ANI 101 Winter 2022
AUSTRALIAN
NATIONAL INDEPENDENT
A NEW GOVERNMENT – But will anything be different?
MURDER RATES
AUSTRALIAN CENSUS 2021
BAN ON SWASTIKA FLAG
HISTORY: Teddy Sheean, VC
BOOK REVIEWS: We Hominids
Plaasmoorde
Balcony over Jerusalem
Africa’s Killing Fields
NUMBER ONE HUNDRED AND ONE WINTER 2022
A NEW GOVERNMENT – BUT WILL ANYTHING IMPROVE?
The federal election in May saw a victory for Anthony Albanese and the Australian Labor Party. The Coalition lost a number of seats, not all of them picked up by Labor. A feature of the election results was the large number of seats that went to independent candidates. Of the 151 seats in the House of Representatives the results are:
Australian Labor Party 77
Liberal / National Coalition 58
Centre Alliance 1
Katters Australia Party 1
The Greens 4
Independents 10
No doubt the Greens will support Labor. (1) So what can we expect from the new government – anything radical and useful or much of the same we had under the Coalition government? Unfortunately in many things it will be the same. Immigration was largely ignored in the election campaigning and it looks like we will soon go back to the excessively large immigration numbers we had up to the arrival of Covid-19.
The economic argument for mass immigration doesn’t stack up. As discussed previously, in the years 2015-2019 we had, relative to population, one of the largest immigration intakes in the developed world with population growth over this period averaging about 1.57% but economic growth only about 2.44%. Our foreign debt grew substantially, growing by about 3.96% in 2018 and 7.44% in 2017. (2) And what happened with Covid-19?
In 2020, with the lockdowns due to the disease, the economy slowed and in fact went backwards by 1.1%. Population in 2021 tended to grow less than average, in fact by only 0.5% for the year. We actually lost people due to migration being negative by 3,600. People however kept having children and the natural increase was 138,500, resulting in a net increase of 0.5%. (3) The economy rebounded and grew by 4.2%, not the 3.4% we inadvertently said in or last issue. (4) This was despite, or because of, negative immigration and foreign debt growing at a much slower rate.
Not only does the Labor government appear to be keen to encourage migrants but wants to take in more from Pacific nations. Apart from easier temporary visas for these people to work here they plan a ballot or lottery to give 3,000 people the right to settle here. (5) We already have a problem with migrants from Samoa and Tonga who are more likely to be in prison than people born in Australia. (6) The crime in some Pacific nations is at a pretty horrific level with the homicide rate in New Guinea being worse than in the United States. (7) We can look forward to more crime – especially violent crime like murder.
One of the first acts of the Albanese government was to let the Murugappan family to settle in the town of Biloela in Queensland. The family claimed they would be persecuted if returned to Sri Lanka. (8) The new government will maintain the policy of boat turn backs of illegals but plans to get rid of temporary protection visas. Will the Albanese government make as big a mess of the refugee issue as the Rudd/Gilliard government did? Hopefully not.
And it looks like the new parliament will have eight senators and three members of the House of Representatives identifying as Indigenous, a greater proportion than in Australia’s population. (9)
(1) Australian Electoral Commission https://tallyroom.aec.gov.au
(2) Averages derived from Australian Bureau of Statistics website.
(3) Australian Bureau of Statistics
(4) https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/economy/national-accounts/australi... 2/03/2022
(6) Australian Bureau of Statistics, 45170DO002_2021 Prisoners in Australia, 2021
(8) Peta Credlin, “Labor Just Started the Boats”, Sunday Telegraph, 12June 2022
(9) Parliamentary Education Office, https://peo.gov.au/
COMPARISON OF MURDER RATES
Here are some examples of murder rates in the United States, Australia and some of our Pacific neighbours in 2020. Rates are per 100,000 of population.
United States 5.3 Australia 0.8 Cook Islands 3.49
Kiribati 7.5 New Guinea 7.85 Samoa 3.15
Solomon Island 3.77 Tonga 0.95 Vanuatu 2.13
These figures are taken from the world atlas website and appear a bit low, especially the figure for the United States. Nevertheless they show that Australia has a comparatively low murder rate.
AUSTRALIAN CENSUS -2021
Statistics from the 2021 Census are coming out and show how Australia is changing demographically. Here are a few that stand out.
INDIGENOUS Australians or at least those who identify as Indigenous have increased in numbers by 163,550 (25.2%) and now total 812,721. Those identifying as Indigenous increased by 37.5% in the ACT and 37.4% in Victoria but only by 16.7% in Western Australia and 4.9% in the Northern Territory. The Indigenous are 3.2% of those counted.
POPULATION of Australia grew by 8.6% since the 2016 census to reach 25,422,788. The fastest rate of growth was in the ACT at 14.4%, followed by Victoria at 9.7%, Queensland at 9.6%. The slowest rate of growth was in the Northern Territory at 1.6%.
MEDIAN AGE of the Australian population remained at 38 years. In Tasmania it is the highest at 42 and in the Northern Territory the lowest at 33 Years. The population in each age bracket has increased since 2016 but the proportion in the lower age brackets has fallen and in the older brackets, especially the over 50s, has increased.
OVERSEAS-BORN people have increased as a proportion of the Australian population and now constitute 29.3%of the total. In Victoria the proportion is 30% and in Western Australia 32.2%.
