The Flotillas of Hope was a Journey of Hope, to bring hope to the innocent people imprisoned on Nauru by John Howard’s Australian government. Please note that most of the time the plural “Flotillas” is used instead of Flotilla even though on the surface there was only one flotilla of two boats that sailed to Nauru. The reason that Flotillas is used is because all the actions, the ceremonies, the prayers, the chants, the letters, the songs, the rituals, every action,  are ALL flotillas of inner and outer vessels used to bring hope to the refugees imprisoned on Nauru.

The Woomera @ Easter 2002, Baxter @ Easter 2003 and the Flotillas of Hope Actions were not part of an organisation and in fact the websites which supported the Actions have virtually disappeared. The Actions were organic institutes – of – the – moment and like a Tibetan Buddhist sand painting, once the Actions were completed, the organisations like sand grains were blown by the wind to the four corners of the earth. They remain in peoples’  lives that have been transformed by the granting of freedom from the Australian gulags of shame.

When I sent the Call to Action for the human rights social action groups to unite to shame John Howard and highlight the plight of innocent refugees caged on the so called “Pacific Solution” – Nauru, it was deemed an incredibly audacious and unrealistic call. Why? Because Nauru is 4000 kms from Australia and when the call went out, we had no boats, no technology, no crew, no money, indeed, for me – no sailing experience. Well, within 2 weeks of the Call to Action over 250 people from around the planet had joined the new Internet group “Flotillas of Hope”. Within the first two weeks, the creators of the Woomera 2002 website contacted me and created the Flotilla2004 website. Another website was created for digital artists by a film maker and our own Hope Caravan website was the “hub”. A theme song for the project was recorded by Joanna Leigh, “HOPE”. You can download the mp3 version of the song here .. “HOPE…We Bring You Hope” .

Within a short time 2 boats appeared and in the weeks and months before we took off on our journey to Nauru we had received satellite telephones, solar energy inverters, radios, life rafts, money and the incredible creative output of artists and communities across Australia which gave our Cargo of Hope, toys and Teddy Bears for the kids in the gulag.

 

Following the action, asylum was granted to over half the refugees on Nauru and Aladdin Salanin who was in solitary confinement on Manus Island, New Guinea was released.

Along the way to Nauru, the Flotillas docked at Santa Cruz, a far flung island of the Solomon Islands Where they were met by the local indigenous people. The Flotillas carried their cargo through the 12 mile No Go Zone

Below the map is an article written by a close friend who was a member of the Ground Crew. It gives you the background to the Journey. Lynda, along with some others, made sure that our messages sent by the satellite phone would get out to our website people and so to the world.  Lynda was based in Far North NSW. After this article you will find the links I mentioned earlier. After the links and photos of the boats, there is an article by another friend and member of the Ground Crew, Angela. She looked after one of the websites for the project and was based in Melbourne.

Flotilla of Hope (from Zmag)

May 10, 2004 by Lynda Smith

Yacht Eureka

The Eureka is a yacht sailing from Sydney in May 2004 for Nauru, in the Pacific Ocean. Together with other vessels, the Eureka will make a Flotilla of Hope to visit people held in the Nauru Detention Centre and draw attention to the plight of people who come to Australia without the right papers. She is being crewed by people from Sydney, Newcastle (Aust.) and London.

Eureka is a sloop-rigged Swanson 42. Sloop rig means she has one mast, and one headsail. She was designed by Ron Swanson and is 12m / 42 feet long. She is fibreglass construction, and heavily built for cruising rather than racing. She is a double-ender, which means she has two ‘sharp ends’, which is for the purpose of breaking a following sea. She was lovingly built by Rob D and Roger C, and they intended to call her Imagine. Bought by Michael C, ex-Hydrographer (chart-maker) of the Australian Navy, launched in 1981 as Eureka, she sailed around the world. Eureka is now owned by Lance, who has sailed her for the last 10 years up and down the Australian east coast and into the Pacific.

 

The One Off

One Off is a gaff rigged timber vessel, 34 feet long and although launched in 1974 she is a much older style of boat. She is sound and sails well for her type. She was built by Authur and Agnes Pitt for use as both professional fishing and enjoyment. She has a 65HP BMC diesel engine.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Flotillas of Hope

by Angela Mitropoulos
Melbourne, June 3, 2004.

