Friday, October 25, 2013

NED KELLY




1870's colonial Australia, Irish nationalism and Ned Kelly

VICTORIA POLICE FIRING HISTORICAL BLANKS
By Sasha Uzunov

It is a pity to see Victoria Police’s Chief Commissioner Ken Lay and police union boss Greg Davies so ignorant of Australian, British and Irish history. Both have been jumping up and down about how outlaw Ned Kelly and his gang have been elevated to hero status, whilst the three Victorian police constables they shot and killed in 1878 portrayed as victims.

Victoria Police Association Secretary Senior Sergeant Greg Davies, said he was sickened by the constant glorifying of Kelly and his gang. He uses highly emotive words and in an incredible irony accuses people of twisting history.

He even quotes the notorious Winston Churchill, who will become central to this story a lit later. link to Herald Sun story

"Winston Churchill once said that 'history is written by the victors', well, one side of the story around armed robbery, theft and multiple murders committed by a bunch of vicious criminals in country Victoria has certainly challenged that statement," Sen-Sgt Davies said.

"From horse thieving to assaults and armed robberies, to unlawful imprisonment and a plan for a massacre by train derailment, to the murder of three policemen, the real story around Kelly has been twisted to something entirely unrecognisable from the historical truth.

"Those who deliberately distort the truth and try to rewrite history, in order to line their pockets by perpetuating a lie, are the worst thieves of all. They steal our past.”

Perhaps this last bit of advise should apply to Snr-Sgt Davies.

For those who are not familiar with the Ned Kelly (1855-80) story from Australia’s British colonial past. He became a bushranger or outlaw in the colony of Victoria during the late 1800s, and was involved in robbery and killings. Some have elevated him to hero status interpreting, rightly or wrongly, his motives as that of a poor Irishman being picked on by the British authorities at the time.

In 1878 whilst on the run from the law, Kelly shot and killed three Colonial Victorian Policeman: Kennedy, Lonigan and Scanlon, all Irish like Kelly. In 1880 Kelly was executed by hanging Edward ‘Ned” Kelly was the son of an Irish “convict” transported to the then British colony of Victoria as punishment.

Regardless of any crime being committed by Kelly's father, who saw him being transported from his homeland of Ireland by a foreign occupying force, the British Empire to then Colony of Victoria, this act of ethnic cleansing in itself could be interpreted as a "war crime" against the Irish people.

Kelly and his father do not necessarily have to be connected to Irish patriotism or even freedom fighting.

We apply the same standards to a starving Jewish youth taking a loaf of bread for survival in Nazi-occupied Poland and being deported to the killing fields of the Ukraine. Or an apolitical French man, who is was not a member of the French Resistance, involved in smuggling in Nazi occupied France or collaborationist Vichy France (1940-4) trying to survive.

If the apolitical Frenchman, who is not a member of the French Resistance but is a smuggler, then shot and killed three Nazi-collaborationist French policemen, would Snr-Sgt Davies be mourning their loss?

Moreover, the three Victorian Police officers, who were Irish, were committing an act of treason by collaborating with the occupying force. It then becomes irrelevant who pulled the trigger, a bank robber such as Ned Kelly or an Irish freedom fighter and because Ireland was occupied and from time to time there where rebellions which were brutally put down, a semi state of war existed.

The question that historians and journalists need to ask is what were these three doing in serving as collaborators in the Victoria Police? It seems an uncomfortable question to ask.

Furthermore, hasn’t Snr-Segt Davies read about the:

The Irish Rebellion of 1798, a republican uprising against British rule of Ireland
The United Irish Uprising of 1800, an uprising against British rule of Newfoundland
The 1803 Irish rebellion led by Robert Emmet
The Young Irelander Rebellion of 1848, also called The Famine Rebellion of 1848
The Fenian Rising of 1867
The Easter Rising of 1916, a nationalist uprising against British rule of Ireland
The Irish War of Independence (1919–1921).

Snr-Sgt Davies’ “hero’ Winston Churchill was brutal in his opposition to Irish independence.

The Victorian Police officers were, in effect, aiding and abetting the enemy. The colony of Victoria was an extension of Britain. The deaths of the police officers can be attributed to this status of semi-war.

Let me put it to you this way, would Australia have tolerated three Australians serving in the Ottoman Turkish Army at Gallipoli in 1916 fighting against their fellow Australians?

We now have a wonderful country in Australia and a great state in Victoria and people who commit crimes should be punished. But in 1878 and even 1916, Britain was in a brutal manner occupying a foreign land in Ireland, which it finally relinquished in 1922 with the Anglo-Irish Treaty after the Irish War of Independence.

What Snr-Sgt Davies needs to do is study his history and stop “elevating” three Police officers to hero status. 

Furthermore he should apologise to the Republic of Ireland and Australians of Irish decent for his comments.