COUNTRIES of ORIGIN for our overseas-born population are mainly England, India, China and New Zealand. In the Northern Territory the largest group of migrants comes from the Philippines. Tasmania and the ACT have attracted a lot of Sri Lankans while Western Australia has a lot from South Africa. Of 44,889 South Africa-born people in this country, 38,793 live in Western Australia.
POST-SCHOOL education is changing with the number of 15 to 24-year-olds in University and other higher education falling by 3.2%, due to fewer in full-time attendance. However there has been a big increase, 23.6% in fact, in the number in vocational education.
MEDIAN INCOME per week for individuals increased by $205 in the ACT since 2016 but only by $65 in the Northern Territory.
RELIGIOUS changes resulting in the number of those claiming to be Christians dropping from 52.1% in 2016, down in 43.9% in 2021. The number saying they had no religion rose to 30.1%. The number of Hindus rose by 55% to 684,002, and they are now 2.7% of the population. The number of Muslims rose to 813,392 or 3.2% of the population.
LANGUAGES spoken other than English include Mandarin, 685,274 people and Arabic, 367,159 people.
REGISTERED MARRIAGES accounted for almost 10 million Australians but there were over one million in one-parent families, four out of five being headed by females. More than 1.8 million were divorced, 674,590 were separated and more than a million were widowed.
“Census 2021”, The Australian, 29 June 2022
“Census Data” Daily Telegraph, 28 June 2022
BAN ON SWASTIKA FLAG
The Victorian government has passed a law banning the swastika flag as used by Nazi Germany. Those flying the flag or putting up a swastika can be fined up to $22,000, get twelve months jail, or both. Exceptions are made for swastikas used by certain religions such as Hindus and Jains. Queensland is planning similar legislation following an incident when a Nazi flag was flown from a building near a synagogue in Brisbane. The New South Wales (NSW) and Tasmanian governments plan to follow suit. (1)
Exactly why it is necessary to ban the flag of Nazi Germany 77 years after the defeat of that country in World War II is hard to fathom. There is no plan to ban the flags of the Stalinist Soviet Union or Imperial Japan despite the atrocities carried out by those regimes.
Meanwhile in NSW the government intended to fly the Aboriginal flag permanently from the Sydney Harbour Bridge at a cost of $25 million, as well as handing over Goat Island in Sydney harbour to Aborigines. After an outcry about the cost it was decided to save money by replacing the NSW state flag, which currently flies from the bridge, with the Aboriginal flag. (2)
More political correctness or rather political repression by the authorities is the plan to train prison officers to identify right-wing extremist symbols tattoos such as the Celtic cross or “Pepe the Frog” tattoos under a program to fight radicalisation. They will be taught to identify white supremacist, anti-Semitic and anti-Islamic ideology and hate speech. (3)
Violence motivated by religion is said to be the biggest concern for counter-terror authorities but during the pandemic it’s claimed there was a rise in young people being targeted by ideological extremism as well. Investigations by joint counter-terrorism teams are split at 85% concentrating on religiously motivated extremism and 15% ideologically motivated extremism, but the split in arrests is 75% and 25% respectively. (4)
One person arrested and convicted was Tyler Jakovic, 20, who is said to have urged followers to defend the white race and to have idolised Adolf Hitler and the Christchurch mosque shooter Brenton Tarrant. He pleaded guilty to spreading hate speech. (5)
There seems to be more than a little bias involved. Those on the “right” such as white nationalists seem to attract disproportionate attention compared to leftists or Islamic extremists.
It’s not surprising that research shows that a big proportion of Australians feel they are forced to hide their views on social issues and politics as a result of cancel culture. Those who say they are “self-censoring” tend to be the young, and baby boomers are the ones who hate cancel culture the most. (6)
One person who didn’t self-censor was One Nation leader Pauline Hanson who stormed out of Parliament over the “acknowledgement of country” which mentions the Ngunnawal and Ngambri people (i.e. Aboriginal tribes). She was also upset by a motion that would see the Aboriginal flag displayed in the Senate. She described these as “nothing but decisive”. (7)
(1) www.sbs.com.au 26 May 2022
(2) Tom Rabe, “Aboriginal Flag to Fly Forever Above the Bridge”, Sun-Herald, 19 June 2022
(3) Linda Silmalis, “Tatts the Way to Stop the Hate”, Sunday Telegraph, 17 July 2022
(4) Angelica Snowden, “Religiously Driven Terror Main Threat”, The Australian, 24 June 2022
(5) www.bordermail.com.au 24 June 2022
(6) Clarissa Bye, “It’s the Young and the Voiceless”, Daily Telegraph, 13 July 2022
(7) Sarah Ison, “No Welcome as Fired Up Hanson Walks Out”, The Australian, 28 July 2022
CLOSING THE GAP STILL NOT WORKING
A survey by the Productivity Commission has found some serious disparities between the Indigenous and non-Indigenous remain, or are getting worse, but in some areas there has been some progress. Both the suicide rate and incarceration rate for Indigenous people has gotten worse. On the other hand the number of Aboriginal children in pre-school has risen from 76.7% in 2016 to 96.7% last year. The number of Indigenous babies with a healthy birthweight has increased from 88.8% in 2017 to 89.5% in 2019. However more Indigenous children start school with their development behind than four years ago, and the rate at which they are removed from their immediate families has increased.
