Carol Powell's Statement in Court -Talisman Sabre

Gill Burrow's shared this wonderfully moving statement made in court last Thursday by Carole Powell, one of the inspiring TS07 ‘Imagining peace’ group who entered the military exclusion area during the recent Talisman Sabre exercises last month.

Carole was the National Coordinator for the recent John Dear visit organised by Pace e Bene Australia.

If anyone wants some background on the action see http://smoyle.blogspot.com/2007/07/shoalwater-bay-peace-convergence-report.html

In brief, here are their three main objectives for the action [taken from the above website].
“The focus for us was threefold:


1. To establish a reasoned and respectful dialogue with the soldiers. As protests are often restricted to yelling from behind a fence, we wanted to change the dynamic, to engage face to face with the people behind the uniform, and for them to do the same with us.


2. At the same time, we knew that any presence of civilians on the base would immediately halt the war games. Therefore another aim was to disrupt the exercises with our presence.


3. We wanted to see the base transformed from somewhere war games were conducted to a place where peace games are played. Hence not only did our presence cause the shutting down of the military activities, but we invited the soldiers to play frisbee with us on the tarmac.”