Citizens inspection shuts down Pine Gap. : Melbourne Indymedia

Early Friday morning two members of the pacifist group Christians against ALL Terrorism conducted a citizen’s inspection of Pine Gap, causing the U.S. terrorist base to be shut down for four hours. Six hundred employees were not allowed into the base, employee’s cars queued up for kilometers outside the front gate.

Jim Dowling from Daybora and Adele Goldie from Brisbane entered the base undetected and photographed themselves on the roof of a building after cutting through two security fences while hanging a banner (WHAT HAVE YOU DONE? MY BROTHERS BLOOD CRIES OUT TO ME FROM THE EARTH. Gen 4-10 ). Two other members of the group Donna Mulhern from Sydney and Bryan Law from Cairns cut through a perimeter fence and went undetected for an hour before being arrested cutting through a second fence. The four had walked for several hours through desert terrain always following the glow of the Pine Gap Base in the distance.
The two other members of the group Jessica Morrison from Melbourne and Sean Oreilly from Brisbane held a peaceful vigil outside the front gates around six that morning after the arrests had been made. Police searched their vehicle and removed property, when questioned about their actions, Sean O’Reilly was arrested for hindering police. Jessica Morrison was then followed for a two hours by federal police before being taken into custody, but was later released without charge.

In the spirit civil disobedience the inspection was an anti-terrorist exercise. The base has long been closed off to the Australian public and the Australian Government. The group believes Pine Gap to be a terrorist base. The Australian Government has become complicit in terrorism by leasing the land to the U.S., who uses the satellite tracking system to pinpoint targets in Iraq and Afghanistan. 100,000 Iraqi civilians are dead, in a war that has been declared illegal by the U.N. and condemned as immoral by spiritual leaders worldwide.

Christians Against ALL Terrorism began their journey in Brisbane driving a veggie oil fueled van. First stop Rockhampton where they supported the Shoalwater Bay trial and then onto Townsville and Alice Springs. Meetings, vigils, and films were shown and church services attended along the way. The group from the beginning had made public their intention to inspect Pine Gap. They contacted Defense Minister, Senator Robert Hill, asking for permission to inspect the base and then later stating when the inspection would be carried out. The Senator replied by threatening the group with seven years jail under the 1952 defense act. The five will face court this Wednesday in Alice Springs.