Graeme Dunstan, dedicated peace and environment activist

http://www.wilsonsalmanac.com/book/aug4.html 1942 Graeme Dunstan, prominent Australian organizer of festivals and celebrations, and activist for environmental, political and peace issues. He is an an alumnus of Duntroon Military College and a graduate of the University of New South Wales (UNSW), where he was President of the Students' Union and co-editor of its newspaper, Tharunka.

In 1966, while President of the UNSW Labor Club, he was active in organizing anti-Vietnam War protests. As organizer of the LBJ Welcome Committee he stopped US President Lyndon Johnson's motorcade in Liverpool Street, Sydney, by lying in front of the president's car, upon which NSW Premier Robert Askin famously said "run over the bastards".

In 1973 with Johnny Allen as director of the Aquarius Foundation of the Australian Union of Students and Dunstan, as director of the Foundation's biennial Aquarius Festival, together they produced the Aquarius Festival which took place in Nimbin, New South Wales.

Dunstan was the first community arts officer (1981 - '85) employed by the City of Campbelltown and in that role set up the Friends of the Campbelltown Art Gallery which lobbied successfully to found the Campbelltown Regional Art Gallery.

In 1985-89 he was a Festivals Consultant to the Victorian Tourism Commission and in that role he was one of the initiators the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, Ltd serving as its founding Secretary In 1987.

As a freelance event organizer, Dunstan founded the Lismore Lantern Festival in 1992-3 and produced other innovative celebrations including the Byron Bay NYE (1995), Bondi Beach Christmas and NYE celebration 1996, Nimbin 'Let It Grow' Mardi Grass (1998 - '99), the Sunshine Coast Schoolies Week (1997), the annual Eureka Dawn Walk (1998-) and the annual Independence from America Day Parade in Byron Bay (1998-).

He is presently captain of http://www.Peacebus.com which is both a website and a campaign vehicle from which he organizes Cyanide Watch and other actions of witness for peace, justice and a sustaining Earth ...

Pictured: Graeme at my place shortly before I was his honoured lieutenant at the Ghostdance at APEC http://wilsonsalmanac.blogspot.com/search?q=ghostdance

Categories: activist, australia, peace

Ghost Dancers want to make the APEC fence art

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The APEC Ghost Dancers want the APEC Joint Task Force to lighten up and give them access to at least part of the APEC fence so that they might make it art.

Ghost Dance organisers are appealing to the Deputy Premier, John Watkins, the Minister for Police, David Campbell, and the APEC PoliceTask Force Commander, Chief Superintendent Peter Lennon, to wind back the exclusion zones and create an opportunity for the expression of some creative dissent.

"The fence is the offense", says Ghost Dance organiser, Graeme Dunstan.

"We want access to the fence so that we may invite Sydney people to use the people's side of the fence as a free form, wall newspaper and say what they think about APEC, its occupation and partitioning of the city and its agenda."

"I see the fence decorated with placards and poetry, cardboard cutouts, cartoons and posters, visual surprises everywhere," he said.

The Sydney APEC Ghost Dance will take place on Friday 7 September. Police have approved Hyde Park North as an assembly area but want the Ghost Dancers to stay in the Park.

"All dressed up with nowhere to go," says Dunstan.

Dunstan describes the Ghost Dance as street theatre on grand scale and he is inviting Sydney people to come in ghost and skeleton costumes and make their dissent visible.

"If APEC and its security arrangements are to render Sydney a ghost town, let the ghosts dance," he said.

"If the future APEC offers is more corporate greed, more resource piracy, more corrupt government, more planet destruction, more jails, more wars and more nukes, let the dead dance."

Graeme wants APEC Ghosts to be seen and heard.

Further information www.peacebus.com/GhostDance Graeme Dunstan 0407 951 688 John Watkins, Deputy Premier, (02) 9228 4866 David Campbell, Minister for Police, 02) 9228 3777 Peter Lennon, APEC Commander, 02 8236 2639

All the latest news on APEC and APEC protests, updated constantly

Categories: action, activism, globalization, sydney, australia, corporations

Join the Ghost Dance for Sydney APEC 2007

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While the rich and the powerful celebrate on the Opera House side of the APEC Fence, ghosts and skeletons will be doing a Ghost Dance in Sydney streets on the other side.

"The Ghost Dance will be vivid street theatre and on grand scale; a creative expression of Sydney people's dissent," said organiser and long time peace activist, Graeme Dunstan of Peacebus.com.

"If all APEC is offering is more corporate greed, more corrupt government, more resource piracy, more wars, more nukes and more destruction of the Earth, let the dead dance!" he said.

"APEC brings the War on Terror to town and its security arrangements will render Sydney a ghost city; let the dead dance!"

Dunstan's vision is that a big bunch of Sydney citizens will dress up as ghosts and skellies, assemble in the Sydney CBD on the Friday evening of APEC and with drums and horns, dance to the APEC fence.

Wilson's Almanac almanackist Pip Wilson is organizing the Bellingen, NSW, part of the protest, which will be making costumes and helping a delegation to travel to Sydney.

Graeme Dunstan reports that Sydney police have received the Ghost Dance action favourably and that he confident that Hyde Park North will be approved as an assembly area.

"Peacebus.com welcomes dialogue with police in planning protest and has a long record of producing peaceful and artful protest actions in NSW, Queensland and Victoria," said Dunstan.

In particular Dunstan says the 30A protest organised for the Forbes Global CEO conference at the Opera House in August 2004, in effect a precursor of Sydney APEC, established respectful relations with the Sydney police command.

"The APEC Fence is the ultimate offense," said Dunstan. "A bunch of resource pirates and war criminals come to town, wage a propaganda Terror War on its people and excercise their power to fence off the city to satisfy their fears and their pleasures."

For Dunstan, the APEC Fence evokes reminders of the Berlin Wall and the Israeli fencing of Palestine. In Dunstan's eyes the APEC Fence is a symbol of the war being waged by the rich on the poor through out the world.

"Dancing to the APEC Fence will be an act as charged with the symbolism as Gandhi's salt making." he said.

Further information www.peacebus.com/GhostDance www.peacebus.com/30A Graeme Dunstan 0407 951 688

Special to Wilson's Almanac readers: We have a special page of latest news from many news sources about APEC and the protests. Use this page for the latest updates up to and including the days of action.

Categories: action, activism, corporations, globalization, sydney, australia