Paige Taylor, “Gap Still Wide on Key Measures”, The Australian, 28 July 2022
SCIENCE
NEW SPECIES: A skull that was found during the construction of a bridge in China back in 1933, but was hidden away for 85 years, may be that of a previously unknown relative of modern humans, and more closely related to us than the Neanderthals. The skull is long like that of Neanderthals but has cheekbones similar to modern humans. It is believed the skull is from an individual who lived 146,000 years ago when the area was so cold that the species must have been able to build shelters and create fire in order to survive. While some have named the skull as being a new species, Homo longi, also known as Dragon Man, there is a lot of controversy about its exact identity. It could for instance actually be of the Denisovan species. Other hard to identify fossils of ancient people have been discovered in parts of China such as the Dali skull from Shaanxi.
Trying to form a family tree that includes Dragon Man, Neanderthals and Homo sapiens has caused some more controversy. Dragon Man appears to be closer to us than the Neanderthals and the evolutionary split between Neanderthals and Homo sapiens has been pushed back 400,000 years to a million years ago, which would mean that Homo sapiens was in Europe and Asia 400,000 years ago. There is so far no fossil evidence of Homo sapiens existing that far back in time.
Antje Gerd Poulsen, “This ‘Species’ is Our Closest Relative”, Science Illustrated, Issue #91
THE LUNAR SOCIETY: Soho House in Birmingham, England is now a museum but it was once the meeting place of a society that included people who came up with science and inventions that are still used today. The members were tradesmen craftsmen and ordinary gentlemen who began meeting in the 1760s to exchange scientific discoveries and experiments. One member was Erasmus Darwin who invented a mechanical copier and operating system that was later used by Henry Ford. He also proposed the evolution of animals, an idea that was developed into a theory by his grandson, Charles Darwin. Other important people were Matthew Boulton who invented the assembly line manufacturing, James Watt who developed the first efficient and useful steam powered machine, Joseph Priestly who discovered oxygen and invented fizzy drinks using water and carbon dioxide, and Josiah Wedgewood who invented modern sales methods with branding, ads and return guarantees.
Esben Monster-Kjare, “Ingenious Thinkers Changed the World”, Science Illustrated, Issue #91
DARK EMU: Bruce Pascoe’s book, “Dark Emu” claimed that Indigenous Australians practised some form of agriculture. Now some scientists are doing research to see if there is evidence that Aboriginals may have domesticated some plant species. Seed grinding quarry sites with grinding stones for processing grain have been identified. There are records of a village of 103 huts in Mithaka country – the Channel country of southwest Queensland, although it is unlikely that they were permanently occupied.
Michael Westaway, “Testing the Dark Emu Hypothesis”, Cosmos Magazine, Issue 95
WARFARE AND COMPLEX CIVILISATIONS: Scientists have created a Global History Databank which allows them to study questions about whether cooperation or conflict drove societies to become more complex. There appears to be good evidence that complexity was driven by external warfare. For example chariot warfare appeared and spread in Eurasia and Africa about 3700 years ago and a few centuries later societies much larger emerged such as the million square kilometre Egyptian New Kingdom.
Colin Barras, “Did Warfare Give Rise to Complex Civilisations?” New Scientist, 2 July 2022
WALLACEA: Pre-historic Wallacea, which are now the islands of Eastern Indonesia have a long history of human occupation, at least for 47,000 years, and were a corridor for humans migrating to the Pleistocene Australia-New Guinea landmass (Sahul). Using ancient DNA from 16 individuals found in different islands in Wallacea has found striking differences. There was early admixture between migrants from mainland Southeast Asia, who seem to be similar to modern day Austroasiatic speakers, and Papuans. Austronesians came later. www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/06/220609131924.htm
HISTORY
TEDDY SHEEAN VC
Coming under serious attack by Japanese aircraft in the tropical seas north of Darwin, the corvette HMAS Armidale was sunk and most of the crew abandoned ship. One brave seaman, Teddy Sheean, stayed on board firing an Oerlikon anti-aircraft cannon until the ship went under. His brave efforts were unfortunately not given due credit at the time.
Edward, more commonly referred to as Teddy, Sheean was born in Barrington in northern Tasmania in December 1923. He was the fourteenth born in a family of 16 children. The family appear not to be particularly well off and Teddy left school when he was 13 and went to work on a nearby farm.
With the outbreak of World War II six of Teddy’s brothers signed up to fight. In April 1941 Teddy also signed up and became an ordinary seaman in the Australian Navy.
Although he never married, Sheean did become engaged to Kathleen Ruby Lapthorne, also from Tasmania, in fact Devonport. Kathleen is said to have worn an engagement ring for the rest of her life.
Teddy did his initial navy training in Tasmania, received some sea-going experience on the minesweeper HMAS Coombar, and then was posted to Flinders Naval Depot on Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula.
Before joining the crew of the Armidale Teddy was given further training at HMAS Penguin, a shore base in Sydney. He was trained on the handling of the close-range anti-aircraft 20 mm Oerlikon cannon which were used on the Bathurst class corvettes such as the Armidale. Three of these guns were mounted on the vessels and were the most prolific weapons used by the British and Commonwealth navies. The Oerlikon incidentally were of Swiss design.
Sheean was billeted on the ill-fated Kuttabul, a converted ferry moored alongside Garden Island. On the 29 May 1942 three midget submarines entered Sydney Harbour and a torpedo from one of these destroyed the Kuttabul killing 21 naval ratings. Luckily for Sheean he was on leave in Tasmania at the time.
