Australia is a country geographically placed in the South Asia Pacific region of the world. First Nations Peoples have lived and cared for the land for over 60 thousand years. Europeans began to arrive with the British first fleet and now Australia has over 25M people from across the world sharing this land with the original peoples. The SEA and Pacific have known war and war preparations for many years but most intensively during the 2nd WW, the Pacific War is where nuclear weapons were first used as an act of war in Japan. Following WW2 the Pacific was used to test nuclear weapons leading to terrible contamination of people and lands across the Pacific including remote aboriginal lands in Australia.
Today we see the arms race and militarisation of countries around the world and in the Western Pacific including Australia where US military forces and capacity to go to war are now expanding
The Pacific Peace Network formed in 2019 stands on the shoulders of the Nuclear Free and Independent Pacific organisation formed during the 1970’s to oppose the nuclear tests. Representatives from Guahan, Jeju, ROK, Japan, Okinawa, Northern Marianas, Vanuatu, Philippines, Hawaii, USA, Australia and New Zealand have held a range of events and actions over the past 3 years focused on military activity and exercises rehearsing for war.
Our Recent initiative – the Pacific Peace Tour and Conference, August 2023
Conference delegates in Brisbane
From July 28th to the 4th August 2023, a delegation of Pacific Peace activists participated in a one-day conference in Brisbane then went on to speak at events in Sydney Canberra and Darwin. The peace delegation visit coincided with the largest ever US led Talisman Sabre exercise in Australia with over 30 thousand troops participating. The so-called exercise is held in the Central Queensland Shoalwater Bay designated military training precinct.
This is not the first time that activists from around the Pacific have campaigned against Talisman Sabre. In 2007, for example, a Peace Convergence that actually travelled to the Shoalwater Bay area was convened when people from a range of Pacific States gathered to witness US and Australian troops training for war. As with the 2023 Speaking Tour, participants were able also to share their own experiences of war and the presence of US bases in their countries.
The tour began when Pacific Peace Speaking Tour delegates, Monaeka Flores from Guahan (Guam), Shinako Oyakawa from Ryukyu (Okinawa)and Arama Rata (Aotearoa), were welcomed for lunch and a sharing of experiences on Friday 29 June by staff from the Qld Nurses and Midwives Union.
This was followed… to read further, Download a report of activities across Australia during August 2023
