The vision of a nonviolent world is not evident in the global map depicting US military bases. The United States has approximately 1000 overseas bases, the largest collection of bases in world history. It includes 268 bases in Germany, 124 in Japan, and 87 in South Korea. Others are scattered around the globe in places like Aruba and Australia, Bulgaria and Bahrain, Colombia and Greece, Djibouti, Egypt, Kuwait, Qatar, Romania, Singapore, and of course, Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. Rather than shrinking, the overseas base network has expanded. Since the invasions of Afghanistan (2001) and Iraq (2003), the United States has created or expanded bases in Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Georgia, Qatar, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, and Kuwait. In Iraq and Afghanistan, there may be upwards of 180 installations, respectively, with plans to expand the basing infrastructure in Afghanistan as part of a troop surge.

In Eastern and Central Europe, installations have been created or are in development in Bulgaria, Poland, Romania, and the Czech Republic, and are contributing to rising tensions with Russia. In Africa, as part of the development of the new African Command, the Pentagon has created or investigated the creation of installations in Algeria, Djibouti, Gabon, Ghana, Kenya, Mali, Nigeria, São Tomé and Príncipe, Senegal, and Uganda. The US maintains bases throughout South America and 122the Caribbean, with the Pentagon exploring the creation of new bases in Colombia and Peru in response to its pending eviction from Manta in Ecuador. In place of big Cold War bases, the Pentagon is focusing on creating smaller and more flexible ‘forward operating bases’ and even more austere ‘lily pad’ bases across the so-called arc of instability. Guam and Diego Garcia are facing major expansions.

Historian Chalmers Johnson (2007) says, “America’s version of the colony is the military base.” In too many recurring cases, soldiers have raped, assaulted or killed local people, especially women. The forced expulsion of the entire Chagossian people to create the secretive base on British colony Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean is a compelling example. Overseas bases have often heightened military tensions and discouraged diplomatic solutions to international conflicts. Rather than stabilising dangerous regions, overseas bases have often increased global militarisation in an escalating spiral. Overseas bases actually make war more likely, not less.

Military bases invariably discharge toxic waste into local ecosystems, as in Guam where the US military bases have led to no fewer than 19 superfund sites. Such contamination generates resentment and sometimes, as in Vieques in Puerto Rico in the 1990s, full-blown social movements against the bases. The United States used Vieques for live bombing practice 180 days a year, and by the time the United States withdrew in 2003, the landscape was littered with exploded and unexploded ordnance, depleted uranium rounds, heavy metals, oil, lubricants, solvents, and acids. According to local activists, the cancer rate for Vieques was 30 per cent higher than for the rest of Puerto Rico. US military bases infect the planet.

However, the military machine they serve is not impregnable. Organised, persistent, inventive and courageous action has already forced the closure of US bases in the Philippines, Ecuador, Puerto Rico and Kyrgyzstan. More closures require more campaigning. But why campaign against military bases? According to the US Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, total military spending in 2007 was US$1.47 trillion. The United States accounted for 48 per cent of the world’s total military spending, while the US and its strongest allies (the NATO countries, Japan, South Korea and Australia) spent $1.1 trillion 123on their militaries combined, representing 72 per cent of the world’s total. In Australia in 2009, military spending had reached $62 million every day and, despite the economic crisis, the Rudd government’s Defence White Paper means it will rise to $71 million each and every day. These are enormous amounts which fund a worldwide military leviathan so bloated and complex that peace activists often find it hard to know where to begin their critique.

For the peace activists who formed the anti-bases campaign here in Australia, it was a case of ‘grabbing the nearest edge’. The US military facilities on our soil are not an abstract concept – they are radomes (huge white golf balls protecting electronic equipment from nature and surveillance), in the desert, squatting on Aboriginal land, used for spying and fighting. They are something real that we could and can get our teeth into. They are places where we can protest and we have good arguments against them.

It is clear that Australian peace activists cannot stop the United States attacking Iran if that is the path that the Obama administration ultimately chooses. What we can do is to contribute to the worldwide anti-war movement that will inevitably arise if such an attack occurs and, if the Iraq war example persists, even before the bombs begin to fall. More importantly, we can – and have the responsibility to – act to prevent the Australian Government giving political and/or military support to such a move. A key element in such protests would be to reveal the vital role that the US military facilities on Australian soil would play in providing targets, information on terrain and troop movements, surveillance of Iranian communications and much more.

