In July
1981 I accompanied Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Trade and Resource
Doug Anthony, and his wife Margot, on an official visit to Argentina and Brazil.
One of the scenic highlights of the program was a visit to the mighty Iguaçu Falls, on the Paraná River on the border between the two countries.
We took a commercial flight from Buenos Aires to Foz do Iguaçu, a provincial city in Paraná State (Brazil) and toured the
Brazilian side of the Falls in the late afternoon, including buzzing the 97m
high Garganta do Diabo, the tallest of the falls, in a bubble helicopter, which
was a buzz indeed.
The following day we crossed to the Argentine side, then returned to
the Brazilian side for an inspection of Itaipu Dam, on the border between
Brazil and Paraguay, which was at that time under construction and would in due
course be commissioned as the largest hydroelectric dam in the world (since
eclipsed by the Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze in China).
When all was done we took off for our next destination in a Brazilian
Air Force Bandeirante, and the pilot obligingly did a circuit of the falls and
a low pass alongside them before we went on our way. The photos below give some
idea of the immensity of the falls and of the forest in that region of Brazil.
Interesting tweet yesterday from Trita Parsi, author of Treacherous Alliance: The Secret Dealings of
Israel, Iran and the U.S., Yale University Press 2007 & 2008.
Trita Parsi (@tparsi) 15/09/12 1:25 PM
While the French say we need more sanctions to prevent war w/ #Iran, other EU diplomats
privately express fear sanctions will lead to war
I have no further background on what has informed the tweet,
but it has been my longstanding fear that the sanctions against Iran will lead
to war, either inadvertently or by choice.
The United States has promised Israel that Iran will not be
permitted to develop a nuclear weapon, and proffers “crippling sanctions”
rather than a pre-emptive strike as the way to achieve the desired result –
which can only be temporary, as nothing that can be done at a particular moment
of history can permanently deprive a country of the option to do anything.
Iran insists that its nuclear program is for peaceful
purposes, and as a matter both of national pride and national interest it will
not be dissuaded.
The US response to Iran failing to respond to its demands
will be to ratchet up the sanctions; the Iranian response will be to dig in.
Both countries will sail closer to the brink while escalating their rhetoric. It
is hard to see this ending in anything but tears.
Guest
post by Andrew Farran, international lawyer and former diplomat.
How
and why the print media should make itself more relevant by revolutionising its
‘Letters to the Editor’ columns
I am an inveterate ‘Letter to the Editor’ writer. I must
confess to this as I’ve written countless hundreds over the years. But given
that these tend to be one-day wonders, I have come to ponder whether Letters to
the Editor serve a useful purpose anymore in this digital era of Blogs, Twitter
and the likes of Facebook.
The print media, even in the face of its decline, has not
taken up the challenge which its antiquated ‘letters’ columns now present. What
is the purpose and relevance of these letters? Some simply draw attention to
something that needs doing or fixing, in the hope that some politician or
bureaucrat may notice and respond. Other letters expressing a point of view may
bring a perspective to an issue that might otherwise be missed. Some contain a
personal explanation. Such original contributions stand alone. But where the
letters should get gutsy but are failing is in the area of public policy. Here
one-shot missives do not constitute a debate or an informed discussion – and
frankly may be pretty pointless and serve to mislead opinion.
I will give a recent example, the one that got me thinking
about this. It concerns Australia’s relations with Indonesia in an area where
further exceptional difficulties may yet arise. Not the cattle trade, but over
West Papua. Here a shot across the bow does not constitute an argument nor make
a case. In all likelihood, as in this case, the letters’ editor is more likely
to allow a false assertion or misperception to stand rather than opening a path
for dialogue. What good is that?
On 5th September The Age
published the following letter written on behalf of the Australia West Papua
Association:
Afraid to
speak truth on W Papua
ON JUNE 25, a petition on West Papua, signed by thousands of
Australians, was presented to the House of Representatives. One of the requests
concerned the fraudulent referendum (the Act of Free Choice) by which Indonesia
''legitimised'' its violent takeover of West Papua.
