2 Arrests as Military Traffic Blocked at Shoalwater Bay
Professional Press Photographs and video footage of the action available from Thomas Day 04234 12171
For further comment or interview Sean O'Reilly 04237 49946
Two veteran members of the pacifist Catholic Worker movement, Jim Dowling and Ciaron O'Reilly, were arrested this morning after blockading the main access road for the U.S. and Australian military to the Shoalwater Talisman Sabre exercise area for one hour and a half. More than a dozen US Marine Troop carriers were prevented from entering the area.
Dowling and O'Reilly had signposted the major access road to the site with "Talisman Sabre 09 - The Road to Perdition", they then knelt in the middle of the road holding signs "War is Terror is War" and "Resist the War on Afghanistan".
The duet have a long history of anti-war resistance. Dowling was previously convicted of a 2005 break in to Pine Gap during the Iraq War. O'Reilly spent a year in U.S. prisons for damaging a B52 Bomber in New York on the eve of the Gulf War in 1991. O'Reilly was arrested in Ireland in 2003 and charged with $2 1/2 million damage to another U.S. war plane en route the invasion of Iraq.
O'Reilly stated, "Talisman Sabre is a $250 million exercise in futility. Talisman Sabre is not a game or an exercise, it is a fantasy - a war theatre with no civilians! Most of those being killed by American, Australian and Pakistan militaries are innocent civilians, most fatalities have been women and children. The Af/Pak war is presently escalating and expanding. These Talisman Sabre exercises are significant preparations for more killing.
The Australian involvement in the war on Afghanistan is now eight years old. Ten Australian troops, hundreds of British and U.S. soldiers and thousands of Afghani civilians have been killed, millions of Afghanis and Pakistanis have been made homeless or forced to flee into exile.
Talisman Sabre occurs at a time of major escalation in the war under the Obama and Rudd administrations. The Australian military has a long history of running off to American wars in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan that have nothing to do with the defence of Australia. By killing more civilians, with the hi tech war machine on display at Talisman Sabre, we will be creating more terrorism and terrorists. It is important to put our bodies on the line in nonviolent resistance to this deadly cycle"
Professional Press Photographs and video footage of the action available from
Thomas Day 04234 12171
For further comment or interview