As we walked on the military base in the dark early hours of Monday morning, with a full moon setting a stunning scene across Port Phillip Bay, it was hard to imagine that I was risking torture again. This was the place of my nightmares, my years of flashbacks, where my SAS torturers probably enjoyed a laugh and a few cold beers after they scarred me for life.
As my friend was naked, with bound hands and feet, a bag over his head, the SAS soldier screamed at him: “Do you know you’ve put the SAS at risk? You’re risking diggers lives?” My friend, Tim, was a peaceful protestor. Minutes earlier, this man or his accomplice had been torturing me to get the rough location of Tim. At first Tim was shocked and saddened at the thought of putting people at risk. That was the opposite of our purpose. Then Tim remembered the horrific war crimes Afghan families had spoken of and decided, no. It was the actions of the SAS that had put families at risk. It was October 2014.
During that peace protest, there was malleable fear of exposure from the Swan Island military staff. They wanted no media, no photos released and no attention on what they were doing 90 minutes from the Melbourne CBD. More than six years of physical and mental health struggle, protracted court cases and knowing what our troops were doing in my name to my poorer neighbours, I returned.
So why did I go back on to the island where I was tortured.
The Brereton report exposes what Afghan families and anti-war activists have been saying for decades. The shock of politicians, conservative media pundits and the general Australian community astonishes me. Calls for senior leadership to be held accountable are founded but miss the point. On our watch, as an Australian community, we funded murder and war crimes. Obviously, Australia’s toxic military culture and our worship of the Anzac legend, stoked by jingoistic politicians, allowed the SAS to commit its brutal murders and war crimes. But ordinary people who care about peace in Australia need to ask ourselves a more serious question. How did we let this happen?
Last Monday, with three others, I returned to Swan Island. A friend and I drove from Brisbane to Melbourne, just for the action. With two others, we got on to the island in the early hours of the morning. I feared a repeat of the assaults, or worse, from an angry SAS. But more than that, I did not want government and military bosses to let these abuses fade from public view. The Afghan families deserved far more justice. And Australia, especially those who claim to care about peace, needs far more serious introspection after the event.
As we walked on the military base in the dark early hours of Monday morning, with a full moon setting a stunning scene across Port Phillip Bay, it was hard to imagine that I was risking torture again. This was the place of my nightmares, my years of flashbacks, where my torturers probably enjoyed a laugh and a few cold beers after they scarred me for life. But my thoughts turned to Afghanistan, to the sheer terror that victims and families must have felt in the moments before their death and I knew I was in the right place.
Most people claiming to stand for peace disagree with, or even discredit, such direct action as trespassing on to a military base. They see it as extreme that potentially puts more people off than it attracts. I understand these points of view, but I think these criticisms fail to understand the essence of why the atrocities in Afghanistan happened.
Power.
The powerful do what they can and the powerless endure what they must is an old maxim. For too long the Australian government and the SAS in particular had done whatever they wanted to the people of Afghanistan. I am an ex-soldier, a few years in my youth 20 years ago, but an ex-soldier anyway. I left in 2003 when it became clear that the ideals the military uses to recruit people is a cover for theft and murder. Since leaving the army I had found a new power. Nonviolence. And it is the most powerful force in the world.
On Monday morning, as we walked through a fenced off area on to the base where I was assaulted six years earlier, I felt some unease in my stomach. I was accompanied by some spiritually solid friends, including an 80-year-old Dominican priest, so I felt we would be safe. But with the assaults in 2014, I could not be sure of what would happen this time. After 20 minutes of walking along a road with a banner reading “Stop training killers – Abolish the SAS”, a security guard drove out and followed us on foot.
Shortly, having walked as far as we could, against the gate of the base headquarters, I was busy trying to get us on to Melbourne morning radio when we heard an announcement come over the speakers on the base. “Attention Swan Island: There are peace protesters on the base – please remain in your barracks.” We stood for a few hours while police came from Geelong. We live-streamed and spoke of peace, while SAS soldiers who might normally be taking classes or doing physical training that time of the morning stayed inside their rooms. An organisation guilty of murder and brutal war crimes was stopped from training for a few hours. By four men aged 39 to 80 holding a banner and a mobile phone.