It is well documented that in this referendum only 1025 West Papuans,
selected by the Indonesian military, were allowed to vote, and that they and
their families were threatened if they voted against integration.
Senator Bob Carr has now sent a written response to this petition, stating
in effect that the Australian government considers the Act of Free Choice to be
a legitimate referendum.
When will we get a government that is not afraid to speak the truth? The
Act of Free Choice was a sham, and West Papuans have a legal right to a
UN-monitored referendum on self-determination in which all adult West Papuans
are allowed to vote, without duress. Australia, and other nations that turned a
blind eye to this travesty of justice, have a duty to ensure this happens.
The
writer has a fair point but that is not the whole of the matter and a
responsible journal should have facilitated a response. Indeed if the letters’
columns are not to remain largely one-shot missives, the print media would be
doing itself and its readers a service by facilitating such responses, and
engendering an informed and purposeful exchange.
I
had attempted to provide a response or comment, particularly as I was well
placed at the time of the ‘act of free choice’ to know something of the
background (which I explained to The Age – but to no avail).
The
response I wished to make was:
Re: West Papua’s 'Act of Free Choice’ (1969)
Note for Editor (not for publication): I should mention in regard to this
matter that at the time, in 1969, I was Principal Private Secretary to the then
Minister for External Affairs (Gordon Freeth). I have often reflected on this
event but believe Australia had no choice but to go along with the UN decisions
and the legitimate expectations of the Indonesians.
Dear Sir,
Yes, the 'act of
free choice' in 1969 exercised by some 1025 hand-picked West Papuans in 1969
was in effect a sham (“Afraid to speak truth on West Irian, The Age, 5/9).
But it was an important diplomatic face saver.
Indonesian
nationalists and governments before and since independence had relentlessly
campaigned to inherit the Netherlands East Indies intact, in accordance with
established post-colonial practice whereby the original geography of a colony
defined the successor state regardless of ethnic distinctions. The right of
‘self-determination’ in the de-colonisation process, as laid down by the UN,
was subject to that qualification. Otherwise Africa, for one, would now consist
of well over a hundred separate states.
This outcome does
not preclude Indonesia from granting West Papua, a distinct region, a
reasonable degree of autonomy or self-government. Nor should it excuse any
abuse of human rights in that region.
At the time of the
‘act of free choice’ Australia's relations with Indonesia had just emerged from
a very turbulent phase (‘Confrontation', etc.) and the government was not about
to complicate matters further by defying Indonesia's legitimate expectations,
sacrificing the goodwill generated by Australia’s earlier support of
Indonesia's independence, or creating a bad situation for future relations.
It is worth noting
that at the height of Indonesia's struggles to secure West Irian, it never laid
claim to East Timor, as it had not formed part of the Dutch colony (it was in
fact Portuguese). However just a few years later Indonesia betrayed its own
high ground of principle in regard to legitimate de-colonisation by seeking to
annex East Timor. After enduring much suffering and loss of blood over a
further two decades, and without much Australian support in the earlier stages,
East Timor (now Timor-Leste) gained its own rightful independence and
sovereignty following an 'act of free choice'.
[End of letter]
The question this
raises is whether letters to the editor, by not providing dialogue and
structure, amount to little more than a haphazard form of topical
entertainment; and whether in the light of this the print media should grasp
theopportunity to transform and restructure thesecolumns into
useful fora for an exchange of ideas and comments on defined issues of public
importance. Conducted this way readers may find themselves engaged in real
debate that has point and continuity. As it is they carry very little weight.
According to this article
in the Saturday 8 September edition of The
Age, the jailing of three members of Russian punk rock band Pussy Riot
sparked a formal complaint from Australia over the "disproportionate"
two-year sentence handed down to them.
The band members were jailed for "hooliganism"
after a provocative performance in a Moscow cathedral in February when they
sang lyrics critical of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
There is no doubt that the sentences were disproportionate,
but it is hard to escape the feeling that this was rather a low cost demonstration
of concern on the part of our Government about a human rights issue – making representations
on behalf of three lively and attractive young middle class women who set out
to push the boundaries of what the Russian Church and the Russian State are
prepared to wear. That will play well in the suburbs, they are people we can
relate to, they are our sort of people in a way, and their will be no domestic
constituency to speak of that will come out in support of Putin.
