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Lee Rhiannon Speaks at Building Global Peace Forum at Bangalow

Last Tuesday evening at Bangalow Catholic Hall the Greens hosted a Global peace forum. Invited guests included Lee Rhiannon Greens MP, and Greens NSW Senate candidate whose topic was Should Australian troops be in Afghanistan? and Janelle Saffin MP Federal Member for Page, Hon Secretary of the Burma Lawyers Council, who spoke on the situation in Burma. Matthew Jamieson a local Greens member spoke on the situation in West Papua.

Lee Rhiannon spoke on Afghanistan, it being a topical issue because of the speculation about  a possible troop build up . Lee said that there is a lot of speculation at the moment that instead of a possible build up of troops the Americans  may opt for a build up of operations in Pakistan, with possible increase in the use of unmanned drones.

These drones are an extraordinary new technology whereby operations can be carried out almost anywhere  in the world with the operator sitting in an office in the USA, who goes to work, operates these machines by remote control then goes home after killing unknown numbers of people by remote control.

These operations cause many deaths and are causing much anger in Pakistan. The annual military  expenditure for the planet is around 1.4 trillion dollars, approximately  20 percent of the world's economic output.

The Greens defence position is to make efficient use of the military budget and attempt to make double use of the equipment, for example helicopters can also be used for fighting bushfires etc. Our efforts need to be directed more towards assisting the local people and building infrastructure and improving the lot of women.

War is not just war on humanity, it is also war on our whole monetary system and the planet. It is robbing us of the resources to assist dealing with climate change providing education water and public services to the people of the world. And there is the increasing privatisation of the military machine whereby for example in Afghanistan, there are more privately employed contractors providing services than actual troops employed by the military.

When people and corporations are making more and more profits from war it could becoming harder for peace to be an outcome. It is a well known fact that bigger amies and more weapons  actually make us feel less secure and contribute to more instability.

Burma has the largest number of Child Soldiers in the World

Janelle Saffin said that Burma has been in conflict with itself for a long long time. it has one of the most brutal military dictatorships in the world. Close to one third of the population is in the armed forces including large numbers of child soldiers the highest number in the world. An interesting thing is that military dictatorships become more and more paranoid as they become more entrenched, inflicting a more repressive regime upon the people.

One interesting thing to note was after the floods two years ago the military allowed foreign aid workers into the country, a most unusual event. We may wonder why, it just happened that there was an American warship in the vicinity.

Civilians Increasingly Bear the Brunt of War

Janelle quoted statistics showing that civilians are increasingly the victims of war. In world war one approximately 5 percent of casualties were civilians, world war two approximately 45 percent at the present civilian casualties are  around 95 percent.