When the police arrived, I was expecting to have my phone seized, or to be handcuffed. Instead, we were gently ushered into the back of the police van. With phone in hand, I continued to live-stream. Nonviolent action by absorbing the violence of the SAS brutality and persistent disruption had taken some power back. From secrecy and brutality at our peaceful presence in 2014, to the submission we saw on Monday, we exercised nonviolent and peaceful power on a home training base of the SAS.
To significantly challenge Australian militarism and violence, we will need far more people involved, and far more nonviolent resistance. On Monday, a few of us showed it can be done. Education and communication are key aspects of nonviolence, but so is escalation. We must lovingly put our bodies in the way of the violent systems. With the spectre of fascism, climate collapse and war hanging over the death throes of our exploitative economic system, we need to lovingly disrupt the training and operations of such groups as the SAS. If we don’t, assaults on Australian citizens on Australian soil will not be a one-off freak occurrence. They will be a portent of what our children will have to endure. We can stop this future. If we can take our power back.
Greg Rolles is a school teacher and Quaker anti-war activist who lives on Yuggera Country.
Comments
14 responses to “Returning, six years later, to the scene of my torture by SAS”
As a “Nasho” Veteran of Vietnam, I am like most Australians, horrified, but not surprised by the actions of the SAS Unit in Afghanistan. I feel upset by the actions of the SAS towards you, Greg, all those years ago.That was a serious assault in any terms and should have been dealt with in a Criminal Court, but of course thanks to the anti terror laws made by the neo conservative government of John Howard , civil law does not apply on Department of Defense property.I was a Medic in Vietnam so avoided having to kill people , but I did have to deal with the consequences, which still haunt me today, half a century later.
The blame for this atrocity lies mostly with the select group of Federal Government Ministers who in secret, made the decision to commit troops to this senseless war.Of course they will never be called upon to answer for their decision.The time has come for the power to declare war to be handed to a sitting of , and vote by both the Houses of Parliament . Just maybe we will avoid the senseless loss of life and trauma for future generations of our young people and the innocent peoples of the country they ‘invade’ in our name.
Thanks Greg for reminding us of the power of nonviolence.
If the Swan Island Peace Pilgrims had not challenged the SAS we may never have had other parts of the puzzle revealed.
Yet those of us who practice nonviolence are frequently sidelined and maligned.
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It is surely disturbing that Channel 7 has been showing SAS Australia, based on a British series SAS: Who Dares Wins. Both involve celebrities–that is television and sporting individuals known to the general public–taken to remote areas and required by their former SAS commander to undertake physically and psychologically demanding tasks. I only saw the advertisements of this project, but the abuse of the former SAS man was crude, strong and designed to break the person on the basis that only a “real person” could resist this abuse.
The problem is that this kind of program normalises this kind of behaviour in the eyes of the general public and allows it to be both politicised and mythologised–virtually the same thing–in a way very deceptive to most people and quite negatively portentous in its intentions. Hyper-reality television at the most irresponsible.
Greg: I salute you for your bravery and courage. In 2003 as you left the military I was in Japan teaching a novel to my senior high university prep/matric class. The previous year I had visited the author’s widow (Quakers) in the little west Sussex village of Singleton. It was clear that 2002 northern hemisphere summer that George Dubya Bush was intent on a war against Iraq no matter that there were no WMD – and I had thought of a middle school novel I had taught some years earlier at Nelson Bay HS in NSW. Ian Serraillier’s classic anti-war novel out of WWII Europe – The Silver Sword. My visit to Ann S convinced me that I would teach it to my seniors – it was set even before the “precision” bombs were dropped on Christians and Jews and Muslim Iraqis in Baghdad by the US – with Australia’s complicity. I wrote a detailed report of that teaching program and sent it to Ann S who passed it on to Christopher Fry – a near neighbour – and Quaker playwright – by then into his 90s. I have never had to endure the kind of SAS torture you reveal here – but I applaud you for doing so – and I await further revelations of the kinds of domestic abuse some of these bullies and thugs elsewhere have engaged in within our country. I covered my Japanese classroom rear wall with all kinds of anti-war statements and material – and the realities of that war in particular – during that year. Including photographs sent by a US Marine cousin – once he was safely out of Iraq. In that classroom we knew war was not good – mostly not good for the overwhelming number of civilian citizens murdered by those bombs and the disruption caused by being occupied – but also to those soldiers in that zone. As here in Australia – the presence of all these men (a few women, too?) primed to kill with almost impunity – in our midst – is a danger – a kind of sickness within our society. I am yet to see a proper “de-briefing” for those sent to fight (peace-keep, anyone?) abroad. Not as a special personal request – but as an overall several months-long debrief/wind-down before once again entering civil society. I want the politicians to be tried in the current Brereton Report aftermath – Howard and Downer – the shirt-fronter too – any politician who prompted, promoted or proffered our troops to US interest service!
