Introduction
In November 1983 a major protest against global violence took place outside the US run military base at Pine Gap, which is on Arrente country in the Northern Territory, Australia. The installation is used to spy on Australian and overseas communications as well as target nuclear and other weapons.
Over a period of two weeks in November 1983 800 women camped near the base and undertook numerous non-violent actions in favour of peace and Aboriginal land rights.
These included a march to the base led by Traditional Owners and other Aboriginal people, trespass actions, weaving the fence with flowers, ribbons, messages and photographs, street theatre, workshops, speeches, graffiti, the removal of fencing, and solidarity protests for arrestees at the Alice Springs courthouse.
The 111 women arrested for entering the site all gave the name Karen Silkwood, an American anti-nuclear and union activist who died under suspicious circumstances in 1974.
The protest was successful in drawing public attention to the base’s then largely hidden role in the US war fighting machine. It showed solidarity with the Arrente people as well as with women’s peace camps at Greenham Common in the UK and Cosimo in Italy.
It was part of a broader campaign which invigorated and brought together feminist groups from around Australia under the banner of Women For Survival to disrupt nuclear warship visits and uranium mining, and protest for peace. Pine Gap remains implicated in wars, civilian deaths and spying around the world and campaigns to close it and bring about peace continue.
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