In a time of such economic uncertainty how can the Government justify a 3% annual increase in military spending until 2018?

Australia’s current military spending of over $20 billion per year prevents investment in vital social and environmental programs.

Military spending reduces public and private investment, diverts funds and people from civilian research and development, and holds back economic development.

The World Bank has reported that:

" …Evidence increasingly points to high military spending as contributing to fiscal and debt crises, …and negatively affecting economic growth and development." (World Development Report, 1988)

We need to lobby the Government to adopt a non-offensive defence policy, which would require less expensive and more peace-promoting military capabilities. The resulting peace dividend could fund the creation of meaningful jobs to help overcome unemployment and also to regenerate our environment.

It is time to put funds into rebuilding our rural economy, developing infrastructure and ensuring water security. We should restore our failing health, education and welfare systems, rather than spending exorbitant sums on state-of-the-art long-range weapons systems good only for fighting coalition wars, creating mistrust and fuelling arms races.

World Military Spending:

In the decade leading up to today’s economic crisis (1998-2007), global military expenditure rose 45% to $US1.3 trillion in 2007 (SIPRI Yearbook 2008). The USA, epicentre of the looming global recession, is responsible for nearly half world military spending. In the following table (adapted from information available at http://www.globalissues.org/), the comparison of world military spending to other spending priorities speaks for itself.

The world is witnessing the consequences of greed, including military greed, and it is time to start speaking up!

Please click here for a sample letter to Prime Minister Rudd demanding reductions in Australian military spending.

This campaign is AABCC’s contribution to the International Peace Bureau’s Global Call for Action on Military and Social Spending. To find out more, go to www.ipb.org

Two Chamoru representatives from Guam visiting Australia for a month-long international awareness campaign today accused the United States of glaring human rights violations of the indigenous Chamoru people.

“The new wave of U.S. militarization of Guam means to be decisive,” said Chamoru writer Julian Aguon in Sydney today. “It is not simply more of the same. Part of the U.S. military realignment in the Asia-Pacific region includes the controversial relocation of 8,000 U.S. Marines from Okinawa, Japan to Guam. The move will have devastating consequences for the indigenous Chamoru people, who have been struggling for decolonization of their island home.

“The situation of Guam serves as one of the greatest indictments of U.S. democratic legitimacy, as Guam remains one of only 16 non-self-governing territories in the modern world. The military build-up now underway in Guam, which will include an influx of a military personnel population comparable in size to the entire indigenous population (55,000), is being done entirely without the input or consultation of the indigenous people and over their deepening dissent.”

Dr. Lisa Natividad, a professor at the University of Guam, stated that the new wave of military buildup will only worsen the well being of the Chamoru people, who already suffer from the classic symptoms of a colonial condition such as dramatic health disparities. “For example, rates of nasopharyngeal cancer among my people are 2,000% higher than in the United States, and the rate of diabetes is five times the national U.S. average,” Dr Natividad said.

“Although Guam is only 30 miles long, it contains 19 sites designated by the US Environmental Protection Agency as the most highly contaminated and toxic sites in the entire United States.” Dr. Natividad said. These toxins include radioactive and carcinogenic materials, dioxins, etc.

“We come to Australia in the hope of raising awareness about the human rights deprivations of the Chamoru people by the U.S, to build solidarity among the peace and justice groups here and throughout the Asia-Pacific region, who are all endangered by current U.S. militarization of the region,” she said.

What you can do:

Sign the on-line petition.

Send a protest letter to Duncan Kerr, Minister for Pacific Territories.

More about the militarisation of the Pacific in the
Summer 2007 edition of the AABCC Bulletin.