In October 1942, HMAS Armidale sailed for Darwin and arrived on 7 November. She joined other corvettes as part of the 24th Minesweeping Flotilla.
Australia built 60 corvettes during the war, 56 for our navy and four for the Indian navy. They were used in a number of roles, including as escorts for troop transport and as minesweepers. Some carried depth charges for use against submarines. They also carried .50 calibre machine guns.
At the time the Armidale was stationed at Darwin the city was regularly attacked by the Japanese although it never suffered again the level of damage inflicted in the attack in February that year when at least 236 people were killed and 11 ships sunk. On the 30 November the Armidale was called on to voyage to Timor in company with another corvette HMAS Castlemaine. As well as their crew these vessels carried several dozen Dutch soldiers.
A few hours after leaving Darwin the ships noticed Japanese aircraft but were ordered to continue their mission. Although Armidale avoided attacks by the Japanese the interruptions meant she missed the rendezvous in Timor and was ordered to return there. They did however meet with the motorboats HMAS Kuru and Castlemaine. The latter then returned to Darwin.
Armidale and Kuru headed for Betano in Timor but both were subject to Japanese attack and became separated. Kuru almost exhausted her ammunition, shrapnel penetrated her hull and three of her crew were wounded. She was ordered back to Darwin and arrived there on 3 December.
Meanwhile on 1 December the Armidale was attacked by Japanese bombers but managed to fight them off. Shortly after the Japanese attacked with 13 aircraft, nine bombers, three Zeros and a float plane. The attackers used aerial torpedoes, bombs and machine guns. The Armidale manoeuvred to avoid the bombs and opened up with her guns.
There is some controversy about which weapons hit the Armidale but at least one torpedo and probably two hit their mark. Possibly one bomb also hit the vessel. A piece of shrapnel went through the ship’s radio making it impossible to call for help.
The men were ordered to abandon ship although a large proportion, especially among the Dutch soldiers had been killed. Unbelievably the Japanese kept strafing the survivors, even when in the water. It’s believed 40 Australians and 61 Dutch had been killed.
The survivors got away on the ship’s motorboat, a whaleboat and some clung to a raft. Those on the motorboat were picked up by the corvette HMAS Kalgoorlie on 6 December. The whaleboat with 29 men on board was picked up two days later.
The people on the raft were not so lucky. At least one aircraft sighted the raft but by the time ships arrived the raft had disappeared. It is possible that the survivors were spotted by the Japanese and killed but historians think it more likely they died of hunger and exposure.
Teddy Sheean, although wounded did not leave the Armidale and continued firing the Oerlikon gun, destroying at least one Japanese aircraft. Staying at his post and going down with the ship he continued firing until he was killed at his gun.
While initially his brave efforts were not given the recognition deserved he was eventually awarded the following medals:
The 1939-45 Star
The Pacific Star
The British War medal 1939-45 with Mention in Despatches
The Australian Service Medal
In August 2020, Sheean was finally recommended for the Victoria Cross. So far the wreck of the Armidale has not been found but it is planned to make a movie about the ship’s exploits.
Lewis, Tom, “Teddy Sheean VC: A Selfless Act of Valour”, Big Sky Publishing, Newport, 2021 (ISBN: 978-1-922387-90-5)
BOOK REVIEWS
“WE HOMINIDS: An Anthropological Detective Story” by Frank Westerman (translated by Sam Garrett), Black Inc., Carlton, 2018 (ISBN: 978 176 064 2495)
Westerman, a non-fiction writer from Holland, deals with the evolution of humans as well as the lives of those who discovered the remains of prehistoric people.
One person he writes about is the Dutch missionary Father Theodor Verhoeven who was both a priest and archaeologist who explored Liang Bua cave on the Indonesian Island of Flores in 1950. Here he discovered the skeletons of rats the size of dogs and elephants the shoulder height of ponies. The remains of giant storks, 1.8 metres tall were also found.
In 1954, in the Liang Toge cave, Verhoeven did find the remains of a human which were sent to Europe for testing. The remains were identified as those of a Negrito (sometimes referred to as Asiatic Pygmies), a Homo sapiens, with many archaic features.
If he had dug much deeper, as later researchers did in 2003, he might have discovered the remains of a new species of human, Homo floresiensis, also known as the Hobbit. This relative of ours was only about a metre tall and had a brain the size of a chimpanzee. The remains of at least eight other members of this species were later found in the cave.
Earlier discoveries in what is now Indonesia were made by Eugene Dubois between 1888 and 1895. The Dubois Collection is Holland’s biggest fossil treasure trove and contains some 40,000 bones, teeth and shells from Java and Sumatra. Dubois is most famous for finding the remains of Java Man, a specimen of Homo erectus.
About a century after Dubois made his discovery, David Lordkipanidze discovered the remains of an earlier species in the little country of Georgia, Homo georgicus, which could be an ancestor of Java Man.
Details of some fossilised ancient humans tell us about their lives – or deaths. One of the skulls found in Georgia was missing teeth but the individual appears to have lived for two years or so without them. This would indicate they were looked after by others of their species. Similarly 400,000 year-old remains of a handicapped Neanderthal child indicate she was kept alive by the care of adults. Remains known as the Taung Child found in Africa indicate it died at about the age of three when seized by an eagle and clawed to death. Scars around its eye sockets corresponded with injuries that baboons incur when they are killed by raptors.
