Media Release 24 June 2009
Stop Talisman-Sabre - Brisbane launch
Peace and environmental protesters from around Australia are organising to obstruct and counter the US - Australian war games which will take place at Shoalwater Bay near Yeppoon 6 - 26 July.
Called Talisman-Sabre, the live-fire war games will involve some 30,000 US and Australian military personnel, cost Australian taxpayers at least $50 million and bomb and blast coastal waters and pristine rainforest of the largest wilderness area on the Central Queensland coast.
Peace activists see the war games as a tax heist to train and prepare Australian defence forces for military aggression and engagement in more US wars; environmentalists see the war games as environmental folly and senseless destruction.
Shoalwater Bay is an area of high environmental significance, habitat to many migratory birds, nesting sites for turtles, feeding grounds for dugongs and home to 26 species of dolphins and whales including humpbacks and the endangered Blue Whale.
Under Howard an area the size of Denmark was ceded to the US military, the worst polluters on the planet, to serve as a 'test facility' for 50 years.
Environmental impacts include the hazard created for marine and land based wildlife, water contamination from toxic chemicals and heavy metals, effects on air quality, fire potential, noise pollution, waste disposal and spills and erosion created by amphibian craft landings and high explosives.
The fourth in the series of biennial Talsiman Sabre war games, protesters welcomed the recent assurance by Defence Minister Faulkner that no depleted uranium munitions will be used in Talisman Sabre 2009, nor will any nuclear powered US ships operate in Shoalwater Bay or near the Barrier Reef.
No such assurance was given by the Howard government and there is evidence that depleted uranium munitions, standard issue to the US military, was used in previous war games. A small win for protest.
The Brisbane launch of the Talsiman-Sabre protests will be celebrated with the unveiling of giant banner. Design attached.
11 am Thursday 25 June 2009
at the Rotunda, River Tce, Kangaroo Point, Brisbane.
Speakers will include:
Andrew Bartlett, former leader of the Australian Democrats,
Lilla Watson, Aboriginal elder
Father Terry Fitzpatrick, St Mary's in Exile
Annette Brownlie, Just Peace Queensland
Graeme Dunstan, Peacebus.com
Please note that Andrew Bartlett will not be available at Kangaroo Point till 1 pm
Further Information
http://www.peaceconvergence.com/
Annette Brownlie, Just Peace Queensland 0413 597 256
Graeme Dunstan 0407 951 688
"If this task of building a peaceful world is the most important task of our time, it is also the most difficult. It will, in fact, require far more discipline, more sacrifice, more planning, more thought, more co-operation and more heroism than war ever demanded." Thomas Merton.