This article is the only time I have seen our militaristic culture, Anzac Day et al mentioned as a contributing factor to the atrocities committed in Afghanistan. Every soldier who ever joined to armed forces is now portrayed in the media as a hero. If even the most ordinary soldier is a hero then the super soldiers in the SAS must be gods. Gods who have the power of life and death and who can kill with impunity. Given the way we venerate soldiers it wouldn’t be surprising if some SAS thought they were untouchable. The media won’t look at this because it means they need to look at themselves and their own role in promoting specific wars and a militaristic hero worshipping culture. Quite the opposite in fact. The more conservative sections of the media are now proclaiming our SASs innocence, which means they (the media) and everyone else in the country are also innocent.
Peter,
To Veterans who have seen war service, ANZAC DAY is a time of remembrance of their mates who died in war and in its aftermath by suicide ;far too many ! Unfortunately ‘gung ho’ politicians, who as far as I know, have never went to war, other than to be seen with the troops in a secure area as a photo opportunity , are all too quick to use ANZAC DAY to perpetuate the myths associated with it.(The late honorable Tim Fischer being a notable exception)
I have come to dread ANZAC Day in recent years. I fear once again the Media , particularly the ultra conservative right, will join with their equally Conservative political mates to glorify the so called brave exploits of our war and peace keeping Veterans . Servicemen and women simply did their job, not remotely thinking of fame or glory and not expecting it either.
Maybe its time we abolished ANZAC DAY as it no longer is fit for purpose for those of us who have served this country in peace keeping and war for the last century or more.
Hello Gavin. I agree with your comments about Anzac Day. The meaning of Anzac Day can be different things to different people and can be twisted by politicians and others with a militaristic agenda. I would prefer a day dedicated to the victims of war, the victims on both sides including those who still suffer or die after the war is officially over. Defund Anzac Day? Unfortunately we seem to be heading in the opposite direction e.g. the plans to extend the Canberra War Memorial.
Did this torture really take place in Melbourne in 2014? It’s my first time learning about this. Did the media report it?
I hope they did, and I just somehow missed it. Otherwise … something new that I have learnt about Australia.
Hi Kien. Louise Milligan did a report at the time: https://www.abc.net.au/7.30/asis-base-protesters-claim-mistreatment-in/5803032
I think, as people have suggested here, the media has a responsibility in lifting up soldiers as unquestionable heroes and bare some complicity in these crimes. Last Monday, whilst on the base, I tried to get more media and was shut out. I think because people in the media have a subconcious awareness of this complicity and dont want to deal with it.
Greg
https://www.abc.net.au/7.30/asis-base-protesters-claim-mistreatment-in/5803032
Thanks, I’m sorry this happened. Also interesting to read about the tendency to “blame the victim”. (e.g., it’s your own fault this assault happened, you should not have gone there)
Apologies for generalising, but I often think the reason we see so much bullying around (in school, work, church, society generally) is that the strong & powerful among us (“bullies”) don’t recognise the nature of our behaviour. Our tendency to “blame the victim” prevents us from looking at our own actions objectively.
Thank you Greg.
In 2014, SAS saw the visit by peace protestors as a rare opportunity to unleash some valuable ‘training’ in the form of live-action role play. These professionals got to pretend they had a ‘real’ enemy to torture.
In doing so, they gave us a stark reminder of how they are trained to behave on our nation’s behalf.
I am in awe of the courage it must have taken to return to the scene.
Thanks Marx.
As they say, soldiers kill and die every day believing they are bringing peace. What are those of us who believe in nonviolence willing to do?
Greg
Thanks Marx.
As they say, soldiers kill and die every day believing they are bringing peace. What are those of us who believe in nonviolence willing to do?
Greg