Will Howard is a climate scientist and long-time webdiarist commenter. His previous piece for Webdiary was The Repeal of Israel [0]

by Will Howard

Preface: I decided an "allegorical" approach might be a better one to take with regard to some of the "hot-button" issues that come up repeatedly on Webdiary. I would like to try an experiment, with the consent and cooperation of the editors and other Webdiarists. Instead of replying in the usual way, I would like to treat this as if it were an evolving news story we were following. I would like comments on this piece to be in the form of further press releases, on the same fictional situation. The advantage of this approach is that no one need get into bunfights about the "facts." There are no facts in this contribution. Only the places named actually exist.

AUSTRALIAN ATTACKS STOKE REGIONAL TENSIONS

AIP (Australian Imaginary Press): Sometime in the Fictional Future

Aboriginal "militants" of the Peoples' Front for the Liberation of Indigenous Australia, based in West Timor, launched a series of rocket attacks on Darwin yesterday from boats in the Timor Sea. They say they are acting on behalf of their aboriginal brothers who have endured centuries of oppression and dispossession from the racist regime in Canberra. Canberra, they say, is the capital of an illegitimate colonialist regime; the rulers of a rogue state whose very existence as a settler society is based on a policy of genocide. They are allied with the Popular Movement for Melanesian Solidarity based in Bougainville, whose Uluru Martyrs' Brigade have claimed responsibility for boat-based suicide bombings on Cooktown and Port Douglas marinas. Both movements have the stated goal of "restoring Australia to its original owners, and ejecting the Anglospherean interlopers."

They have finally decided to act, they say, because they are tired of waiting for "justice." If the centuries-long policies of ethnic cleansing and "apartheid" settlements are not reversed by the criminal regime in Canberra, then those historically wronged must take matters into their own hands. They have decided to attack the "racist" and "Angloist" regime directly to restore their people's valid historical claim to the land.

Following a RAN attack on a West Timor-based boat suspected of carrying portable rockets, the PFLIA leadership in Kupang has issued a communique calling upon the UN Security Council to intervene to stop Australian "war crimes." Spokesmen for the PFLIA claim international law supports their actions, and assert Australia's "cultural genocide" abrogates its right to sovereignty. According to the announcement, "England had no right to solve its convict problem on the backs of the original owners of Australia. These innocent victims had committed no crimes in England. Why weren't these penal colonies established in one of the many other British colonies?" The communique goes on to suggest that all non-indigenous Australians should be relocated to Canada ,India, or possibly Jamaica. (All three were British colonies in 1788.) A spokesmen for the PFLIA said non- indigenous Australians who had been historically victimised by "imperialist oppression," such as Polynesians and Melanesians, would be allowed to stay in Australia on the equivalent of permanent residency visas once the "historical wrongs of 1788" had been righted.

Spokesmen for the governments of Indonesia and Papua New Guinea say they are "helpless" to act against the attackers. Though they "deplore" the attacks and say the deaths of innocent Australians are "regrettable," they warn Australia that any military response could be "disproportionate" and would risk escalating tensions in the region. The UN Secretary General has called on "all sides" to show "restraint" to prevent an escalating "cycle" of violence. Australia's UN Ambassador said his country had "no desire to violate the sovereignty of its neighbor nations" but noted "we have an obligation to defend our citizens."

Residents of Darwin, Port Douglas, and Cooktown have been demanding firmer action against the land bases of the PFLIA and PMMS to bring the attacks to a halt. The evacuation of school-age children and hospital patients from Darwin continued after a day-care centre was hit by a rocket. 23 preschoolers, 11 of them indigenous Australians, were killed. The state and territory governments and Parliamentary delegations of Northern Territory and Queensland issued scathing criticisms of the Government, asking why they have been "abandoned" by Canberra. One Government backbencher from a Far North Queensland electorate, speaking on condition of anonymity, said "If rockets were falling on Melbourne or Sydney, everyone knows damn well there would have been action already. This is just another example of Canberra's neglect of regional Australia."