There are currently boats travelling 4,000
kilometres to Australia’s internment camp on
Nauru. This is the most recent culmination of a
series of protests against successive Australian
governments’ policies of interning undocumented
migrants.  The boats are presently at the halfway
mark and, weather permitting, expected to reach
Nauru by June 20.  The crews have been threatened
with imprisonment for crossing borders without the
proper papers.  The importance of the internet to
the communication and character of noborder
protests is here amplified by distance, threats of
violence and the risks of sea travel.

__/__/__/__/__/__/__/__/__/

Some background

It is well known that since 1989, successive
Australian Governments have administered a
notorious policy subsequently referred to the
‘mandatory and non-reviewable detention’ of all
those who arrive by boat and without papers.  This
was a response to the (by international
comparison) extremely small rise in undocumented
boat arrivals after 1989 – many from the Middle
East, Vietnam and Cambodia – whose internment was
often successfully challenged through legal
action.

The post-1989 regime of border policing
effectively and over time legislated that the
refugee determination process exist outside the
rule of law in the form of ministerial and
administrative dictate and be discharged through
concentration camps and military intervention.

It is also well known that in 2002, protesters on
both sides of the barbed wire scaled the fences at
the Woomera internment camp in South Australia and
a number of escapes occurred.
www.woomera2002.antimedia.net Woomera, which
closed shortly after this, was emblematic of the
Australian Government’s strategy of interning
undocumented migrants in remote, rural camps as a
means of containment and control.  Woomera was
located 1,000 kilometres from the nearest capital
city (Adelaide) and, for a time, held the largest
number of detainees.

2002 was the culmination of four years of protests
by detainees in Australia’s internment camps,
including hunger strikes, the destruction of
buildings, and mass escapes.  Many of those
protests were met with tear gas, riot police and
the use of chemical restraints.
www.antimedia.net/xborder

Following this, the Australian Government shifted
its strategy toward a combination of ‘dislocation’
and electrification in an attempt to decompose the
protests against the post-1989 regime of the
camps.  The so-called ‘Pacific Solution’ was
introduced which established camps on Nauru and
Papua New Guinea (Manus Island) funded by the
Australian Government and managed by the
International Organisation for Migration.
Australian military vessels would forcibly remove
undocumented boat arrivals from territorial waters
and Australian islands, and transport them to
those camps in the Pacific.

In Australia, a new technology of internment was
constructed (such as at Baxter) which replaced the
grim (but scalable) coils of barbed wire and steel
fences with hi-tech, refined systems of electronic
barriers, surveillance and a greater reliance on
technological and chemical restraint.  (The
Government has also budgeted for another of these
hi-tech camps in Broadmeadows, Melbourne to
replace the current, smaller one in Maribyrnong.)

The result of these changes to the architecture of
the camps were immediate: the protesters outside
Baxter in 2003 were unable to get close to or even
within sight of any of those imprisoned there,
many of whom had been relocated from Woomera.
www.baxter2003.com
Whereas Woomera2002 had managed to break with the
symbolic character of protests by those outside
the camps; Baxter2003 signalled the restoration of
such, and subsequently ushered in a decline in the
impetus of the movements against the camps.

__/__/__/__/__/__/

Flotilla 2004

Having circulated as an audacious, but regarded as
impractical, strategy after Woomera2002, the idea
of shifting the protests against the camps to the
northern waters of Australia became an imperative
with the inauguration of the ‘Pacific Solution.’
After Baxter, Hopecaravan
distributed a call for boats to travel to the
internment camp on Nauru.  That voyage is
currently underway, with boats presently located
at the halfway mark, and expecting to reach Nauru
by June 20.

The Nauru Government which – given its current
fiscal woes and recent economic bankruptcy –
relies on the continuing funding of the camp as a
source of revenue and employment, has threatened
to suspend maritime convention (the Law of the
Sea) and forcibly seize the boats.  They have also
threatened to imprison the Flotilla crews as
undocumented boat arrivals.  This has not deterred
the crews, who nevertheless require ongoing
support and communication.

Regular updates are available at flotilla2004.com,
as are crew b-logs, instructions on sending text
messages to the crews, and detailed background
reports.

