Mission & Justice

Dewi Cooke; 28/6/08

Women and girls are often caught in the crossfire of conflict, violated by men who have the power to do so. A new report argues  legal changes to protect them are crucial in the fight against poverty. Young women occupy a strange space in most cultures. As mothers, sisters and daughters, their strength and resilience help hold their communities together. But in times of war they are often the first and most vulnerable targets. That is how it was for Bintu and Rumenia. Bintu is from Liberia, where she was captured by rebels during the civil war. Rumenia is from East Timor and lost her 20-year-old older brother in the 2006 uprising when he was shot outside her family home.

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20/6/08

Wars around the globe killed three times more people during the second half of the 20th century than previously estimated, according to a study released on Friday. Some 5.4 million deaths caused by armed conflicts occurred between 1955 and 2003 in 13 nations surveyed, ranging from a low of 7000 in the Democratic Republic of Congo to 3.8 million killed in Vietnam. Previous research, based on media reports or before-and-after census figures, have tended to severely underestimate war-related fatalities among both combatants and civilians, the new study argues. These so-called “passive” reports “are typically the only ones available during ongoing conflicts, and represent the most commonly cited sources for government and other estimates of war casualties, as in the current war in Iraq,” notes the study, published in the British Medical Journal. The number of civilian casualties in Iraq remains sharply contested, with some studies estimating the death toll at 10 times the figure given by the US military.

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Malum Nalu; 16/6/08; A sign at the Bomana Cemetery; Anonymous.

Blue sky
green rolling hills stretch
to tranquil mountains.
white clouds in a wide
blue sky

So quiet
so peaceful
above the young
sleepers
resting beneath
each white stone

With each new dawn
their rising suns greet the
rising sun
as the days march to
eternity

But they will march no
more
no more to toil along the
muddy track
no more to wonder
where their trail will end
it ended here

Thousands
sleeping peacefully
under that clear blue sky
there in their earth beds
beneath each white
stone
as I walk the graves
and wonder why
See: http://www.thenational.com.pg/061608/wkender7.php

Peter Cochrane; 4/6/08; Australian Literary Review; Ho Chi Minh: A Biography; Pierre Brocheux; Translated by Claire Duiker; Cambridge University Press, 288pp, $59.95 (HB)

Ho Chi Minh, first president of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, was revered in his homeland as Uncle Ho, an endearment Western radicals picked up in the 1960s and turned into the chant: “Ho, Ho, Ho Chi Minh, dare to struggle, dare to win.” I marched down streets in Melbourne, many years ago, chanting it myself. And I knew very little about him.

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31/5/08
A commemorative service honouring Indigenous Australians who have served since World War I was held at Melbourne’s Shrine of Remembrance on Saturday. Chairman of the Shrine of Remembrance’s trustees John Taylor said it was important for current and future generations to be aware of the contribution Koori servicemen and women made to Australia’s war efforts. “The Shrine of Remembrance and its various memorials were built to honour all who have given service,” Mr Taylor said. “We are proud to honour the contribution of the indigenous Australians in times of conflict and peacekeeping operations.” It is estimated that 300 to 500 Aboriginal Australians fought in World War One and 3,000 to 4,000 in World War Two.

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29/5/08

New Zealand has formally apologised to its Vietnam War veterans for the unfair and harsh treatment they received on their return. Prime Minister Helen Clark, who demonstrated against the war as a student in the 1970s, yesterday told parliament it was time to acknowledge the service and sacrifices made by the soldiers. “The Crown extends to New Zealand Vietnam veterans and their families an apology for the manner in which their loyal service in the name of New Zealand was not recognised as it should have been, when it should have been, and for inadequate support extended to them and their families after their return home from the conflict,” Miss Clark said in a prepared statement, agreed with veterans’ organisations. Miss Clark, who as a student protested against New Zealand troops’ eight-year involvement in the Vietnam War, also acknowledged the failure of successive governments and agencies to accept soldiers’ exposure to chemicals.

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Uri Avnery; 1/4/08

War with Syria? Peace with Syria? A big military operation against Hamas in the Gaza Strip? A cease-fire with Hamas? Our media discuss these questions dispassionately, as if they were equivalent options. Nobody cries out: War is the height of stupidity! Carl Von Clausewitz, the renowned military theorist, famously said that war is nothing but the continuation of politics by other means. Meaning: War is there to serve policy and is useless when it does not. What policies did the wars in the last hundred years serve?

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Alana Buckley-Carr; 26/4/08

A Perth copper and gold company, which wants to mine part of the historic Kokoda Track, will head to the courts after the Papua New Guinea Government rejected a bid to renew its exploration licence. Frontier Resources said it had already spent more than $3million on the exploration licence for the Kodu project, which the company describes as “proximal to and east of the Kokoda Track”. In a statement to the Australian Stock Exchange on Thursday, Frontier said it had not received any notification from the PNG Government that its licence renewal had been rejected. But managing director Peter McNeil said Frontier would ask the PNG courts to review the decision. He said if that legal avenue were unsuccessful, “Frontier will seek adequate compensation, including recoupment of expenditure to date plus lost potential future profit”.

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David Campbell; 23/4/08

My father fought in the hellhole that was New Guinea in 1942. But although he regularly kept in touch with a couple of his close army mates after the war, he didn’t march on Anzac Day. Not once. The war was not a popular topic for discussion in our house. Although he was outwardly fit and healthy - he died more than 20 years ago - my mother has always insisted that New Guinea killed him. Not with a bullet, a bomb or a knife, but with something far more insidious. Even if there are no physical wounds, combat leaves deep-seated mental scars. For some who return from battle, it is a crippling condition. They simply cannot function and their lives, and those of their families, are destroyed by drugs, breakdowns and suicide. Others, like my father, manage to repress the memories and get on with their lives.

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Peter Ryan; 19/4/08

As another Anzac Day approaches, we will hear again and again the name of an obscure village in the mountains of Papua New Guinea: Kokoda. And as the Anzac Cove and the Gallipoli of 1915 recede further behind the mists of time and legend, Kokoda may come more to be the emotional focus of Australia’s military heart. The story of Kokoda can well bear that heavy weight. But it is extraordinary that so few Australians seem to have even a broadly accurate perception of what actually happened on the Kokoda Track between July and November 1942, and of what those events mean. Kokoda’s smallness is the first reality one must grasp when relating it to the huge scale of the Pacific war. This does not demean it or cut it down to size; it heightens the distinction. It is not at all silly to compare Kokoda with the classical heroism of Leonidas and his 300 Spartans, who defended the pass at Thermopylae in 480BC; nor with the gallant 600 who, in 1854, made immortal the Charge of the Light Brigade.

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