And the formal representations on their behalf will have
been a very civilised affair; no-one will have got hot under the collar about
it. Someone from the Embassy will have gone in “on instruction” and gone
through the motions of recording our Government’s deep concern, will have been
told that our Government’s views have been noted, no doubt given a cup of tea, a
bit of “how’s your father?” and that will be that, but our protest will be on
the record.
I wonder how often we express deep concern about
Israel's practice of holding Palestinian children in solitary
confinement and denying them legal representation, as well as its use of
physical violence, shackles and coerced confessions in interrogations
as reported by Ruth Pollard in this article
from the 27 August edition of The Age,
relying on the detailed testimony of “veteran soldiers in detailed statements
chronicling dozens of brutal incidents”. Other acts of violence reported by the
veterans include forcing the children to act as human shields in military
operations and “the wounding and killing of children in the occupied West Bank
and Gaza by either targeted shooting or by failing to protect minors during
military operations”.
From the quoted accounts by the Israeli veterans’
organisation Breaking the Silence, it is clear that the treatment of the
Palestinian children is arbitrary and disproportionate.
So I wonder just how often we formally register our concern
about this behaviour. That would require intestinal fortitude of an entirely different
order on the part of our Governmentthe Israelis would come back hot and strong
and domestic constituencies would react.
The matter gets worse when you consider a fundamental difference
between the young women of Pussy Riot and the Palestinian children whose arrest
may or may not be the result of their throwing stones or other forms of protest.
The Pussy Riot members are Russian citizens who were
arrested in their own country for actions they don’t deny taking, and tried in
a Russian court. They had a choice; if they had not taken the actions the
Russian State would presumably have left them alone.This is not to defend what happened to them
in any way – the treatment they received was unconscionably harsh - but they
must have gone into this with their eyes open, they must have known this was
going to get them into serious trouble.
The Palestinian children, on the other hand, have few if any
choices. They are minors living under a brutal military occupation, and the
treatment they receive is, by the testimony of the veterans’ organisation Breaking
the Silence, not only harsh but deliberately arbitrary – to make sure that the
people under occupation know no peace, to create “the feeling of being chased”
by being subjected to military incursions into their homes at any hour of the
day or night. Keeping your head down and causing no offence is no guarantee
that you won’t be hauled off in the dead of night with your hands tied tightly
behind your back and thrown into solitary confinement – that is the whole idea.
So I am afraid I cannot see the protests about the treatment
of the Pussy Riot members as a particularly courageous act on the part of our
Government, and I cannot see the violation of their human rights as the case
most deserving of our official attention.
Following the dropping by the Egyptian authorities of
charges against Australian free-lance journalist Austin G. Mackell I put a
question to him via Twitter to satisfy my curiosity regarding something that I had
been wondering about since his name first came to my attention.
The exchange, at about midnight on 30-31 August, went like
this:
The Austin “Austie” Mackell that I referred to was a Tobruk veteran
who had been Commanding Officer of the Sydney University Regiment during the
late 1950s (I would guess until 1959) and who was a great friend of my father,
who was at that time a Major in SUR. I met him a couple of times when his
regimental duties brought him to Armidale (the citizen-soldier element of the University
of New England was the New England Company of SUR), and most notably when the
two families had a café meal in Tamworth following a ceremony at Tamworth Airport
in 1959, at which Princess Alexandra presented the 12/16th Hunter River Lancers
with a regimental guidon (lance). At this stage I was in my second-last year at
secondary school.