The Australian Government, for its part, has
adopted the pose of detached benevolence – an echo
of its previous, farcical contention that it was
not legally liable for the treatment and
internment of those in the camps because they were
outside Australian jurisdiction.  Facing with an
upcoming election, and as the Flotilla boats were
cheered off from eastern coastal cities, the
Government announced that under half of those
detained on Nauru would be granted visas, and
recently granted a visa to the remaining detainee,
Aladdin Sisalem, on Manus Island.
www.freealaddin.com

These shifts follow a determined hunger strike
last year on Nauru, after which the Government
promised that it would review its rejection of the
applications for asylum by those imprisoned on
Nauru.  www.noborder.org/press/display.php?id=3
The Government has, nevertheless, insisted that
its camps in the Pacific will remain, at a cost of
around $300, 000 per month.

Previously, the Government had refused to grant
visas to those taken hostage from the MV Tampa and
forcibly transported to Nauru. At the time, the
Government insisted that ‘not one of those would
set foot on Australian soil.’   It is abundantly
clear that the definition of who is a refugee and
who is not (or: who is subject to the regime of
the camps in order to classify people along this
axis) is defined by what the Australian Government
imagines to be politically advantageous at any
given time.

Those released from Nauru and PNG have expressed
concern for the fate and safety of those who
remain interned there.  The voyage continues until
the camps are closed.

Angela Mitropoulos
Melbourne, June 3, 2004.

 

The Flotillas of Hope Sailing Crew

The Flotilla of HOPE

A Journey of Compassion to Nauru

https://www.safecom.org.au/flotilla.htm

From Sydney Morning Herald

Activists should get visas: Democrats

June 20, 2004 — 8.05pm

Australian Democrats Leader Andrew Bartlett called on the Nauru government to issue visas to human right advocates who plan to arrive on the island.

The NSW Refugee Action Coalition’s “Flotilla of Hope” is due to arrive on the island carrying teddy bears for children detained on the tiny Pacific nation.

The activists aboard the two yachts – the Eureka and the One Off – planned their arrival to coincide with World Refugee Day, following a 4000km journey from Australia.

Senator Bartlett said the crew have been refused visas.

He said the Flotilla of Hope was a “peaceful protest and should be given visas”.

A spokeswoman for the small Pacific nation said on Sunday it was unlikely the human rights advocates will be allowed onshore.

“At this point it would seem that the president [of Nauru] has not given his permission for visas to be granted,” she said.

“I believe that the boats will be met at sea.

“A peaceful exchange will take place allowing the members of the two boats of the Flotilla to offer their greetings, and hand over the gifts for the children in the camps.”

But a spokesman and a crew member of the two Australian yachts, Stavros Georgopoulos, said the flotilla wanted to make their presence felt on land.

“We’ve got piles and piles of toys and gifts to give to the refugees and personal messages from people from Australia to give to the refugees,” he told ABC Radio.

“There’s a lot of people counting on us to deliver the messages.

“We haven’t travelled 4,000 kilometres just to be fobbed off.”

=====================================================

Flotilla of Hope

ZNet | Asia
by Lynda Smith
May 10, 2004

Back in Easter 2002, a group of concerned people from the Hunter region of NSW, Australia, appalled by the Australian Government’s attitude and policy on asylum seekers, joined the actions of the Festival of Freedoms in the South Australian desert. This became Hope Caravan. Along the way, the ‘O’ in Hope transformed from an organisation to an organism.

In 2003, Hope Caravan went to the Baxter Detention Centre in South Australia. Many strong bonds and friendships were formed with some of those people initiating the Flotillas of Hope project, which in association with Hope Caravan, sails to Nauru this month to arrive on the tiny impoverished Pacific island of Nauru.

This diverse group of people include a research scientist, an award winning film maker, teachers of maritime studies and multicultural education, a shipwright as well as a soccer coach from the Brisbane based, Tigers Refugee team.

Nauru

Nauru is the smallest republic in the world with a population of only 12,000. It not only faces an environmental catastrophe but also economic bankruptcy.

The exploitation of Nauru’s rich source of phosphate began in the early 1900s. After World War l, the Australian, British and New Zealand governments took over the original mining company that had been previously German owned. It was called the British Phosphate Company. As demands grew for fertiliser, so did their profits. However, only 2% of the revenue went to the Nauru people. At the time of Nauru’s independence in 1968, mining had destroyed over one-third of the tiny island. In 1991, Nauru took the Australian Government to the International Court of Justice for the exploitation of its economy and environment. In 1993, Australia settled out-of-court for $57 million with an additional $2.5 million per annum for the next 20 years. By the late 1990’s, the money had all but dried up.

