In 1984 my brother Noel and I were chosen to represent HART,Halt All Racial Tours the NZ anti-apartheid movement at a U.N.conference in Canberra hosted by the Australian government, discussing Namibia and it’s independence struggle from the apartheid regime. The racist government of Rob Muldoon who were supporting the apartheid regime failed to send a representative.
When I registered for the conference I was asked “Who is the NZ government representative” and I replied I am representing HART and the Government so I was given cross representation to the two organisations in a stupendous error for the Australian government!!!!!!!
When I spoke I supported the right of indigenous people to use armed struggle against a foreign oppressor/ invader. I likened the Namibian situation to that of Angola, South Africa and Ireland and reiterated that these armed struggles were in defense of the people and had no offensive nor imperialist component.
Gareth Evans, the Australian foreign minister accused me of ” Politics 101″ whatever that means and verbally attacked me for supporting armed struggle.
It caused quite a stir in the Australian media at the time and I was interviewed for the first time on Sydney’s Triple J Radio station where the interviewer said ” So you think you have the right to kill people”?
I answered “Yes if their intention is to kill me, my family or any other innocent victim” !!!!! The shit then hit the fan!
That night I went out with the ambassador of Mauritius and the delegates from Swapo, the ANC and the PAC and they thanked me for calling ‘a spade a spade’ and speaking truth to power.
Since that formative time in my young life Imperialism has murdered 10’s of millions of people.
Fight racism, smash apartheid, crush imperialism. Sometime in March I will be interviewed by Eric Draitser for a CounterPunch (official) podcast on the convergence of Imperialism and our climate crisis.
Gareth Evans went on to be a large part of the rape and pillage of East Timor and to be a supporter of draconian regimes world wide as you will read in this article from John Pilger
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Here is the link to the article, ‘The Rape of East Timor: “Sounds Like Fun‘
By John Pilger, ‘Secret documents found in the Australian National Archives provide a glimpse of how one of the greatest crimes of the 20th century was executed and covered up. They also help us understand how and for whom the world is run.
The documents refer to East Timor, now known as Timor-Leste, and were written by diplomats in the Australian embassy in Jakarta. The date was November 1976, less than a year after the Indonesian dictator General Suharto seized the then Portuguese colony on the island of Timor.’
I'm an anti-imperialist, environmental activist and blue ocean sailor, who is passionate about the earth and all it's inhabitants without favour. Brace for imminent impact as we bare witness to the non-linear unraveling of the biosphere and habitability disappearing for most if not all complex life on the only habitable planet we know of. To quote President Niinistö in North Russia: ‘If We Lose the Arctic, We Lose the World’. Folks we have lost the Arctic.
Kevin Hester 
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