Protests disrupt Australia ‘aiding and abetting’ genocide at US Pine Gap intelligence base

 

By Kieran Finnane

Dec 27, 2024

There’s no question that they did it: on 27 November last year, in the middle of Hatt Road, two people, Carmen Robinson and Alexandra (Tommy) Walker, locked themselves onto a barrel filled with concrete, blocking traffic on the way into the Pine Gap military base.

Supported by some 30 others, they made their action public, posting to social media and contacting professional media, providing a media release, spokespeople and photographs. The Alice Springs News posted its initial report while the pair were still locked on.

They were doing this, a spokesperson said, to draw attention to Israel’s assault on Gaza, in which 20,000 people had lost their lives in the past six weeks – that is, since Israel began their military response to the 7 October Hamas attack on Israel in which close to 1200 people died and 248 hostages were taken, mostly civilians in both cases.

The media release quoted Arrernte writer Declan Furber Gillick as saying, “Palestinians are being bombed relentlessly by a genocidal apartheid regime that uses military intelligence gathered [by Pine Gap] on Arrernte Country.”

It took four firefighters several hours to cut the two protesters free, while six police officers attended to “negotiate” with them before creating diversions to allow traffic to proceed to the base.

The pair were charged with “summary traffic offences”, three counts each, but have contested the charges. The case has since been making its way through the courts.

The date of the protest action was important: 27 November was the end date for the initial temporary ceasefire negotiated between Israel and Hamas. Fighting was likely to resume the next day. As it transpired, the truce was extended for a further two days, then another, but it ended then, on 1 December, when negotiations collapsed and fighting resumed, with 20 more Palestinians reported to have died in Israeli air raids which came in response to Hamas rocket launches.

In the time that it has taken the case against the two protesters to reach court, a further 24,000 people or more are reported to have died in Gaza as a direct result of fighting. More than two-thirds of the total deaths have been women and children. The estimates of indirect deaths are orders of magnitude greater.

In that time, too, South Africa has brought a case against Israel to the International Court of Justice, alleging that Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. After hearings last January, the court concluded that the allegation is plausible and ordered Israel to prevent any such acts, although it stopped short of ordering it to suspend military operations.

Multiple member states of the UN have since applied to join South Africa in the case. A final judgment could take years.

[Separately the International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant as well as the Hamas leader, Mohammed Deif, possibly already dead, for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Against the Israelis, the focus of the charges is on depriving Gazans of food and other resources “indispensable to their survival”.]

So, how do these legal proceedings in the international domain have bearing on a “summary traffic offences” hearing concerning two humble protesters in central Australia?

It’s because the Criminal Code provides them with a possible defence: that they committed their offence in order to prevent the commission of another offence, specifically the crime of genocide, in which, they will argue, Australia is complicit by virtue of its role in Pine Gap.

To make this argument, they intend to call an expert witness — Professor Richard Tanter — who researches intelligence and strategic questions.

Put very simply, the complicity in genocide would go to, as Prof Tanter has written, “Australian involvement through the provision of military intelligence to Israel through Australia’s apparently unrestricted institutional and technological integration into US-auspiced global signals intelligence networks.”

Pine Gap is a central component of those networks.

Prof Tanter was on standby to elaborate in the Alice Springs Local Court last Wednesday (11 December), when the case was listed to be heard, starting at 9.30am.

Because of other matters involving people in custody, it was well after 2.30pm when the protesters’ legal representative, John Lawrence SC, outlined how his clients intended to proceed.

Local Court Judge Dr Anthony Hopkins had said he wasn’t really clear on what was to be argued, yet he was ready with at least one of the relevant authorities.

“And how are you proposing,” he asked, “to get around authorities such as the Crown and Law and others, 2007, NTSC 45, in relation to these … sorts of incidents where the Court has said you can’t stray into matters of policy and decisions with respect to international law?”

The case he was referring to involved Bryan Law and fellow activists Donna Mulhearn, Jim Dowling and Adele Goldie, who broke into Pine Gap in December 2005, a “slightly different setting”, as Dr Hopkins said, but with very similar motivations, although then it was in relation to the war in Iraq. (You can read about what happened in that case in an article by lawyer Russell Goldflam here and in my 2020 book, Peace Crimes: Pine Gap, national security and dissent.)

“I understand those authorities and they don’t ban us from running this defence,” replied Lawrence.

“It would depend on the way the Court views the relevant sections of the relevant Acts, including S 27 of the Criminal Code concerning justification, as well as the status of the Genocide Convention and “the Commonwealth Crimes Act which brings into Australian law the crime of genocide”.

“We’ll be relying on recent events which have led Israel into the dock in the International Court of Justice by virtue of South Africa alleging this very crime. So, what we will be saying is that the law does state that Australia could be charged with this offence …

“[T]here’s an [ICJ] order in place which says that prima facie there’s a possible case that Israel is committing genocide, which arguably means that Australia is once again aiding and abetting.”

That is what Prof Tanter’s evidence will go to, if the Court finds it is admissible.

“The upshot is,” responded Dr Hopkins, “that you say your clients are entitled, because Australia was acting in concert in some way by providing intelligence to Israel which is engaged in genocide, that your clients are entitled to prevent people from going to Pine Gap.”

Not surprisingly, he concluded that the matter “is going to require significant detailed argument” and that wasn’t going to be possible in the remaining hours on Wednesday.

It was accepted by the parties that it would likely need a two-day hearing. The calendar was investigated and, such is the workload of the Lower Court in Alice Springs, the earliest dates found for two consecutive days were 23 and 24 September 2025.

One can only hope that progress towards a ceasefire in Gaza will proceed more quickly.

Meanwhile, police have withdrawn for each defendant the charges of “fail to cease to loiter” and “obstruct the public use of a road”, leaving one count each of “cause traffic hazard or obstruction”.

First published in the Alice Springs News on 16 December

https://johnmenadue.com/protests-disrupt-australia-aiding-and-abetting-genocide-at-us-pine-gap-intelligence-base/