At Tobruk Austie Mackell was a young platoon commander in
the 2/17 Battalion, 2nd AIF who, on the night of 13-14 April 1941, was involved
in an action that resulted in him being awarded a Military Cross, and in the
posthumous award of a Victoria Cross, the nation’s highest award for gallantry,
to a member of his party, Corporal John Edmondson. The story is probably best
told by quoting the citation for Edmondson’s VC, which may be found here:
NX15705 Corporal John Hurst EDMONDSON
2/17th Australian Infantry Battalion AIF
13th April 1941 at Tobruk, Libya
"On the night of 13th-14th
April 1941, a party of German infantry broke through the wire defences at
Tobruk and established themselves with at least six machine guns, mortars and
two small field pieces. It was decided to attack them with bayonets, and a
party consisting of one officer, Corporal Edmondson and five privates, took
part in the charge. During the counter-attack Corporal Edmondson was wounded in
the neck and stomach, but continued to advance under heavy fire, killing one
enemy with his bayonet. Later his officer had his bayonet in one of the enemy
and was grasped about the legs by him, when another attacked him from behind.
He called for help, and Corporal Edmondson, who was some yards away,
immediately came to his assistance and in spite of his wounds, killed both of
the enemy. This action undoubtedly saved his officer's life. Shortly after
returning from this successful counter-attack, Corporal Edmondson died of
wounds. His actions throughout the operations were outstanding for resolution,
leadership and conspicuous bravery”.
[London
Gazette: 4th July, 1941]
John Hurst EDMONDSON was born at Wagga Wagga, New South Wales on 8th
October, 1914. He is buried in the Tobruk War Cemetery, Libya.
In civilian life after the war Mackell became Managing
Director of the Sydney-based chemical firm Scott and Bowne, and in 1961 paid my
father an enormous compliment. My father was planning his 1962 sabbatical leave
which he intended would involve undertaking a course for postgraduate medical
students on the principles and practice of clinical electroencephalography at
the Institute of Neurology (London University) at the National Hospital for
Nervous Diseases, Queen Square, London, followed by a period in Montreal
working with Herbert Jasper, Professor of Experimental Neurology at Montreal
Neurological Institute (McGill University).For various reasons the idea of joining Jasper’s research team was not
practicable – it would have required more time than the University would have
been prepared to fund. As Jasper’s research was directly connected to my father’s
own research on subliminal conditioning he was very keen to have at least some
face to face time with Jasper, but he had no idea where he would find the funds
for a side visit to Montreal from London. Succour came from an unexpected
quarter; as my father told it in his memoir Psychology
at New England: The First Forty Years:
On the eve of our
departure from Armidale, I received a phone call from John Dart, who was, at
this stage, Assistant Manager of Scott and Bowne, the Scott’s Emulsion firm
which manufactured other drugs and chemical preparations at their factory in
Sydney. John held a commission in Sydney University Regiment, as I did, and his
boss was a former Commanding Officer, Lt. Col. Austin Mackell, M.C., B. Ec.
(Syd.). … The purport of John Darts telephone call was that the Company had had
an Executive-staff Meeting that day and had voted me a gift of £300 to cover my
return fare London-Montreal, to enable me to visit McGill University and the
Montreal Neurological Institute.
The eight days that my father spent in Montreal were highly
productive, had a lasting impact on my father’s future researches, and led
directly to the Ph.D. project he drafted for Helen Beh, and hence to the article
in the prestigious journal Science referred
to at the beginning of the obituary piece at Vale
Helen Beh, 1941-2012.
To return to the younger Austin Mackell, the link he sent me
contains some wonderful photos from a visit he made to the Alamein battlefield
in company with an Italian colleague whose great-uncle had fought with the
Italian Army in the North Africa campaign (which reminds me, if you ever have a
chance to see the Italian film about the Battle of Alamein – El Alamein: La linea del fuoco – don’t
miss it; IMDb entry here). See Mackell’s Alamein photographs here.
The younger Mackell’s own account of his travails in Egypt,
published in New Matilda on 30 August
2012, may be found here.
In May 1998 I accompanied the Minister for Veterans'
Affairs, The Hon. Bruce Scott, to Armidale, where Mr Scott was to be Guest of
Honour at a ceremony to mark the opening of the Light Horse Museum at the 12/16
Hunter River Lancers' Gaza Training Depot.
There is a proud Light Horse tradition in the New England
region. The "12" in the regimental name derives from the 12th (New
England) Light Horse, which was one of the two regiments that participated in
the last great cavalry charge in history, the charge on the Turkish lines at
Beersheba in 1917.Several descendants
of participants in towns like Armidale, Tamworth, Inverell , Glen Innes etc. Major
E. Hyman, from Tamworth, who commanded the lead squadron of the 12th Light
Horse Regiment was, like several other participants, an old boy of The Armidale
School.