AABCC: establishing the language of nonviolence

The Australian Anti-Bases Campaign Coalition (AABCC) was formed on the basis of research, lobbying and protests that developed over the years from the 1960s when the majority of US bases in Australia were being established. In May 1974, several hundred people travelled to North West Cape from around Australia to protest and occupy the base, “symbolically reclaiming it for the Australian people” (Builders’ labourers’ song book 1975, pp. 190–94). During the occupation, the 124Eureka Flag was flown over the base and 55 people were arrested during the protest. Naval Communication Station Harold E. Holt is located on the northwest coast of Australia, six kilometres north of the town of Exmouth, Western Australia. Exmouth was built at the same time as the communications station to provide support to the base and to house dependent families of US Navy personnel.

For a rent of one peppercorn a year, the station provided very low frequency (VLF) radio transmission to United States Navy and Royal Australian Navy ships and submarines in the western Pacific Ocean and eastern Indian Ocean. With a transmission power of 1000 kilowatts, it was the most powerful transmission station in the southern hemisphere. US naval forces were withdrawn in 1993 and the base is currently operated under contract by Boeing Australia, ostensibly as a centre for sun spot surveillance. However, it can be reactivated speedily. This happened at the time of the first Gulf War in 1991 when tourist operators and other businesses occupying buildings on the base site were evicted at 24 hours’ notice so naval personnel could move back into the facility. At the trial of Christopher Boyce in 1977, public disclosures by senior ex-Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) employees and research by anti-bases activists provided indisputable evidence of the role of organisations such as the CIA and the National Security Agency (NSA) in the functioning of US bases in Australia.

In Alice Springs a major impetus was given to the campaign by the National Peace Seminar held in 1981. This attracted over 100 participants, and placed the bases issue firmly on the agenda of the peace movement. The women’s movement also had a major impact. Inspired by the Greenham Common women’s camp in Britain, the Women For Survival peace camp at Pine Gap base in Central Australia in 1983 attracted over 700 women. It was the first action at the base to result in mass arrests and to capture national attention. In 1985, Women for Survival went on to establish a protest camp at Cockburn Sound.

The foundation of the AABCC brought together an extremely diverse group of individuals and organisations. Over 100 groups formally affiliated in the early years, making the coalition the largest peace network in Australia. Affiliates included other peace groups, trade unions, women’s and student groups, political parties, environmental organisations, 125migrant bodies and religious groups. Political, financial and/or organisational support (as opposed to formal affiliation) for the AABCC went wider and deeper.

The AABCC was formally launched in December 1986 at a national conference in Sydney attended by over 250 activists. Always embracing a wide range of interest groups and philosophies and sometimes subject to internal conflicts over policies and tactics, it has nevertheless driven a wide range of nonviolent campaigns including education, lobbying and nonviolent direct actions. Its history reveals some of the strengths and weaknesses of nonviolent forms of protest.

Pine Gap: galvanising a movement for nonviolence

In the early years, the coalition’s focus was on the US base at Pine Gap. Officially known as the Joint Defence Space Research Facility, the base is “probably the most important Western intelligence facility in the world” (Professor Des Ball, cited in Stewart 2009) and is one of the largest and most important US satellite ground control stations. Established in 1968 as a CIA intelligence base and situated 19 km south-west of Alice Springs, it consists of a large computer complex with 14 radomes protecting its antennae. Pine Gap is vital for the US military because the satellites it controls span a strategically important third of the globe, encompassing China, southern Russia and the Middle East oil fields.

Pine Gap’s most important role is processing information gathered by signals intelligence (SIGINT) satellites and transmitting that information to the United States. These satellites suck up radio transmissions across a wide spectrum. Military intelligence is obtained, along with economic, political and domestic information from national and international telephone and radio communications between allies and enemies alike. Pine Gap’s satellites gather military radio transmissions, giving information on military readiness, troop and ship movements and other matters. The satellites can intercept radar emanations, allowing mapping of air defences, anti-ballistic missile radars and early-warning radars. A new satellite system, called SBIRS (Space-Based Infra-Red System), became operational in 2004. This is a key element of the US missile defence project. 126

A Satellite Relay Ground Station at Pine Gap controls the US Defence Support Program (DSP) early warning satellites. The DSP satellites have infrared sensors which detect the hot exhaust plumes of missiles in their boost phase just after launching. Thus the satellites can provide early warning of a missile attack and also pinpoint the location of the launch sites. They have other functions, including apparently the ability to spy on the phone communications of the Federal Defence Minister (Dorling, Baker & McKenzie 2009).