During the Australian federal election in 2001, the Howard government seized the opportunity to pressure Nauru into taking asylum seekers from the shores of Australia in return for many millions of dollars. These refugees were removed by the Australian military in violation of the International Refugee Convention. This was the beginning of “The Pacific Solution”. Many of these people were initially rescued by the now infamous Tampa, a Norwegian Freighter off the Western Australian coast. In denying the Tampa refugees access to the Australian mainland, and their rights under Australian law, Australian Prime Minister, John Howard, said, “whilst this is a humanitarian decent country, we are not a soft touch and we are not a nation whose sovereign rights in relation to who comes here are going to be trampled on”.

Nauru continues to deny entry to all lawyers, journalists and representatives of human rights groups as well as independent doctors and psychiatrists from assessing the health of the refugees.

Nauru has since been called Australia’s Guantanamo Bay.

These refugees merely sought to flee life-threatening persecution and repression, economic deprivation and poverty and to bring themselves and their families to a safe and secure environment. This must be surely the most basic right of any individual, yet in seeking to exercise it, they have come face to face with the Australian army.

In the last week, three Australian lawyers were ordered off Nauru before they had a chance to appear in a court case challenging the legality of the island’s detention centre for asylum seekers. Their visas were revoked by Nauru’s Minister for Justice, Russell Kun. On April 27, he appointed his uncle, former Finance Minister and paralegal “pleader”, Reuben Kun, to present the detainees’ case.

Manus Island

There are approximately 21 million refugees worldwide, yet there is only one who is on a remote island in solitary confinement. The Australian government pays $23,000 per day to detain Aladdin Sisalem, a 25 year old man who has suffered persecution most of his life. The son of a Palestinian refugee (his father) and an Egyptian mother, Aladdin was born in Kuwait. Persecuted in his home country, he began a perilous journey in search of a country that would accept him, travelling via West Papua, Papua New Guinea, finally arriving in the Torres Straight Islands, where he was seized by the Australian Police before being taken to Thursday Island. When he asked Australian authorities for asylum, he was removed and taken to a detention centre set up by the Australian Government on Manus Island in Papua New Guinea. Even if he wanted to return, Kuwait will not take Aladdin back after his period of absence. Egypt does not want him. Israel does not consider his “right of return” as a Palestinian.

It is noted that the 1948 Universal Declaration Human Rights, Article 14, states “everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution”. Ongoing, indefinite suffering by asylum seekers both here and on the offshore detention centres is a clear indication that these basic human rights are being violated.

On 15th May, Flotillas of Hope departs Sydney Harbour, sailing up the east coast of Australia, converging in Brisbane, before departing for Nauru on 23rd May. The boats should arrive at Nauru on 20th June (World Refugee Day) with their “Cargo of Hope” which will include toys, educational, recreational items and a generator for the country’s hospital.

The voyage of this Flotilla recalls the old law of the sea – which obliges us to give assistance to anyone in peril, without regard for flags – and seeks to open a multitude of flows toward a new world for which maps are yet to be created.

Therefore, the Flotilla will use a diversity of tactics: boats converging to Australia’s north in mid-2004 crewed by autonomous affinity groups; media streams and online protests; radio waves and OpenFlow events.

Flotilla of Hope

ZNet | Asia
by Lynda Smith
May 10, 2004

Back in Easter 2002, a group of concerned people from the Hunter region of NSW, Australia, appalled by the Australian Government’s attitude and policy on asylum seekers, joined the actions of the Festival of Freedoms in the South Australian desert. This became Hope Caravan. Along the way, the ‘O’ in Hope transformed from an organisation to an organism.

In 2003, Hope Caravan went to the Baxter Detention Centre in South Australia. Many strong bonds and friendships were formed with some of those people initiating the Flotillas of Hope project, which in association with Hope Caravan, sails to Nauru this month to arrive on the tiny impoverished Pacific island of Nauru.

This diverse group of people include a research scientist, an award winning film maker, teachers of maritime studies and multicultural education, a shipwright as well as a soccer coach from the Brisbane based, Tigers Refugee team.

Nauru

Nauru is the smallest republic in the world with a population of only 12,000. It not only faces an environmental catastrophe but also economic bankruptcy.

