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.