Australian Forest Activists Assaulted in East Gippsland
2/24/00
*******************************
RELAYED TEXT STARTS HERE:
Title: Australian Forest Activists Assaulted in East Gippsland
Source: Environment News Service, http://www.ens.lycos.com
Status: Copyright 2000, contact source for permission to reprint
Date: February 24, 2000
MELBORNE, Victoria, Australia, February 24, 2000 (ENS) -
Conservationists are demanding an end to what they say is the failed
Regional Forest Agreement process in the state of Victoria following
a violent assault on logging protesters at midnight on Monday
February 21. The assault in the old growth forest of East Gippsland
is the latest in an escalating cycle of violence in Victoria's
forests.
The incident began Monday when two indigenous Aborigonal elders and
40 supporters arrived in a logging area. The elders were there to
present loggers or officials of the state Department of Natural
Resources and Environment (DNRE) with notice that the loggers were
breaking international criminal law by clearfelling ancient forests.
After an initial scuffle, DNRE officials were served with eviction
notices and genocide charges by the elders. That evening large group
of loggers and their supporters attacked the activist camp in the
forest near Goongerah in the Orbost Forest District.
The outnumbered activists were beaten by roughly 40 loggers.
Eyewitnesses have provided an account of the assault, and a video
exists of the incident. People were terrorised for their opposition
to logging these forests.
Men and women were beaten with lumps of wood and iron bars. One man
was hit repeatedly with a hammer through the window of a car, and a
woman stabbed with an iron bar. People were thrown into a ditch and
made to sit with their heads down on the ground while the men were
beaten and the women threatened with rape. One man is still in
hospital.
A Canadian tourist camping nearby who was not part of the activist
camp was hauled from his tent, surrounded by 25 men and beaten until
he escaped into the forest.
The beating is captured on film.
An activist in the camp during the assault said, "Our radio and
solar panel communications, our personal bedding and gear, tools,
tarps, tents, a Holden car, pushbikes, library and maps, a motorbike
etc were sledgehammered, slashed, and thrown into the gully. An
estimated $30,000 worth of damages was sustained. A private camp was
found across the Goolengook River from base camp, and trashed."
Police arrived, and the victims are cooperating with them. "Police
are are looking for 30 to 40 men and boys, expect to identify most
of them, and expect some of them to be serving in prison after a
lengthly court process," according to GECO, a local activist group.
The Regional Forest Agreements (RFA) signed between the Australian
government and the states were intended to end the decades of
confrontations in the Australian forests. They set specified lands
aside for the timber industry and other lands for conservation. The
arrangement is intended to preserve jobs in the forest industry
while also preserving old growth forests.
But the Wilderness Society's Victorian campaign coordinator, Gavan
McFadzean says it is time for Victoria's Premier Steve Bracks to
scrap the state's agreements with the federal government of John
Howard. "The Wilderness Society calls on the Premier to abandon the
Howard Government's expensive failure, the RFA process. Already the
Howard government has poured $200 million into the failed RFAs."
"Three years and millions of dollars of taxpayers money after the
signing of the East Gippsland RFA, the first in the country, jobs
are still being shed, old growth forests are still being clearfelled
and social disharmony is at an all time peak," McFadzean said.
Australian Minister of Forests Wilson Tuckey has repeatedly thrown
his influence behind the timber industry in the fashioning of the
RFAs. On February 6 he said, "The timber mills and communities of
Gippsland should ensure that they have their say on the region's
Regional Forest Agreement. Like all Regional Forest Agreements, the
RFA for the Gippsland region will be aiming for a careful balance
between environmental protection and sustainable forest-based
industries," Tuckey said of a consultation paper on which the public
comment period closes Friday.
Today, the camp at Goolengook is being rebuilt and reoccupied, with
support and donations coming in from environmental centers across
the country.
Metropolitan environment groups are meeting with ministers and
government agencies looking for postive ways to stem the rising tide
of violence in the forests of Australia.