The exploitation of Nauru’s rich source of phosphate began in the early 1900s. After World War l, the Australian, British and New Zealand governments took over the original mining company that had been previously German owned. It was called the British Phosphate Company. As demands grew for fertiliser, so did their profits. However, only 2% of the revenue went to the Nauru people. At the time of Nauru’s independence in 1968, mining had destroyed over one-third of the tiny island. In 1991, Nauru took the Australian Government to the International Court of Justice for the exploitation of its economy and environment. In 1993, Australia settled out-of-court for $57 million with an additional $2.5 million per annum for the next 20 years. By the late 1990’s, the money had all but dried up.

During the Australian federal election in 2001, the Howard government seized the opportunity to pressure Nauru into taking asylum seekers from the shores of Australia in return for many millions of dollars. These refugees were removed by the Australian military in violation of the International Refugee Convention. This was the beginning of “The Pacific Solution”. Many of these people were initially rescued by the now infamous Tampa, a Norwegian Freighter off the Western Australian coast. In denying the Tampa refugees access to the Australian mainland, and their rights under Australian law, Australian Prime Minister, John Howard, said, “whilst this is a humanitarian decent country, we are not a soft touch and we are not a nation whose sovereign rights in relation to who comes here are going to be trampled on”.

Nauru continues to deny entry to all lawyers, journalists and representatives of human rights groups as well as independent doctors and psychiatrists from assessing the health of the refugees.

Nauru has since been called Australia’s Guantanamo Bay.

These refugees merely sought to flee life-threatening persecution and repression, economic deprivation and poverty and to bring themselves and their families to a safe and secure environment. This must be surely the most basic right of any individual, yet in seeking to exercise it, they have come face to face with the Australian army.

In the last week, three Australian lawyers were ordered off Nauru before they had a chance to appear in a court case challenging the legality of the island’s detention centre for asylum seekers. Their visas were revoked by Nauru’s Minister for Justice, Russell Kun. On April 27, he appointed his uncle, former Finance Minister and paralegal “pleader”, Reuben Kun, to present the detainees’ case.

Manus Island

There are approximately 21 million refugees worldwide, yet there is only one who is on a remote island in solitary confinement. The Australian government pays $23,000 per day to detain Aladdin Sisalem, a 25 year old man who has suffered persecution most of his life. The son of a Palestinian refugee (his father) and an Egyptian mother, Aladdin was born in Kuwait. Persecuted in his home country, he began a perilous journey in search of a country that would accept him, travelling via West Papua, Papua New Guinea, finally arriving in the Torres Straight Islands, where he was seized by the Australian Police before being taken to Thursday Island. When he asked Australian authorities for asylum, he was removed and taken to a detention centre set up by the Australian Government on Manus Island in Papua New Guinea. Even if he wanted to return, Kuwait will not take Aladdin back after his period of absence. Egypt does not want him. Israel does not consider his “right of return” as a Palestinian.

It is noted that the 1948 Universal Declaration Human Rights, Article 14, states “everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution”. Ongoing, indefinite suffering by asylum seekers both here and on the offshore detention centres is a clear indication that these basic human rights are being violated.

On 15th May, Flotillas of Hope departs Sydney Harbour, sailing up the east coast of Australia, converging in Brisbane, before departing for Nauru on 23rd May. The boats should arrive at Nauru on 20th June (World Refugee Day) with their “Cargo of Hope” which will include toys, educational, recreational items and a generator for the country’s hospital.

The voyage of this Flotilla recalls the old law of the sea – which obliges us to give assistance to anyone in peril, without regard for flags – and seeks to open a multitude of flows toward a new world for which maps are yet to be created.

Therefore, the Flotilla will use a diversity of tactics: boats converging to Australia’s north in mid-2004 crewed by autonomous affinity groups; media streams and online protests; radio waves and OpenFlow events.

From: http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=44&ItemID=5498

====================================================================

Human rights activists on mission of mercy to Nauru

Sydney Morning Herald
By Sarah Price
May 9, 2004
The Sun-Herald

Human rights activists are embarking on a 4000-kilometre trip to Nauru to draw attention to the “innocent” asylum seekers on the island republic.

“We’re going to give them hope and highlight the plight of these innocent people,” crew member Stavros Georgopoulos said.

