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.