Media Release 13 July 2013
Inaugural Bryan Law Memorial Peace Trike Ride
The inaugural Bryan Law Memorial Peace Trike Ride will take place at the gates of the Rockhampton Showground while the Talisman Saber Military Open Day takes place with its 35 million a piece Tiger Armed Reconnaissance Helicopters closely guarded within
from 11 am - 4 pm Sunday 14 July
Rockhampton Showground, Exhibition Road, Rockhampton
The Army is expecting 13,000 Rockhampton residents to come inspect their hardware and offer up their children to recruitment into the military while a handful of peace activists will be outside suggesting that hardware is costly, dangerous and unproductive junk and that their children would be better loved without the military.
The Ride will commemorate the epic Ploughshare action of the late Bryan Law at the 2011 Talisman Sabre war rehearsals when he cut a chain, opened a gate and with a disdainful "This war sucks!" raced his tricycle across the tarmac of Rockhampton Airport and disabled a brand new Tiger ARH with a blow from a mattock.
The event was videoed and broadcast on WIN News and Bryan Law's audaciousness became legend throughout Central and Far North Queensland.
For reasons of police caution, permits and insurances, Mr Dunstan regrets that the inaugural ride will be a static one.
"More a photo opportunity than a ride, we will be inviting people to sit and be photographed on Bryan's PeaceTrike brandishing a mattock in front of painted backdrop of a menacing ARH," said Mr Dunstan who was Mr Law's accomplice the attempt to fulfil the prophet Isaiah's prophecy that we shall turn spears into pruning hooks, swords into ploughshares and study war no more."
The installation will also come with an open mike speakout about war and peace and the true cost of the US military alliance.
To illustrate the cost of war, Robin Taubenfeld of Friends of the Earth (FoE) Brisbane will be mounting a photographic exhibition on the fence of the Showgrounds. It is called Children of the Gulf War and depicts the terrible impact of war on the children form countries where the Australian army has been waging wars in support if the US military.
Further information
Graeme Dunstan, Peacebus.com, 0407 951 688
Robin Taubenfeld, Brisbane FoE 0411 118 737
