Six “Peace Pilgrims”, whose ages span 19 to 73, travelled through the desert together last night and are due to arrive on a crest inside military land at dawn and there sing a mournful lament about the human cost of war.

Margaret Pestorius with her viola. Image: Adam Ginger
Longtime Catholic, social worker and peace advocate Margaret Pestorius says ‘I am taking my viola to Pine Gap to play a song of lament for the dead of war. The viola is the perfect instrument for lamentation because it sings in the range of the human voice. I’ll play a lament with a young musician, guitarist Franz Dowling, who holds hope for the future.’
‘We will go close so we can see the US spy base which is involved with preparing and waging war. It’s a central part of the US global surveillance system, which is not only used to spy on Australian and US citizens alike, but is implicated in drone attacks in the Middle East, in places where Australia is not supposed to be at war.’
‘We hope people around Australia will see what we’re doing and begin to ask questions about Pine Gap, and more broadly the nature of our alliance with the US.’
Franz Dowling says ‘My love for music and life drives me to action, directing the power that music has over human emotion towards Pine Gap. We cry out in sadness for the crimes that have been committed and we beg for change. One day, surely, we may have peace. I’ve been inspired towards peace by the example of my Dad who is once again walking into Pine Gap.”

Franz Dowling. Image: Adam Ginger
Those participating in today’s lament also stand in solidarity with a protest at the Pentagon in the United States, organised by A World Without War, who are asking the US government to begin closing its offshore bases.
Pestorius says ‘We are not the only ones who have been trying to raise these concerns. Malcolm Fraser wrote a book not long before his death called Dangerous Allies, which argues that the time when it was in our strategic interest to have a strong military relationship with the US is over, and now we would be better off with a more independent foreign policy.’
‘We will also be amplifying recent calls from other groups, such as the Greens and Australians for War Powers Reform, that the decision to go to war must be debated in the Parliament like every other important decision.’
‘If this were the case in 2003, we would have prevented our troops joining the ongoing mess that is the Iraq Invasion.’
On Saturday the 1st of October, the Independent and Peaceful Australia Network (IPAN) will hold its national conference in Alice Springs. Speakers will include academics from Guam and Japan, Greens Senator Scott Ludlam, and Melbourne University’s Professor Richard Tanter, one of Australia’s leading experts on US/joint military facilities in Australia.
ENDS
Editor’s Notes:
Info & Events: https://closepinegap.org.au
Twitter: @ClosePineGap #ClosePineGap
Contacts :     Bec Horridge  0406375401
Professor Richard Tanter: 0407 824 336
A recent interview with quotes from Richard Tanter
Photos and Video will be available in this Google Drive
Details of All Peace Pilgrims:
Graeme Dunstan, 72, Peace Activist, Peacebus.com
Jim Dowling, 61, Catholic Worker and father from Brisbane
Margaret Pestorius, 51, Social Worker, Gimuy (Cairns)
Andrew Paine, 30,Disability worker, Brisbane Catholic worker
Tim Webb, 22, Student, Aotearoa New Zealand
Franz Dowling, 19, Musician, Student, Catholic Worker, Brisbane

Tim Webb – Student – Aotearoa (New Zealand)

The #PineGapPilgrims on trial for walking onto the grounds of Pine Gap lamenting the suffering created by war and to bring the dealings of Pine Gap to the public awareness. Jim Dowling, Margaret Pestorius, Franz Dowling, Tim Webb, Andy Paine, Paul Christie

Early this morning activists shut down the Raytheon facility in Alice Springs. Four activists remain locked onto the gates of the facility preventing employees from engaging in the machinations of war today. This action is one in a series of protests against the military-industrial complex that supplies the joint US-Australian military base at Pine Gap. Raytheon trades in and profits from the death and destruction of war mongering. They produce a range of tools of war from technical equipment through to UN-prohibited cluster bombs.
Activists include nurses, community workers, students, parents and grandparents. Young and old they are concerned that the Australian prime minister can take us to war with no debate in parliament nor consultation with the people; we have no say in the increasing build-up of US military personnel in this country.  Pine Gap renders us complicit in the murder of many innocent people by bombs dropped from drones by the US and facilitated through the Pine Gap radon array.
Jacob Grech, one of the people locked onto the gate said “The fact that huge profit-making corporations are directly involved in the operation of Pine Gap is often overlooked. We are here to bring awareness to the people so that they may act to end war together”.
Gaye Demanuele, grandmother of five, stated that acts of civil disobedience by the people are now imperative. “Our governments have failed us in the name of profit and power. It is now up to us to act to end senseless wars.”
Close Pine Gap protestors demand the closure of the Pine Gap base with the return of the land to the traditional custodians of the land, the Arrente people.
For media enquiries please contact:
Gaye Demanuele 0414 580851
Mara Bonacci 0422 229 970
Live updates and photos on twitter: @closepinegap | #ClosePineGap
Video on Youtube

