I was there when the Land Forces 2024 International Land Defence Exposition (to use its full, banal, title) began in Melbourne/Naarm on Wednesday — yes, as a demonstrator. I was there to protest against the violence perpetrated around the world by some of the people inside the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre; violence that is carried out using the weapons the delegates would be proudly displaying, buying and selling. By the end of the day I saw and experienced a level of violence — almost entirely from the police — that I never imagined would occur in Melbourne.
After Wednesday, there are now three topics: the protesters, the policing, and the event itself. Shamefully, but unsurprisingly, the media response has been almost entirely devoted to the first.
To be clear, I do not condone protesters hitting delegates, throwing projectiles at police, hurting police horses or overturning tables and chairs at a cafe, some of which I saw and all of which we have seen in media coverage. My own observations were that the vast majority of the protesters did none of those things.
What I also observed was shocking police violence.
I am accustomed to police regaining control of an intersection by giving warnings and then, if protesters refuse to move, making arrests. Last Wednesday there were lines of uniformed police, black-clad public order response team (PORT) officers, riot police armed with shields and batons, and mounted police driving protesters backwards. Several protesters who refused to move backwards were sprayed with pepper foam or knocked to the ground and set upon with clear, unnecessary force.
At one point, I found myself with a group of about 30 protesters who, having been driven well away from the intersection, moved into a small grassy parklet. People were tending those who had been sprayed. It felt to me that we were in a safe place. Suddenly, with no warning, special forces police stormed into that small area, shouting “move”. The police were, in my opinion, now behaving as an undisciplined, dangerous rabble. They forced us along a narrow path adjacent to the Yarra — I was genuinely frightened, as it seemed that someone might easily be forced into the water.
We have been told that further arrests will be made after body-cam footage has been examined. I wonder whether that will include arrests of the black-clad thugs who pushed an elderly man wearing a white beanie (that was me) to the ground, or pepper sprayed protesters who were being pushed backwards along a narrow path.
Later in the morning, I was on the Spencer Street bridge when the police drove the protesters away from the exhibition centre entrance on the south side, where protesters had been in direct contact with delegates. I can understand why that decision was taken, although it should have been taken long before the protests actually began. But I cannot believe it was necessary to use a military-style formation of specialist police to do it. The use of noise bombs, tear gas and more pepper foam seemed grossly excessive.
It was as the line between police and protesters moved towards the north of the bridge that some protesters began using industrial wheeled bins and traffic cones to create a makeshift barricade. The burning bins made for graphic footage, but they were a threat to no-one except the people setting them alight — so I was stunned to see police kneeling, aiming and firing rubber bullets at the protesters.
My understanding is that, in volatile situations, good policing aims for de-escalation. What I witnessed and experienced on Wednesday was the antithesis of this.
As I watch and read coverage of the events of Wednesday, I am enraged. It is clear to me that the military-industrial complex is now, at least in Australia, a military-industrial-research-government-media behemoth. The actions of the protesters on Wednesday were trivial in comparison to the actions of the police who were acting as an arm of that behemoth; and the actions of the police were trivial in comparison to the state-sanctioned military violence of which Land Forces is a part.
But you’d never know it, and you’d be given no reason to think about it.
