Greens MP Max Chandler-Mather used the50th anniversary of the military coup in Chile to propose we scrutinise Australia’s role in helping the United States overthrow socialist president Salvador Allende. The major parties refused.Federico Fuentes reports.
Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS)
Led by Rodrigo Acuñaand Adriana Navarro,Chilean-Australian community members arecampaigningfor the federal government to give an “unreserved apology” for Australia'scovert support to the US-backed coup against Dr Salvador Allende in 1973.
On the 48th anniversary of the military coup against Chilean president Salvador Allende, never-before-seen archive postsby the Australian SecretIntelligence Service show that the CIA requested and received support. Peter Kornbluh reports.
The decades-long campaign demanding truth and justice for victims of Chilean General Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship scored two important victories in Australia last month, reports Federico Fuentes.
Activists from the Movement Against the Occupation of the Timor Sea (MKOTT) delivered a 10-metre-long banner covered with the signatures of 1300 Timorese to the Australian embassy in Dili on September 16. The signatures were collected in protest at the Australian government's persecution of former spy Witness K and his lawyer Bernard Collaery, for allegedly blowing the whistle on the 2004 bugging of Timor-Leste Cabinet offices by the Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS).
The campaign to end Australia’s involvement in the unjust war in Afghanistan has picked up momentum in the last few months in Melbourne.
In December, a number of peace activists decided to organise regular anti-war activities, to tell people the truth about the foreign occupation force and call for Australian troops to be withdrawn.
Since then, three vigils have been held across Melbourne. Activists handed out hundreds of leaflets called “Eight reasons to get out of Afghanistan”.
A secret review of Australia’s intelligence services has proposed giving them new powers to spy on Australians, carry weapons and conduct secretive paramilitary operations in other countries.
Powers to carry weapons are proposed for employees of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO), which has already received a vast expansion of legal powers since 2001, extra personnel and a new purpose-built Canberra headquarters.