But Pine Gap was not the only US base to attract the attention of the AABCC. The coalition organised major demonstrations there in 1987 and 2002 but in the intervening years members campaigned against North West Cape (1988); Nurrungar (1989, 1991 and 1993); Smithfield; the Watsonia spy network which includes facilities at Cabarlah, Shoal Bay, Pearce, Harman and Victoria Barracks; the Omega Station in Victoria and NASA tracking stations.

Nurrungar: establishing the practice of nonviolence

During the 1989 protest at Nurrungar Joint Defence Facility (Nurrungar), security was breached at the base when a demonstrator entered one of the radomes. The authorities were so worried that they sent in the army. “Soldiers against 1,000 hippies in a paddock?” one bemused activist asked as we watched the long line of military trucks rumble past. However, it presented us with an opportunity which we seized with delight. We got more publicity for the protest than we had dared hope for, even driving the AFL finals off the front page of the weekend papers! AABCC members then christened themselves as ‘the only peace group to bring out the army’.

Nurrungar is situated 15 km south of Woomera in South Australia. During the 1991 protests, a small tent city arose, housing about 1,000 activists with an assortment of buses, vans and cars parked around the edges. The area is beautiful scrubby desert country, full of dust and spiky spinifex clumps. Water was trucked in and latrines dug. The only electricity was for the caravan at the child care area. There were larger tents for healing, media and legal support. It was in this setting that a perennial conflict within the peace movement was argued out – what do we actually mean by the language and practice of nonviolence? 127

For some activists it is necessary to inform police of the actions they are planning, believing that secrecy is a form of violence. Others believe that a successful action requires secrecy in order to enhance success. For example, it is difficult to trespass on a prohibited area if the police know you are coming and organise to stop you getting in. Some nonviolent activists want to avoid any damage to any property. Others believe that some damage in order to achieve a purposeful activity (such as cutting a fence in order to deliberately trespass) is acceptable so long as the property belongs to the government. Such activists usually argue that damage to the property of an individual citizen is unacceptable. Others believe that damaging property is a cost worth inflicting on an opponent. Fences were not too strongly defended in these debates but damaging police or contractors’ vehicles or letting their tyres down provoked sharper disagreements. For some graffiti is a form of property damage and is unacceptable in all circumstances. For others it is ‘the peoples’ media’ and any official or public building is a potential billboard. However, private homes are almost always excluded as acceptable targets.

If activists cross (in whatever way) a boundary line, what then? For some, the idea is to move as quickly as possible towards the base itself with the ultimate aim of getting in and closing it down. For others, a successful protest requires a calm, non-threatening, nonviolent manner. That means skipping and dancing are acceptable, but running is not. For this latter group, it is acceptable to sing, but not to chant slogans or shout. Both groups are critical of the use of abusive language and argue for developing the best possible liaison with the local police officers as an important principled and/or tactical position.

The idea of affinity groups was established as a strategy: that is, autonomous groups of 5–15 people who know each other’s strengths and weaknesses and therefore support each other as they participate (or intend to participate) in a nonviolent campaign. Affinity groups allow people to act together in a decentralised and non-hierarchical way by giving decision-making power to the affinity group. The AABCC resolved the divisions about nonviolence by adopting two forms of actions during its peace protests at Nurrungar (and elsewhere). It adopted a broader view of nonviolence (one that allowed secrecy, limited damage 128to public property for a purposeful activity, etc.) and issued handbooks outlining the principles and asking participants to observe them in all the mass actions organised by the AABCC. It also timetabled actions by affinity groups, indicating the version of nonviolence they had adopted and indicating where others could join the actions providing that they agreed to observe the group’s principles. In the vast majority of situations, this pragmatic dual approach was effective.

AABCC: a window of opportunity

The US military bases in Australia proved to be not only the ‘nearest edge’ but also windows into many other campaigns over the years. These military facilities are connected to so many other major peace issues — from the environment to military spending, from public policy addressing violence against women to Australia’s regional security responsibilities, and much more. For example, from the outset the AABCC recognised that the starting point of its struggle is the recognition of the sovereignty of the original inhabitants of this land – the Aboriginal people. The coalition unequivocally supports the campaign for Aboriginal land rights, compensation and self-determination. No AABCC protest is able to take place without prior negotiations with the traditional owners of the land where the action is planned to be staged. For many of us, the visa issued by the Kokatha Peoples’ Committee in 1993 allowing us to enter their land to close Nurrungar is a treasured possession.

