Rice-Rumsfeld Reception Committee, Adelaide
The following call to action was issued by the Rice-Rumsfeld Reception Committee.
Come to Adelaide in November and protest against the presence of Condoleezza Rice and Donald Rumsfeld, two central figures in the Bush administration.
The invasion of Iraq is a war crime. Let's show the world that Australians reject the US's wars of empire; that we reject US militarism and unilateralism in world affairs because they undermine peace, justice and progress in the world. Let's tell Rice and Rumsfeld that the unjust war on Iraq is a war crime and that war criminals are not welcome here.
Australians have not forgotten that the war was based on a campaign of lies about weapons of mass destruction and lies about Iraq's links to al Qaeda.
The Bush administration cynically used the "war on terror" to seize Iraq's oil and in the process has greatly increased terrorism in the world.
The recently established Adelaide Rice-Rumsfeld Reception Committee (RRRC) is alerting people around Australia — whether they are involved in environmental campaigns, the anti-war movement or any other social justice issues — that in November of this year in Adelaide, the Asia Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate (APP-CDC) will hold its inaugural meeting. It has been announced that Rice may attend, with a possibility that Rumsfeld will also visit.
Greenhouse pollution and the Asia Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate
This newly formed six-nation group of greenhouse polluters is a club of two of the worst environmental vandals in the world (Australia and the US) with four lesser polluters (China, India, South Korea and Japan) that aims to destroy the Kyoto
Protocol through an alternative proposal that contains no limitation on greenhouse pollution.
It is now universally recognised that the greenhouse effect is a serious and worsening environmental disaster. According to the most comprehensive survey ever carried out on global warming (published in the Australian earlier this year), the Earth's temperatures are changing much faster than expected. The survey warned that London could be under water within 50 years. The world's island nations and agricultural societies will be most dramatically affected.
Protest in Adelaide in November
While details are not yet confirmed, media reports so far suggest that the APP-CDC meeting will most likely bring Condoleezza Rice to Adelaide, along with political leaders from around the region. With them will come an entourage of
the international media.
The whole world will be watching. We must show them that we care about peace and the environment and that we do not approve of the environmental terrorism and imperialist wars being thrust upon the world's majority by our
governments.
The RRRC calls on all Australians who oppose the Iraq war, who oppose environmental destruction for the sake of corporate profits, to join us in Adelaide to protest the APP-CDC meeting. We propose a mass non-violent action
on the theme of "Stop the war on the environment and the environment of war".
The RRRC has started planning the protest logistics and public events in the lead-up to this event. We urge all activist collectives and progressive organisations to begin discussing how we can use this high-profile political event to send a message to the world that, contrary to our leaders'
propaganda efforts, most Australians oppose the war on the environment, and the environment of war.
[For more details, email <adelaide1105protest@yahoo.com.au>.]
From 91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ Weekly, September 21, 2005.
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