Westerman give us more little tales and the book tends to the narrative rather than the scientific. The book has very few technical terms making it accessible and easy to read.
“PLAASMORDE: The Killing Fields” by Katie Hopkins, Rebel News Network Ltd., Toronto, 2018 (ISBN: 9780995016842)
Katie Hopkins, a white documentary maker, newspaper columnist and radio talk show host, visited post-Apartheid South Africa to investigate the murders and other atrocities inflicted on white farmers and their families.
Despite being largely ignored by the media these incidents can be pretty horrific. Hopkins interviews a farmer who was tortured with a blowtorch. She meets a woman who had the bottom of her face shot off by a black gang member and was then mistreated by the black staff at the hospital.
In remembrance of the many farmers and workers murdered, the Plaasmorde monument in Ysterbery has a cross for each victim – and there are hundreds of crosses.
To make things worse, corrupt politicians and police officers are often in bed with the criminals who attack farmers, at best doing nothing to stop them and at worst actually providing the crooks with weapons and helping them to stash the loot.
The better-off farmers can construct complex security structures like huge gates and electrified fencing. Poorer farmers can’t afford such effective measures and neither can they afford to migrate to a safer country.
The really poor whites live in slum settlements and squatter camps with no electricity, no running waters, and open sewers. More than 400,000 white South Africans are thought to live in these dumps.
Meanwhile crime continues and homicide rates increase.
“BALCONY OVER JERUSALEM” by John Lyons with Sylvie Le Clezio, Harper Collins Publishers, Sydney, 2017 (ISBN: 978 1 4607 5256 2)
John Lyons, a leading Australian journalist, spent six years in the Middle East stationed in the Israeli city of Jerusalem as a correspondent for The Australian newspaper. During this time he also visited Iran, Iraq, Egypt and other parts of North Africa during the Arab Spring.
Arriving in Israel he spent most of the next six years living in an apartment in Jerusalem where he could see the best and the worst of the city from his balcony. This included the wall that separates Israel from the occupied West Bank. The wall to the Israelis is a security fence, to the Palestinians it is an “Apartheid” wall.
The treatment of the Palestinians is disturbing to say the least and gives some credence to claims that the situation is much like the Apartheid that existed in South Africa until 1994.
Arabs are still losing their land and sometimes their houses to be replaced by Jewish settlements.
In one instance of nastiness the Israelis built a 35 kilometre sewerage pipeline with ventilation outlets (stink pipes) every few kilometres. Despite requests to the contrary the pipeline was routed to pass a mere three metres from the main classroom of an Arab school.
In another incident Israeli police demolished an 80-year-old woman’s house in the Old City. After knocking the building down Lyons noticed an officer having a quiet word with the woman. Was he apologising to the woman? Lyons asked the woman but the officer had told her that she now had to clean up the rubble and would be fined 660 shekels ($200) a day until it was all removed.
Some of the Israeli practices go beyond the bizarre. A Palestinian prisoner who dies before his sentence is up is buried in a cemetery on a military base. The grave has a headstone with a number but no name. When the sentence is complete relatives can take the body and give it a proper burial.
Palestinian children are not treated well. A house might be raided at night by the Israelis and children as young as 12 are taken away to face an army judge of the Israeli Military Court in the West Bank. They are not allowed to have a parent or lawyer present while being questioned. Children as young as 12 have been placed in solitary confinement, one 16-year-old claimed to have spent 65 days in solitary. Needless to say Jewish children are not treated like this.
Meanwhile Jewish Israelis continue to settle, illegally, in the West Bank. Most of the settlements are not close to Palestinian towns with the exception of Hebron. Here modern multi-storey Jewish buildings are across the street from older Palestinian buildings but the street has a metal covering to protect people from bricks, chairs, rotting chickens and dirty nappies thrown by the settlers.
Not surprisingly even Israeli human rights organisations are not happy about the occupation or the treatment of Palestinians.
To complicate matters further the Palestinians have a higher birth rate than the Israelis and will soon outnumber them if they have not already. This should make for interesting times.
“AFRICA’S KILLING FIELDS: African Victims of the Liberal-Left” by Michael Walsh, Middletown, USA, 2017 (ISBN: 9 781537 545295)
Michael Walsh’s book deals with the incredible level of violence inflicted by African so-called freedom fighters, especially in South Africa and Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe).
Walsh blames “global elites” including America’s banking and corporate dynasties for the genocide, tribal pogroms, slavery and misery at worse levels than that endured under colonial regimes or Arab slavery. He does not give much in the way of names and details about these elites but he does describe some terrible atrocities.
He likens what went on in Africa to the Russian Revolution which he claims was possible only due to the financial support of wealthy people such as Jacob Schiff, a German-born Jewish American Wall Street banker. He claims Schiff also funded Japan in its war against Russia in 1904-05.
The fight against the white dominated Smith regime in Rhodesia evolved two black, so called liberation organisations, Joshua Nkomo’s Z.A.P.U. and Robert Mugabe’s Z.A.N.U. which often fought amongst themselves. Walsh describes some pretty violent incidents including one in the 1970s when 278 people were abducted and killed. The victims included European priests, women and a large number of school pupils.
The majority of victims in both Rhodesia and South Africa appear to have been poor African villagers. As in the Soviet Union the aim of the killings was to terrorise the population.