Recognising the wider regional struggle for independence and self-determination, the AABCC developed links with organisations in the Philippines, South Korea, Belau, Timor L’este, West Papua, Kanaky, Guam and Hawai’i. A number of solidarity actions took place in the Pacific in October 1986 in support of the demonstrations that occurred throughout Australia against Pine Gap. In the Christmas 1988–89 period, over 100 Australian Anti-Bases activists went to the Philippines to participate in a series of demonstrations against US bases in the Philippines. As part of its Pacific solidarity, the AABCC has organised visits to Australia by indigenous Hawai’ians, the Chamoru from Guam and Native American spokespersons. 129

In 1991 the AABCC was a major player in demonstrations against Aidex – a giant arms bazaar held in Canberra from 22–28 November. The protest picket/blockade, which was endorsed by the ACT Trades and Labor Council, ensured that the organisers were able to move in their exhibits only with large police escorts and the assistance of clubwielding private security guards. After days of protest, marked by one wedding, many arrests and a number of injuries, long-time activist Denis Doherty called it one of the most violent police operations he has seen. At least two protesters suffered broken arms, one suffered a spinal injury and other injuries included broken wrists, fingers and feet, bruising and abrasions. “This is a much higher rate of injuries than might be expected in most protests,” Denis Doherty said at the time. At least one protester was run over, while about 12 were pinned to gates or fences by exhibitors’ vehicles.

The protesters made a negotiator available, and she sat in a police station throughout most of the actions. However, the police ignored her except to abuse her, at one point calling her a ‘maggot’. After the event was over, a group remained behind to clean up. They lodged complaints with the Commonwealth Ombudsman and the Federal Police Commissioner over police conduct. These complaints included claims that the police fired a flare, pieces of which fell into the camp. The Ombudsman accepted the police story that the flare was fired away from the camp. The protesters also claimed that a police vehicle broadcast machine gun and bomb noises in the vicinity of the camp in the early hours of the morning. The Ombudsman accepted police claims that these noises were made by a generator.

Responding to police claims that the protesters were violent, Denis Doherty said there were different interpretations of nonviolence, but all the protesters stuck to nonviolent tactics. “When you’re sitting on the road and you’re surrounded by police and you know that if you do anything violent you’re going to be totally outnumbered and overpowered, it’s crazy to engage in any violence.” Another activist commented:

These policies are, from time to time, made public in the Australian Government’s Defence White Papers, which are major documents outlining strategic assessment and proposed military responses. The AABCC decided that a campaign was necessary to allow the community’s voice to be heard on these matters. After all, the policies were supposed to safeguard the Australian people who are also paying for the implementation of such policies. So the Blue Paper Project was formed in 1993, describing itself as “an initiative of over 40 non-government organisations to generate discussion of the political and military role Australia will play in the 21st Century, and of the defence philosophy and policies adopted by government” (Middleton 2000). By 2000 the Federal Government found it expedient to introduce, for the very first time, community consultations in the lead up to a new Defence White Paper. The AABCC wrote at that time:

In Sydney in 2000, the tiny minority of peace movement contributors to the public consultation meeting were rudely heckled by the audience and treated with discourtesy by Chairman Andrew Peacock and his staff. A similar community consultation process was put in place 132in 2008. At that time, as well as developing its own submission, the AABCC undertook a major effort to encourage other groups and individuals to send in submissions and also to attend and speak at the public meetings held around the country. When delivering their comments, in contrast to eight years before, civil society represented the majority of speakers and were listened to with respect and replied to with courteous defensiveness.

Ministerial agreements, however, occur away from the dissenting voice of civil society. At the annual Australian-US Ministerial Consultations (AUSMIN) in Washington in July 2004, Australia and the US agreed to develop a Joint Combined Training Centre which will include state-of-the-art technology that allows commanders to oversee military exercises in real time, then replay missions in debriefs to personnel. Under the concept, facilities will be developed at the Shoalwater Bay Training Area in Queensland and the Bradshaw Training Area and Delamere Air Weapons Range in the Northern Territory at the cost of tens of millions of dollars. The three facilities will be interlinked through a node in the Pacific War Fighting Centre in Hawai’i. Military exercises using the three bases will be directed and monitored by the US military’s Pacific Command (PacCom) which is also in Hawai’i. The Tandem Thrust exercises in 1997 and the Talisman Sabre war games in 2005, 2007 and 2009 held in the Shoalwater Bay military training area near Rockhampton are part of this development, sending out a clear message of antagonistic military might.