It is worth recounting the critical moments of the charge,
and the element of surprise that gave the Lighthorsemen success in what should have
been a fairly forlorn hope, charging the Turkish artillery over open ground in
close formation. As recounted by the Australian Reserve Forces Day Council here:
The two Regiments formed up behind a ridge and moved off by Squadrons
in a three-line charge formation, five feet between horsemen within each
Squadron. Each Squadron had a frontage of from 300 to 500 metres apart. The
lead Squadron of the 12th was entrusted to A Squadron, commanded by Major E.
Hyman from Tamworth. They started from a walk-march, to a trot, then to a
canter, then to a gallop. The German Officers in command in Beersheba
recognised the advancing formation of Mounted Horsemen as Mounted Infantry and
ordered his Turkish Defenders to wait until they had dismounted, then 'open
fire'. Field guns were sighted on the horsemen; the infantry set their rifle
sights to 1,500 metres.
Immediately the Regiments deployed they were quickly sighted and fired
upon by the Turkish artillery, who opened fire with shrapnel that exploded in
front of the formation then among the galloping horsemen, some were hit, then,
after a brief zone of casualties, the lines galloped free. The Turks could not
wind down their guns fast enough and soon the shells were bursting behind the
charge.
Members of the 2nd Inverell Light Horse Association participated
in the ceremony, and Quirindi-born Senator Sandy Macdonald, with Light Horse
connections himself, also attended.
Unfortunately the Museum is closed at the present time, but
the good people at the University of New England Heritage Centre and Regional Archive
are working to get it reopened.
On Thursday 16 August 2012 I attended the launch, in a
Committee Room in Parliament House, Canberra, of a campaign by the Iraq War
Inquiry Group (IWIG), of which I am a member, for an inquiry into how Australia
came to participate in the invasion of Iraq.
The meeting was hosted by the courageous Mellisa Parke, ALP
Member for Fremantle, Senator Scott Ludlam (Greens, WA) and and the Member for
Denison, Andrew Wilkie MP (Independent), who readers will recall resigned his post
in the Office of National Assessements shortly before the invasion on the
grounds of what he saw as the misuse of intelligence reporting by the
Government.
The launch of an issues paper prepared by IWIG members,
which can be found at our website www.iraqwarinquiry.org.au,
was undertaken by former Prime Minister the Right Honourable Malcolm Fraser AC CH.
An extract from an SBS Radio feature piece on the campaign, containing some of
Mr Fraser’s remarks at the launch, and from a prior telephone interview with
me, can be downloaded from here.
An extract from an interview with Senator Ludlam can be downloaded from here.
For me there are two sets of issues to be addressed by any
inquiry: issues specific to the circumstances of the lead-up to the invasion
and the decision to commit; and an analysis of the lessons to be learned from
that process to ensure we put in place a more robust process for making that
most important of decisions – whether or not to send the Australian Defence
Force to war or to involve it in warlike activity.
As most of us celebrate the setting of a deadline for the withdrawal of
American troops from Iraq, we should not allow ourselves to be distracted from
the important question of how we all came to be involved in this mess in the
first place. The most important questions here revolve not around the questions
relating to whether Saddam Hussein’s Iraq did or did not have weapons of mass
destruction (WMD), but whether our governments were completely open with us
about what they knew and when, at what stage various decisions were taken and
commitments given, when we became irreversibly committed to the invasion of
another country, and whether this was all some kind of ghastly “intelligence
failure”.
We now know more even than we did when Garry Woodard wrote the
2007 analysis to which I provided a link in the above post, but the questions
remain: questions about the legality of the war, about the misuse of
intelligence and unresolved conflicts in the intelligence reporting and
analysis, questions about how the decision was made and when, and serious
questions about how honestly the Australian Government dealt with the
Australian public and the Parliament it had elected.