One incident Walsh describes from 1975 involved an African gang that sliced a villager’s ears, nose and chin off and then forced his wife to cook and eat this flesh. A burning ember was thrust into his mother’s genitals while villagers, including children, were forced to watch.
In 1978, terrorists attacked Elim Mission in Rhodesia bayonetting eight British missionaries to death, along with four children, one a three-week-old baby. Some of the female missionaries were sexually assaulted and one mutilated.
In another terrorist attack, 23 people, apparently black, were herded into a hut which was set on fire, incinerating those inside. The victims included men, women and children.
Of the many more atrocities described in the book there is the case of the shooting down of a civilian airliner in Rhodesia in 1978. Miraculously the pilot managed to crash land the aircraft although over half those on board had been killed. Black guerrillas machine gunned the survivors, killing ten, although a lucky few survived by moving into the bush. There was no international condemnation of this outrage.
To add to the gore, the book contains many pictures of the atrocities described including dead and mutilated bodies, both adults and children. A short but controversial book for those with an interest in Africa and a strong stomach.
MASS SHOOTINGS IN THE UNITED STATES
Mass shootings in the United States seem to becoming commonplace, some resulting in many dead or wounded. April saw a shooting on the Brooklyn subway when a black man, Frank James, 62, threw smoke grenades and then started shooting. No one was killed, but 29 people were injured including 10 who were shot. James was charged with a terror offence. (1)
Also in April six people were killed and 12 injured in Sacramento, California when two people started shooting as bars closed and crowds emptied onto the streets. Five weeks earlier David Mora, 39, killed his three daughters, a chaperone and himself in a Sacramento church during a supervised visitation. Mora was under a restraining order that prohibited him from possessing firearm but armed himself with a homemade semi-automatic rifle-style weapon. (2)
In May, an 18-year-old white man dressed in army fatigues shot 13 people, killing at least 10 of them at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York. Eleven of the 13 people struck by gunfire were black and the crime is being investigated as an act of racially motivated extremism. (3)
Later in May, 19 children and two teachers were killed at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. The killer, 18-year-old Salvador Ramos, who it appears also killed his grandmother, was killed by the police. (4)
In a particularly bad weekend in June there were ten mass shootings across the US, with seven killed and 46 wounded. This was one of a string of consecutive weekend mass-casualty incidents which began on the Memorial Day holiday (29 May) when 17 shootings left 13 dead and 79 injured in cities across the US. (5)
These incidents have led to calls for more gun control although most gun deaths in the US are from suicide. Of 45,222 firearm-related deaths in the US in 2020, only 19,384 were attributed to gun homicides. The country, according to Justin Vallejo in the Telegraph, has about five homicides per 100,000 of population, compared to El Salvador which has 52 and Jamaica which has 43 per 100,000. When it comes to mass shootings the country with the worst death rate per million was Norway, the US is rated as having the 11th worst. (6)
Vallejo’s homicide rate for the United States is probably too low. The World Bank website gives a figure of 7 homicides per 100,000 in 2020. (7) The CDC website gives a figure of 24,576 homicides or 7.5 per 100,000. (8) No doubt the figures for 2021 will be higher.
(1) www.9news.com.au 14 April 2022
(2) https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-04-04/us-police-say-six-people-dea... 4 April 2022
(3) Barbara Miller, https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-05-15/us-buffalo-supermarket-shoo..
(4) Justin Vallejo, “Texas Massacre”, Daily Telegraph, 26 May 2022
(5) Bill Hutchinson, https://abcnews.go.com/US/killed-46-injured-10-weekend-mass-sho... 28 June 2022
(6) Justin, Vallejo, “More Tears and Still No Hope of Gun Change”, Daily Telegraph, 28 May 2022
(8) https://wonder.cdc.gov/controller/datarequest Downloaded 31 July 2022
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NATIONAL NEWS SUMMARY
A REFERENDUM is to be held to provide an Indigenous Voice to Parliament which is claimed will better represent them in political decision making. This would involve a change to the Australian Constitution. Since Federation there have been 44 proposals put to the people for constitutional change but only eight have been approved (Zizi Averill, “Albo Vows Voice Won’t Be an Empty Promise”, Sunday Telegraph, 31/07/22).
A FEDERAL Court judge has called for curbing the ability of social media giants to distribute defamatory material after he awarded former NSW deputy premier John Barilaro $715,000 in damages over a YouTube video. Comedian Jordan Shanks, aka Friendlyjordies had portrayed Barilaro as corrupt and used names like “wog” and “greasy little scrotum” (David Swan, “Judge Calls for Laws to Curb Google”, The Australian, 7/06/22).
THREE PEOPLE were found dead after a house fire in the Sydney suburb of Hinchinbrook. The dead included two women and a 10-year-old boy. Five others, including three residents of the house and two firefighters were injured (Carrie Feliner, “Boy, 10, Among Three Dead in Fierce Sydney House Fire”, Sydney Morning Herald, 25/07/22). It appears the residents of the house were ethnic Vietnamese.
A 6-YEAR-OLD Aboriginal girl, named Charlie, was found unresponsive in a home in Munno Para in Adelaide, South Australia. She died shortly after in hospital. Five other children were removed from the home. Charlie’s father was in jail for domestic violence and is said to use methamphetamine and other substances. It’s claimed that calls about the family had been made to the Department for Child Protection but nothing happened. The incident bought up other cases where the department is said to have been inadequate including the death of Chloe Valentine who died in 2012 despite more than 20 notifications to child protection authorities. And in 2016 another two Aboriginal children, Korey Lee Mitchell and Amber Rose were murdered (Stacey Pestrin, Eugene Boisvert, https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-07-20/sa-police-commissioner-s...).
