Table Of ContentKieran Finnane is a founding journalist of the
Alice Springs News, established in 1994, now
publishing online. She contributes arts writing and
journalism to national publications, including
Griffith Review, The Saturday Paper, Artlink and Art
Monthly Australasia. Her first book, Trouble: On Trial
in Central Australia, was published in 2016.
PRAISE FOR PEACE CRIMES
‘Peace Crimes is an engrossing and illuminating portrayal of six activists, a
political trial and the secret machinations of the Five Eyes on Australian soil.
Compelling to the core, Finnane is an excellent journalist who asks far more
of the facts than mere repudiation; rather she asks for pause and reflection.
I, for one, will never drive past or fly over these sites without thinking of all
the unknowns, ever again.’
— ANNA KRIEN, AUTHOR OF NIGHT GAMES AND ACT OF GRACE
PEACE
CRIMES
KIERAN FINNANE
PINE GAP,
NATIONAL
SECURITY
AND DISSENT
Peace Crimes_Title.indd 2 30/4/20 4:34 pm
PEACE
CRIMES
KIERAN FINNANE
PINE GAP,
NATIONAL
SECURITY
AND DISSENT
Peace Crimes_Title.indd 2 30/4/20 4:34 pm
First published 2020 by University of Queensland Press
PO Box 6042, St Lucia, Queensland 4067 Australia
uqp.com.au
[email protected]
Copyright © Kieran Finnane 2020
The moral rights of the author have been asserted.
This book is copyright. Except for private study, research, criticism or
reviews, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part of this book may be
reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by
any means without prior written permission. Enquiries should be made to
the publisher.
Cover design by Josh Durham (Design by Committee)
Cover photograph: ‘Pine Gap (A photograph of the Centre of Australia)’ by Kristian
Laemmle-Ruff
Author photo by Erwin Chlanda
Typeset in 11.5/15 pt Bembo by Post Pre-press Group, Brisbane
Printed in Australia by McPherson’s Printing Group
The University of Queensland Press is assisted by
the Australian Government through the Australia
Council, its arts funding and advisory body.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the National Library of Australia
ISBN 978 0 7022 6044 5 (pbk)
ISBN 978 0 7022 6222 7 (epdf)
ISBN 978 0 7022 6223 4 (epub)
ISBN 978 0 7022 6224 1 (kindle)
University of Queensland Press uses papers that are natural, renewable and recyclable
products made from wood grown in well-managed forests and other controlled
sources. The logging and manufacturing processes conform to the environmental
regulations of the country of origin.
CONTENTS
Prologue vii
Seeing, not seeing 1
In the dark 15
Trespass 43
Lament 63
The law 77
Ends and means 92
The sacred 111
A reckless act of prayer 128
Nothing to see here 153
Ordinary or extraordinary? 180
Conscience versus reason 209
Fields of action 231
Epilogue 249
Notes 259
Acknowledgements 281
For my parents
Patricia and Peter Finnane
PROLOGUE
Each night, here in the centre of Australia, I go outside to look at
the sky, at its crystalline beauty, its movements and seasonal changes.
A few years back, I learned about the Emu that comes out at night,
taking shape from long dark matter in the Milky Way where stars are
not. Wanta Steve Patrick Jampijinpa was talking to artists, art workers
and art historians about Warlpiri ways of seeing. Warlpiri lands,
including his home community of Lajamanu, lie to the northwest
of Alice Springs, which is in the heart of Arrernte country. Using
a digitally enhanced photograph he showed us the Southern Cross
sitting on the Emu’s head like a crown: ‘The Queen’s crown is really
a late crown … there was another crown here,’ he said. ‘Stop being
Australian, start being Australia. Be part of it, it’s your birthright.’
The Emu is not always visible, but once seen, I can’t unsee it.
On the night of 28 September 2016 I was at home, a bush block
on the south side of Alice. While I was looking up at the sky, a
group of five people were walking by the same starlight through
shadowy bushland unfamiliar to them, some fifteen kilometres to
the west. I would come to know them as the Peace Pilgrims – father
and son Jim and Franz Dowling, Margaret Pestorius, Andy Paine and
Timothy Webb.
Of other happenings in the world on that date, as countless as the
stars, I single out one. In a village named Shadal Bazar, in the eastern
vii
viii PEACE CRIMES
Achin district of Afghanistan, a man called Haji Rais was coming
to grips with the deaths in his home of at least fifteen people. They
had come to welcome him back from a pilgrimage to Mecca. After a
meal of grilled sheep and a night of talk, everyone slept. The missile
from a US drone struck before dawn. The survivors woke in a rain
of shrapnel.
The strike was one of many aimed at Islamic State (Daesh)
militants, whether by plane or drone, authorised that year by US
president Barack Obama. Immediately, claims swirled that most of the
dead and wounded were civilians. Survivors were taken to hospital in
the provincial capital Jalalabad, where they spoke to reporters: ‘I saw
dead and wounded bodies everywhere,’ Raghon Shinwari told them.
US Forces in Afghanistan (USFOR-A) confirmed a ‘counter-
terrorism’ air strike, intended ‘to degrade, disrupt, and destroy
Daesh’. Its civilian toll was condemned by the United Nations: Daesh
personnel might have died, but so had students and a teacher as well
as members of families considered to be pro-government.
Civilian deaths raised questions of compliance with international
legal obligations to protect them. By what criteria had the targets
been identified? Had everything possible been done to avoid civilian
casualties? Was the toll proportionate to the military objective of
the attack? USFOR-A would say only that ‘this was not a civilian
casualty incident’.
Daesh had gained significant control over the Achin district, but
the ‘dozens of men’ visiting survivors at the hospital insisted that the
group was not operating within a mile of the village. ‘If we were
Daesh, do you think we would get together here?’ asked Obaidullah,
a university student. Mohabad Khan’s lower body had been paralysed
when shrapnel hit his spine. ‘There is no Daesh in the village and
every night the police go on patrols,’ he said.
Haji Rais, owner of the targeted house, said nineteen people were
injured in the strike; fifteen were killed. He later provided journalists
with the names of the dead, matched their names with the names of
their fathers and the districts they came from, writing his own name
alongside the school principal’s – Hakmatullah, his son.
~
PROLOguE ix
This event, calamitous for those Afghans, would never have
penetrated my consciousness if not for the Peace Pilgrims. What
links us – me about to go to my warm bed, the Pilgrims walking
through the late September night, and these people so far away, the
dead and the survivors of a US drone strike, whether militant or
civilian? The answer is what this book is about and its lynchpin is
Pine Gap, the secretive US military base some nineteen kilometres
southwest of Alice Springs. It was where the Pilgrims were heading.