1.30pm, Thursday 29th September 2006 at the Chifley Resort, Stott St Alice Springs – at the palm trees quadrangle behind the Gumtree Room.
SPEAKERS available for interview: BACKGROUND  BIOS BELOW
PROFESSOR RICHARD TANTER
DR LISA NATIVIDAD
PROFESSOR KOSUZU ABE
REV BERLIN GUERRERO
ALEX EDNEY-BROWNE
NICK DEANE
 
Professor Richard Tanter
Richard Tanter is Senior Research Associate, Nautilus Institute, and Professor in the School of Political and Social Studies at the University of Melbourne. Richard has worked on peace, security and environment issues in East and Southeast Asia as analyst, policy advocate and activist since the 1970s. His research has focused on militarisation and peace issues in Indonesia, Korea and Japan, as well as the wider politics of East and Southeast Asia
‘With world-renowned expert on Pine Gap Des Ball, Richard is completing a project on Pine Gap today, from which eight detailed papers have been published by the Nautilus Institute to date, with more come.
http://nautilus.org/briefing-books/australian-defence-facilities/pine-gap/the-pine-gap-project/http://nautilus.org/briefing-books/australian-defence-facilities/pine-gap/the-pine-gap-project/
http://nautilus.org/network/associates/richard-tanter/
 
Professor Lisa Natividad-
Dr. Natividad is an Associate Professor of social work at the University of Guam.  She is a native CHamoru who has research interests that include the impact of colonization and militarization on her people. Dr. Natividad is the President of the Guahan Coalition for Peace and Justice and has shared Guahan’s plight with militarization in countries all over the world and at the United Nations.
Dr. Natividad is a core country representative and steering committee member of the International Network of Women Against Militarism and was the chairperson for organizing a meeting of the network on Guahan in 2009.  She is featured on two documentaries examining militarization on Guahan– Living Along the Fenceline (which was aired on NPR stations throughout the US) and an NHK documentary that was aired on NHK World.  She has published numerous articles on the militarization of Guahan and continues to be a voice elevating the concerns of her people.
 
Professor Kosuzu Abe
Department of Policy Science and International Relations
Faculty of Law and Letters,  University of the Ryukyus, Okinawa.
Beginning with the anti-offshore platform construction struggle in
Henoko, Nago City, Professor Abe has been deeply committed to the
protest movement against US military bases in Okinawa. Set up an
affinity network “Project Disagree” with her friends to protest JP-US
agreement in October 2005, she is struggling with continuous
non-violent direct actions by loosely connected people. Also Abe is
one of the sit-inners of Takae, Higashi Village, where Japanese
government is forcing ahead on construction of U.S. military helipads
(i.e. Osprey pads) since in July 2007.

http://www.projectdisagree.org/
 
Berlin Guerrero Ph: 0499 303 911
In 2007, the then-United Church of Christ in the Philippines (UCCP) pastor, Berlin Guerrero, was abducted by armed men at a memorial service for a friend who was assassinated in 2006.  Heavily involved in social justice activities in the Philippines, Pastor Guerrero had caught the ire of corrupt officials looking to stamp out opposition, particularly from those critical of government and the ruling elite.
Mr Guerrero was ultimately held captive, and tortured, for 15 months before being released from trumped-up charges of sedition and murder.  Although he was officially free, his safety was not assured.  Mr Guerrero has since been reunited with his family in Australia.
http://crosslight.org.au/2015/11/20/berlin-guerrero-ordained-uniting-church-minister/
 
Alex Edney-Brown
Imprecise, Automated, Deadly: Why Australia Shouldn’t Buy Into The Drone War
Alex is a PhD candidate in Screen and Cultural Studies at the University of Melbourne. She graduated from the University of Auckland in 2015 with Honours (First Class) in Media; Film and Television and Politics and International Relations.
Alex’s PhD thesis examines the psychological and physiological effects of drone warfare for people living under drones and US Air Force drone operators. It seeks to discover the embodied experiences of drone warfare, with a particular interest in instances where the drone interface produces unexpected affects and/or facilitates subversive relations between so-called “enemies”. Alex’s research is interdisciplinary, engaging with science and technology studies, screen theory and critical international relations.
Alex also works as an assistant to Dr Tom Gregory at the University of Auckland, researching counterinsurgency doctrine and civilian casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan. The aim of this research is to discern how, if at all, the US military’s attitude towards civilian casualties changed with the shift to “population-centric” warfare.
 
Nick Deane
Nick Deane has been active in campaigning against militarism since 9/11. In 2002 he was a founding member of the Marrickville Peace Group, which came into being when the invasion of Iraq threatened. With the 2011 announcement that US marines were to be stationed in Darwin, Nick started making contact with other groups around Sydney and, eventually, across the nation. The Marrickville group has been part of IPAN since it first began to emerge as an organisation.
www.ipan.org.au