ABORIGINAL WOMAN, Margaret Hawke, 36, has been charged with murder after her three children died in a house fire in Port Hedland, Western Australia. The children were her daughter, 10 years, a son, 7, and her five month-old son (https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-07-26/mother-chargedwith-mur...).
ADAM KABBOUT, 24, has been charged over the gang rape of a 22-year-old woman he had met online. He is facing six counts of aggravated sexual intercourse without consent. Four other men are also charged over the incident that occurred in the Sydney suburb of Belmore (Shannon Tonkin, “Alleged Gang of Tinder Rapists”, Daily Telegraph, 18/06/22).
CRIMINALS ARE said to be ripping off the NDIS, which is supposed to help disabled people. The rorts could be costing as much as $1.45 billion. Four people with alleged links to Middle Eastern crime have been charged in Western Sydney with defrauding the NDIS of $2 million (James Campbell, “Big Crime Gangs in $1.45bn NDIS Rort”, ST, 12/06/22).
TAFUNA TAUMALOLO has been jailed for murder in relation to the so-called “postcode wars”. Alex Ioane, 19, was punched, kicked and stomped on, at a house party in the outer Sydney suburb of Ingleburn in May 2019.
MOST CRIMES, including physical assaults, property crimes such as break-ins, and motor vehicle thefts have been going down in Australia in recent years. However sex assaults have been increasing from 299 per 100,000 people in 2011-12, to 325 in 2019-20 and 536 in 2020-21. Victims appear more likely to report sexual assault and police are giving these crimes more attention, especially in the case of child victims (TA, 7/06/22).
INDIGENOUS PEOPLE are 3.4 times more likely than non-Indigenous to be victims of sexual assault in Australia. Indigenous women are 17.5 more likely to be hospitalised as a result of family violence. The women often feel trapped and some who have tried to escape violence have been kidnapped and dragged to tiny outstations to be beaten and raped (Paige Taylor, “Indigenous Violence is Femicide’”, TA, 7 June 2022).
HAMDI ALQUDSI, 47, is alleged to be the leader of a Sydney-based terrorist group, known as Shura. It’s claimed the group planned terrorist attacks on a naval base in Sydney’s Woolloomooloo, the Israeli consulate and the Parramatta courthouse. Alqudsi has pleaded not guilty (Angie Raphael, “Terror Trial Hears ‘Soccer’ Syria Code”, TA, 22/07/22).
A MAN has been found guilty of possessing a white supremacy manifesto authored by the Christchurch mass shooter. Aidhan Kenneth Cooling, 28, is to be sentenced by Adelaide Magistrates Court next month. Police had attended his property to check on firearms when they noticed books about German expansion and Adolf Hitler on a shelf. “Right-wing, supremacist messages and material were located in his devices,” according to prosecutor Jillian Lieschke (Meagan Dillon, https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-08-02/christchurch-massacre-ma...).
MICK O’NEILL, an Australian who was fighting for the Ukrainians against the Russians was killed, becoming the first Australian to die in the war. The 47-year-old from Tasmania went to fight with the Foreign Legion (Nicholas Jensen, TA, 22/07/22).
UNEMPLOYMENT IN Australia fell to 3.5%, a near 50-year low. This was accompanied by inflationary pressures and led the Reserve Bank to raise interest rates. House prices have started to drop but as of July most houses in Sydney were still selling for a million dollars or more.
A MALE fashion model, Anei Dut, 27 and of Sudanese descent has pleaded guilty to six charges of fraud that involved buying other people’s identity information and credit card numbers online and using them to make purchases at Chemist Warehouse outlets across Sydney (DT, 22/06/22).
HUMAN TRAFFICKING is still occurring and reports of it to the Australian Federal Police have increased to 294 in 2021-22 from 224 the previous year. Cases include forced marriage, sexual exploitation and forced labour. 21 involved trafficking in children (“Human Trafficking, Slavery at a New High”, ST, 31/07/22).
THERE HAVE been 13 killings linked to a feud between the Hamzy and Alameddine families but only one case has resulted in murder charges. A number of the victims, Mejid Hamzy, Bilal Hamze, Ghasan Amoun, Mahmoud Ahmad and Tarek Zahed were all warned about a bounty on their heads before their executions (Anton Rose, “Police Cop a Code of Silence”, DT, 4/06/22).
INTERNATIONAL NEWS SUMMARY
FIGHTING IN Ukraine continues and so do allegations of war crimes. Russia has been abducting people, including activists, journalists and humanitarian workers. Some have been released but others turned up dead. Disappearances date back to 2014 when Russia took over the Crimea. The Ukrainians are also accused of abductions. It’s claimed that at least 10,000 people are missing (“Fate Unknown”, The Economist, 9/07/22).
A JAIL holding Ukrainian prisoners of war in Russian held territory was bombed and over 50 killed. The Ukrainians blamed the Russians but the Russians claim the prison was attacked by Ukraine using American supplied long-range missiles (“POW Jail Bombing Was Putin War Crime”, Sunday Telegraph, 31/07/22).
