fighters with spares and training. Hawks are made especially for air-to-ground assaults as used in East Timor.
For over three years thousands of people campaigned to stop the deal. In Britain a large coalition of human rights, peace and anti-arms trade groups opposed the sale with letter writing, petitions, street stalls, public meetings, demonstrations at the AGMs of BAe, peace camps, talking to BAe workers, lobbying MPs, and acts of civil disobedience including tres-passes, die-ins and blockades at Government buildings and BAe sites. All to no avail...So in the 56th plough-shares action world-wide and the third in Britain, Andrea Needham, Joanna Wilson and Lotta Kronlid, inspired by the biblical injunction "to beat swords into ploughshares" (Micah, 4,3) armed with hammers, have taken full personal responsibility for their direct action disarmament.
@narchist Black Cross, Po Box 145, Moreland 3058.