Specific questions the Iraq War Inquiry Group would like to
see addressed by a suitably authorised and empowered inquiry include:
Intelligence
According to the intelligence
inquiries in Australia that followed the 2003 Iraq war, views diverged between
ONA and DIO concerning the nature of the evidence for the possession by Iraq of
WMD. We need to know:
• What was the Australian intelligence
advice given to the government in the lead-up to the war and how was the
divergence of views between the two assessment agencies reconciled?
• Was
the intelligence advice challenged at the time by any members of the
government, and if so by whom?
• What was the nature of the challenges, what
was the response by the assessment agencies and how were doubts resolved?
• Was the intelligence given to the
government restricted to advice on the possession by Iraq of WMD, or was wider
advice also provided on whether Iraq posed an actual threat? If there was a
threat assessment, what did it say?
• Philip Flood, who conducted a post-war
inquiry into Australian intelligence, described the evidence on Iraq’s WMD as
‘thin, ambiguous, and incomplete’. How does Mr Howard reconcile this with his
presentation to parliament on 4 February 2003?
Humanitarian issues
• Were any UN, NGO or other reports of the
effects of the 1991 Gulf War, the economic sanctions and the likely effects of
a further war considered in the government’s decision to go to war in 2003? If
not, why not? If so, which reports, and how much weight was given to them?
• What degree of civilian suffering did the
government expect from the war, and what level of suffering was considered
acceptable? Did the government request estimates of civilian casualties?
• Were any contingency plans made by the
government to help reduce and deal with the predicted enormous humanitarian
effects of the war?
Legal issues
• Were the Australian
lawyers drafting the government’s advice in contact with those drafting advice
for the British and American governments, and which Australian ministers or
ministerial staff were informed? What other legal advice did the government
seek? What legal advice was provided to the governor-general?
• Why did the
Australian government change its acceptance of the compulsory jurisdiction of
the International Court of Justice when it did? Was its response in parliament
on the war misleading?
• Why did the prime
minister fail to bring the decision to go to war to the Federal Executive
Council as he had told the governor-general he would?
On the question of how to provide for a more robust process
of decision making, the current system, under which it is the right of the
Executive, rather than the Parliament, to decide to send troops to war is in
the Australian constitutional context a legacy of the Royal Prerogative, which
in turn has its roots in the pre-democratic notion that the power to make war
is an attribute of the sovereign rather than of the people.In the globalised world of the 21st century,
and in any society founded on the belief that power flows from the people to
the state rather than from the state to the people, it is both an anachronism
and an anomaly.
By having the power to decide in the hands of too few people
it also leaves the Australian community exposed to serious risks, due to the
fact that in practice the Prime Minister him/herself, with or without the
advice and consent of his/her colleagues and their departmental advisers, can
commit Australian forces to war or warlike operations in circumstances short of
a direct attack on Australia’s homeland. These risks include misleading,
overstated or over-certain claims to the Australian Parliament and people,
patently absurd claims of self defence against a real and imminent threat to
Australia, a lack of clarity as to what the mission is and what success would
look like, and vexed questions of UN authority, a source of legitimacy with
which Australian people are comfortable, and of legality in relation both to
customary international law and to the provisions of the Charter of the United
Nations.
I think that the solution to this, one which I hope would
emerge from any inquiry into how we came to be involved in the Iraq War, is to
transfer the decision making power from the Executive to the Parliament.
On 13 February 2008 Senator Ludlam introduced a Private
Members’ Bill to limit the prerogative power of the Executive to commit
Australian forces to overseas service without the consent of the Parliament.
The provisions of the Bill are outlined in War
Powers Bill.
My colleagues Andrew Farran, Garry Woodard and I made a joint
submission in support of Senator Ludlam’s Bill, which I can no longer find on
the Parliament House website. The contents of our submission will have to be
the subject of a later post.
Unfortunately the major parties gave Senator Ludlam’s Bill
short shrift, a matter I dealt with in some detail in War
Powers Bill crushed by major parties. Perhaps a careful look at how we
committed to the invasion of Iraq will encourage them to take the matter more
seriously, but I fear that both the major parties are much too comfortable with
the current arrangements.