ELECTIONS IN Papua New-Guinea (PNG) have been marked by violence with a massacre of 18 people in a highland province. There were machete attacks in Port Moresby and a woman was shot dead when she went to cast her vote. The Australian government has poured billions into PNG over the last decade for governance and law and order programs as well as hundreds of millions in direct budget aid (Ben Packham, “Gangs Push Back PNG Poll Counting”, The Australian, 28/07/22).
POLICE IN Britain have been told they should not investigate online debate or treat trivial spats as hate crimes. It is expected to reduce “non-crime hate incidents” after 120,000 people over five years were recorded by police even though their behaviour did not meet the criminal threshold (“Spat Cops Ordered off Twitter”, Daily Telegraph, 23/07/22).
A PROSECUTOR in Florida has asked for the death penalty for Nikolas Cruz who murdered 17 people at a school on Valentine’s Day in 2018 (“School Shooter Faces Death Penalty”, DT, 20/07/22).
MEXICO HAS captured a drug kingpin who is on the FBI’s list of 10 most wanted for the killing of a US federal agent. Rafael Caro Quintero, 69 is accused of ordering the kidnap, torture and murder of Drug Enforcement Administration special agent Enrique Camarena (“Narco Druglord Captured”, ST, 17/07/22).
ANTI-GOVERNMENT protestors in Sri Lanka stormed the president’s official residence in Colombo, lounging on his bed and swimming in his swimming pool. The country has been facing serious economic problems including a shortage of fuel and food, and an enormous national debt (Daniel Brettig, “Sri Lankans Storm Palace, Then Tidy It Up”, Sydney Morning Herald, 11/07/22).
BRITISH LEADER, Boris Johnson has resigned as prime minister and a number of women and ethnics have lined up to take his place including former finance minister, Rishi Sunak.
AN IRANIAN refugee opened fire at a gay bar in Oslo, Norway, killing two and injuring 20 others. The man, Zaniar Matapour, 42, was known to Norwegian intelligence and has a long history of violence and threats, as well as mental health problems (Dana Kennedy, “Oslo, Norway Residents Go To Pride Parade After Gunman Kills at gay Bar”, New York Post, 25/06/22).
SHINZO ABE, a popular former prime minister of Japan was murdered, shot twice, just two days before an election, by a lone shooter, a 41-year-old man who had been in the Japanese navy (David Mills, DT, 9/07/22).
SUSPECTED ISLAMIST terrorists massacred more than 130 civilians in the African nation of Mali. There were also huts and houses burnt, and cattle stolen in an area known as a hotbed of violence (“130 Die in Massacre”, DT, 22/06/22).
AN AUSTRALIAN woman, Sajida Tasneem, was hacked to death by her father-in-law in Pakistan over an argument about relocating back to Australia with her three children. Tasneem had been forced to leave her home in Perth by her husband, Ayub Ahmad and move to Pakistan (Zoe Smith, “Aussie ‘Hacked to Death’ by In-Law”, DT, 21/06/22).
A PREGNANT woman was murdered by decapitation in Alton, Illinois, as her family planned a baby shower. The white woman, Liese Dodd, 22, was allegedly killed by former boyfriend, a black man named Deundrea Holloway, also 22. Holloway was not the baby’s father (T. Brown and R. Bunyan, https://www.dailymail.co.uk.\/news/article-10918797/Head-decapitated... 15/06/22).
GUNMEN KILLED 50 people in a Christian church in southwestern Nigeria. The attackers used guns and explosives. Attacks by Islamist extremists have blighted the northern parts of Nigeria for years but the attacks are now occurring further south. In another incident three Methodist ministers were kidnapped and only freed after $US240,000 ransom was paid (Wall Street Journal).
SEVERAL PEOPLE accused of being involved in riots in India’s Uttar Pradesh state have had their homes demolished by police. Clashes broke out between Muslims and Hindus after two politicians, members of the Hindu nationalist party Bharatiya Janata Party, made comments considered anti-Islamic. Hundreds of people have been arrested (Fayaz Bukhari, “Officials Raze Homes of Protestors”, SMH, 14/06/22).
JULIAN ASSANGE, an Australian citizen and founder of WikiLeaks looks like being extradited from the United Kingdom to the United States. Our federal government is lobbying US counterparts to have Assange freed (J. Massola & L. Bourke, “Australia Lobbies US for Assange to be Released”, Sun Herald, 19/06/22).
16 OR MORE people were killed in two Afghan cities by bomb blasts claimed by the Islamic State terror group (“Terrorists Murder 16 at Prayers”, DT, 23/04/22).
A CATHOLIC priest, a policeman and a hospital worker are among a dozen people convicted over the grisly murder of an albino man in Malawi in 2018. One of those was the brother of the man killed. A witch hunt in the country had seen over 40 albinos murdered and more assaulted. Albinos’ body parts are used in witchcraft rituals to bring wealth and good luck (“How Priest Helped Kill Albino Man”, ST, 1/05/22).
A “SCOTTISH” actor, Ncuti Gatwa looks like being the first black man to play the Doctor in the Doctor Who television series. Gatwa is of Rwandan origin (Wall Street Journal).
THE RAPE and murder of a teenager in Mexico sparked an outcry after police initially treated it as an accident. The body of 18-year-old Debanhi Escobar was found in the water tank at a motel. Ten women are murdered every day in Mexico and most cases remain unsolved (“Justice for Teen Murder”, ST, 15/05/22).
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22.04 | 11:28
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