Trade unions step up anti-Indonesia campaign
Trade unions step up anti-Indonesia campaign
SYDNEY (Reuters): Australian trade unions on Friday escalated their protests against Indonesia for its failure to stop the violence in East Timor as international support for the protests grew.
Unions stopped multi-million dollar wheat exports to Indonesia and hundreds of angry protesters blocked passengers from Indonesia's state-owned Garuda Airlines flights in Sydney.
Australia's militant dock union, the Maritime Union of Australia (MUA), told Reuters that the London-based International Transport Workers Federation (ITF) had passed a resolution to implement international bans.
"There are already indications from the west coast of America and other areas that those bans have been put in place," said Paddy Crumlin, MUA deputy national secretary.
The MUA said on Thursday that shipping unions in the South Pacific agreed at a meeting in Fiji to join in the action by Australian dockers.
The Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) said unions had banned processing Indonesian crude oil, providing postal and telephone services to the Indonesian Embassy, consulates and Garuda, banned air freight between Australia and Indonesia, and stopped garbage collection from Indonesian consulates and the embassy.
Hundreds of angry protesters stormed the Garuda check-in at Sydney airport on Friday morning, stopping passengers from boarding a flight to the holiday island of Bali.
"We have just been stopping passengers booked on Garuda flights, the impact has been quite big, the purpose is to draw the attention to East Timor," said East Timorese Harold Maucho.
The MUA stopped loading wheat for export to Indonesia, affecting the Australian Wheat Board's next loading scheduled for Saturday in Brisbane on the Bogasari Lima vessel.
The MUA earlier this week placed bans on unloading Indonesian ships in Australian ports to protest the bloodshed in East Timor.
Shipments of wheat to Indonesia have been exempted from the bans because it was regarded as an essential item. Indonesia was Australia's biggest export wheat market in 1997/98, taking 2.4 million tonnes.
Australian Prime Minister John Howard said on Friday he would reconsider economic ties with Indonesia in 24 to 48 hours if conditions did not improve in strife-torn East Timor.
In other related development, protests forced a flight to Bali to take off from the southern city of Melbourne without most of its passengers and instead of flying via Sydney the aircraft was diverted to Adelaide.
In Melbourne, two protesters were slightly injured when they tumbled down a baggage chute trying to avoid police. A police officer also suffered cuts and bruises.
The protesters prevented some 40 passengers from boarding the morning flight to Bali, although 60 passengers who arrived at the airport early made it on board.