The AABCC with other groups, especially in Brisbane, have organised protests against these military exercises, preparing fact sheets, sending out media releases, speaking at meetings and film showings and organising buses to travel to Rockhampton. The Peace Convergences have used education, lobbying, media and direct action to educate Australian society about the environmental, social and economic impacts of such ‘war games’ on their soil. Nonviolent actions have included street marches, music, blockading gates, holding up military convoys, entering the ‘war games’ area, either openly or secretly to disrupt bombing programs, playing with frisbees on the runway, mass leafleting, public meetings, standing on ‘pedestrian crossings’ (long strips of cloth painted 133black and white) on bush roads to prevent tanks passing, street theatre, and much more.

During the Talisman Sabre protests of 2007 (referred to in chapter 3), a group of activists climbed the gate into the prohibited area, taking with them a number of cardboard coffins. They sat in the road, praying and reading out the names of military personnel and civilians killed in the invasion and occupation of Iraq. They were arrested. They were held up as an example to the hundreds of other protestors who had travelled to Rockhampton and, indeed, many regarded their action as moving and powerful. Some went further to suggest that Peace Convergence participants who were not prepared to similarly put their bodies on the line were just ‘tourists’. With many activists deeply offended or upset by this, the AABCC made its position public: everyone who came to the protest was to be treated with respect for what they contributed, whatever it was. All we asked was that people came and made their opposition to military exercises manifest.

Over time, anti-bases activists from different countries have networked to get to know each other and share their experiences through face-to-face meetings at conferences and on the web. A view began to develop that expanding and deepening these ad hoc relationships could give support and encouragement to anti-bases campaigns around the world and strengthen the global campaign. The AABCC was an active participant in the preparatory meetings and web-based consultations which led to a conference in 2007 in Quito, Ecuador. Two AABCC representatives joined over 400 other delegates at the meeting which established the International Network Against Foreign Military Bases. The conference included a day-long bus trip from the high mountains to the coast of Ecuador for a large and noisy street march to the US base at the Pacific port of Manta. Set up in 1999 with no public consultation, purportedly to fight the drug trade, the base has been used to sink boats with undocumented immigrants and to support warfare in Colombia. In 2006, Rafael Correa made non-renewal of the base agreement part of his presidential campaign. When he was elected, the community held him to his promise, and a constituent assembly inserted a ban on all foreign military presence in the new constitution of Ecuador. 134

Promoting weapons, destabilising communities: protesting weapons, stabilising communities

Similarly, the AABCC has been in the forefront of education and protests against the increasing involvement of Australia in the US missile defence project. Over the past 30 years, the AABCC has witnessed the US planning to militarise, commercially exploit and to control space, taking corporate globalisation to a new and more terrifying level. The spin is that the US military push into space is about ‘missile defence’. However, the US military explicitly says it wants to ‘control’ space to protect its economic interests and establish superiority over the world. “With regard to space dominance, we have it, we like it and we’re going to keep it,” said Keith Hall, Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Space.

Vision for 2020, a 1996 report of the United States Space Command (USSC), proclaims that its mission is “dominating the space dimension of military operations to protect US interests and investment.” A century ago, “[n]ations built navies to protect and enhance their commercial interests” by ruling the seas, the report says. Now it is time to rule space. The USSC’s 1998 Long Range Plan underlines the globalisation aspect of US space war plans, saying, “[w]idespread communications will highlight disparities in resources and quality of life – contributing to unrest in developing countries … The gap between ‘have’ and ‘have-not’ nations will widen, creating regional unrest” (USSC 1998). By controlling space and the Earth below, the US intends to keep those ‘have-nots’ in line.

Bruce Gagnon, coordinator of the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power In Space, says the program has “never been about defence. It’s always been about controlling space, dominating space, denying other countries access to space and the US being the master of space. And that isn’t a defensive posture” (Grossman 2002).

However, he also points out that: 135