The nine activists who will be sailing in two boats, the Eureka and the One Off, under the banner Flotillas of Hope, will go armed with teddy bears and toys for the detained children and an electricity generator for a hospital on the island “as a gesture of goodwill from ordinary Australian people to the Nauruans”.

But Mr Georgopoulos is unsure of whether they will even be able to land on Nauru to deliver their gifts to the asylum seekers.

Their applications for tourist visas have been knocked back and he is doubtful they will be able to get on to the island.

But that is not going to stop them trying and Mr Georgopoulos says they will be “Australian citizens who will be illegal boat people” in Nauru.

The Department of Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs said last week that 260 people were still being held in the processing centre on Nauru, 74 of whom are children.

A spokeswoman said the department was currently examining the files of the Afghan asylum seekers at the facility against the updated country information from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and decisions were expected to be handed down shortly.

Decisions on the applications from the other asylum seekers were also pending, she said.

A spokeswoman for the Nauru government, Helen Bogdan, said the activists would be likely to be turned away from the island just like anyone would be turned away from any country if they did not have the appropriate visas.

Ms Bogdan also said she would caution anyone travelling to Nauru in a small boat because it was isolated and surrounded by a dangerous reef.

The activists will leave Sydney on May 15 and hope to reach Nauru on June 20, which is World Refugee Day.

The trip follows others Mr Georgopoulos has made to the Woomera detention centre at Easter in 2002 and the Baxter detention centre in 2003 to visit detainees.

“One of the reasons we went to these particular camps is because they are isolated in the desert, they didn’t get very many visitors,” he said.

Mr Georgopoulos said the Federal Government’s Pacific solution was keeping the issue of asylum seekers “out of sight and out of mind”.

“We’re going to make sure we bring it in sight and in mind,” he said.

“It’s a problem, a big problem from a human rights angle.”

One of the crew members, a British man, is flying out from England to take part in the trip.

Mr Georgopoulos said the crew member, Timothy Perkins, found out about Flotillas of Hope on the internet.

The activists have raised $20,000 to help fund the trip and to buy the gifts for the asylum seekers.

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/05/08/1083911461429.html

==============================================================

A flotilla of Hope to Nauru

AAP Adelaide
By Lauren Ahwan
December 3, 2003

Refugee advocates are planning to sail to Nauru to highlight the plight of asylum seekers.

Supporter Stavros Georgopoulos today said the plan, dubbed Flotillas of Hope, would be similar to Easter protests held over the last few years at South Australia’s Baxter and Woomera detention centres, but promised it would be peaceful.

“We’re not going there to liberate them (detainees) and break them out – that’s stupid, where would we go?” Mr Georgopoulos said.

“We’re just going there to be with them. Just this action itself is radical enough. “Instead of going to the desert, we’re going to the ocean.”

Mr Georgopoulos said since raising the Flotilla of Hope idea two weeks ago, at least 35 refugee advocates had confirmed they would sail to Nauru and he was now in the process of securing boats.

Interest had also been shown by supporters in the US, England and New Zealand, he said. “Personally, I would love to see 353 boats, with each boat symbolising one of the deaths on the SIEV X (which sank during its voyage to Australia in October 2001),” Mr Georgopoulos said.

“We want to give hope to the refugees at Nauru and shame (Prime Minister John) Howard by putting the spotlight on the issue and showing that these island prisoners do exist.

“My deeper, deeper vision is to raise enough money to buy a boat so, just like there’s the Greenpeace Warrior, we could have the Hope Warrior sailing around permanently.”

Mr Georgopoulos said the trip to Nauru was planned for June or August next year and would take two months, including one week on the island. Last Easter at Baxter 32 protesters were arrested during clashes with police.

The previous year at the now-mothballed Woomera centre, 50 detainees escaped en masse, aided by protesters who tore down perimeter fences.

AAP la/cbs/br

[as posted on the newswire – no URL]

==============================================================

Refugee advocates to set sail for Nauru

SBS World News
3.12.2003
18:03:15

Refugee advocates say they plan to sail to Nauru to highlight the plight of asylum seekers.

The plan, dubbed the Flotillas of Hope, would be similar to the Easter protests held at South Australia’s Baxter and Woomera detention centres.

But refugee supporter Stavros Georgopoulos promises it will be peaceful.

Mr Georgopoulos says the protesters are not going to try to help the detainees in Nauru break out of the detention centre there.

Instead, he says the protesters are going to the Pacific island just to be with them.

Mr Georgopoulos says, since raising the idea two weeks ago, at least 35 refugee advocates have confirmed they will sail to Nauru.

He says he in the process of securing boats for the two-month journey, planned for June or August next year.

Last Easter at Baxter, 32 protesters were arrested during clashes with police.

The previous year at the former Woomera centre, 50 detainees escaped as a group, aided by protesters who tore down perimeter fences.

http://www9.sbs.com.au/theworldnews/region.php?id=74258&region=7

Supporting organisations and people:

Act Elemental, Jim Allen, Anarchist Action, Tobias Andreasson, Jack Aschmann, Asylum Seeker Resource Centre, Atlantis Ecological Community, Australian Education Union, Julie Bailey, Wolfgang Bauer, John Bell, Andrew Blanckensee, boat-people.org, Nigel Boettiger, Bonny Pirates, Cyndi Boste, M.Christine Boulan-Smit, Boundless Plains to Share, Peter Bouquet, Ruth Boydell, Reverend Dr Brian Brown, Dave Brown, Alison Buchanan, Sue Christopherson, Deepchild, The Australian Democrats, DJ Dreadful, Pat Drummond, Drummond family @ MacMasters, Ecumenical Social Justice Group, Allan El-Khad, Elissa Elvidge, Eowynne Feeny-Scott, John Foley, Bettina Frankham, Peter C Friis, Lee Frost, Stavros Georgopoulos, Hasan Ghulam, Girruwaa Yarrundanginya Dance Group, Great Lakes RAR, Anne Goddard, Grandmaster Monk, Greens Queensland, Greens NSW, Marty Greig, Caroline Greville, Kim Grierson, Sandra Griffin, Rachel Hannan, Matt Hamon, Duncan Harty, Daniel Harvey, Jennifer Harwood, Craig Hendry, Bishop Roger Herft, Hinkler Burnett Greens, Hemp Embassy, Nonie Hodgson, HOPE Caravan, Annie Hughes, Bernadette Jameson, James Jarvis, Tony Kevin, Saeed Khan, Kill your tv, Peter Kingston, Helena Kitely, Vivien Langford, Mary La Rosa, Ezra Lee, Joanna Leigh, Le Minibus, Last-First Networks, Launceston Peace Action Network, Lebanese Muslims Association, Lesbian & Gay Solidarity, A & J Lloyd, Sarah Love, Lily Ma, Euan Macloud, Mahesh, Neil Mallard, Bishop Michael Mallone, Jennene Marum, Beth Mackenzie, Cherie McCosker, Reg Mombazza, Marty Morrison, Daniel Moss, Muel, Peter Murphy, Muslim Women’s National Network, National Tertiary Education Union NSW, Nauru Wire, Newcastle Action for Refugee Rights, Newcastle City Council, Newcastle Greens, Newcastle Uni Students’ Assoc, Nimbin Museum, No One Is Illegal, NSW Teachers’ Federation, Octapod, Michael Organ MP, Pacific Connections, Jane Paterson, Peace Boat, Peace Movement Aotearoa, Power Box Productions, Project Missing Link/Fri, Project SafeCom Inc, Queensland Peace Network, Chris Raab, Random Crew, Reclaim the Streets Syd, Refugee Action Coalition Sydney, Refugee Action Collective Victoria, Refugee Action Collective Qld, Refugee Rights Action Network, Lillian Reilly, Resistance, Liesel Rickerby, Dr & Mrs Romney Newman, Lisa Rosenberg, David Ross, Gillian Ross, Arif Ruhani, Rural Australians for Refugees, Barry Rutherford, Salarium, S-A-V-E Australia Inc, Martin Sharp, Roslyn Sharp, Search Foundation, Lynda Smith, Socialist Alliance, Danielle Storey, Rachael Stacy, Starhawk, Tierranostra, John Tomlinson, Treason, TPV Legal Centre, Paul Troyano, Paul Tully, Maureen Turner, Saif Uddin, Uniting Church Adelaide, Anousha Victoire, Denise Vietch, Voices from the Vacant Lot, Volunteers for Tawo, Jody Warren, Ronald Webb, Nick Wood, xborder, Young Christian Workers.

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