It would appear that those who uphold the pro-British version of history want to have their cake and eat it too. Sir Roger Casement was in 1916 executed for “treason” for supporting the Easter Uprising and for “collaborating" with the World War One enemy of Britain, Kaiser Germany.

If we follow Snr Sgt Davies logic, then East Timor should not have been allowed to resist or break away from Indonesian occupation--Indonesia invaded the former Portuguese terrirory in 1975.

POST SCRIPT:


My argument is actually legalistic rather than based on nationalist sentiments. The Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921-22 after the Irish War of Independence is tacit acknowledgment that a state of war existed between Britain & Ireland over the centuries.

If a de facto state of war existed, then Irishmen serving in the British & colonial military and police are collaborators. If they are killed in the line of duty serving a foreign occupier during a state of war then that is not murder. 

As the 3 policemen were chasing or pursuing Kelly he would have every right to shoot them without warning, much in the same way a French civilian during World War 2 were to shoot a French police officer collaborating with Nazi occupation authorities without giving them prior warning; regardless if they a bank robber or a freedom fighter.

 If Ireland had not been granted independence & Ireland had instead been absorbed into the UK then Snr Sgt Davies assertions about the killings would be correct. The Anglo-Irish Treaty in directly "excuses" or "absolves" Kelly of those killings.  

As a journalist I would be asking why did 3 Irishmen collaborate with an occupying force?

If anything, the 3 police officers should be respectfully mourned in the Australia War Memorial as having been killed in defending the British Empire as such; not as law & order martyrs or victims of crime. Australia didn't prosecute the Viet Cong for killing Australian diggers during the Vietnam War (1962-72).


Thursday, October 17, 2013

HELEN OF BE-TROY (BETRAY)?

Helen Clark - Prime Minister (Labour Party) of New Zealand from 1999 to 2008. Now the Chief Administrator of the UNDP since 2009. Photo source: wikipedia/UNDP.

We are still waiting for an answer- 
HELEN OF BE-TROY (BETRAY)?
by Sasha Uzunov


Former New Zealand Prime Minister and now the boss of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Helen Clark was in Sydney, Australia this week to lecture us from her position of “moral superiority” about her new pet project, Sustaining the Rise of the South, but like some who show such courage in doing so, the question is why is Helen Clark so afraid to talk about her contradictory role in being peace activist and war monger?

Clark began as an antiwar activist in the 1960s, especially protesting against the Vietnam War (1962-72).

The Danish Peace Foundation gave her an award in 1986 for her work. But in 2001 as New Zealand’s Prime Minister she sent combat troops into Afghanistan. Even a blind man can see that this a 360 degree turn, a huge contradiction to her long held principles.

Naturally, I wrote to her 5 months ago, 19 May 2013, asking if she would be returning her award as she sent troops to Afghanistan. Her office said she would respond. It's now 5 months later and still no response...

Yet she is able to visit Australia to promote herself as an international do gooder. It would take 5 minutes of her time to respond but she can't find the time, as her staff have said she is busy. Yet she can find time to come to Australia. Remember you the Australian tax payer fund the UN.

Her actions as an anti war activist would have led to many Australian and New Zealand Vietnam veterans to be abused and reviled on their return after completing a tour of duty. Why her dramatic change? Both the New Zealand and Australian public have a right to know.

New Zealand pundit Brian Rudman, writing in the New Zealand Herald, put it:
 “As in the Vietnam War, we're again on the losing side, lured into a war not of our making, by misplaced loyalty to a superpower desperately seeking extra flags to link to its cause.”


Some people would say that Helen Clark as Prime Minister would have to make tough decisions. That’s fine. But with political power comes responsibility. She made the decision, despite being contrary to her confessed anti war principles, but she should return the Danish Peace award. Or if she was willing to protest against Vietnam, she should have resigned as Prime Minister over Afghanistan.

She can’t have her cake and eat it too. We need to call out the do gooders and the politicians, both on the left and right, who “take the high moral ground.”
I learnt long ago that it is not about principle but power for the likes of Helen Clark and her about-face activists or u-turn ideologues

If Joe or Josephine Citizen were to open their mouth on any issue, you can be sure that the elite would hit them over the head with either being fascist or leftist...this is done so the average person can never win... If Helen Clark says its cool to be anti-Vietnam war or any war, then you the average person are pressured into following it. But in 2001 if she decrees that war in Afghanistan is cool... It's called capricious & hypocritical behaviour.

The point with Helen Clark, like many of Australia & New Zealand's cultural elite, both on the left & right wings, is simply a way of showing in an arrogant manner their cultural superiority. It's not the principle...because they change their views, you the average person, are being kept deliberately one step behind them. By the time you come around to their way of thinking, you are already out of date. It's a clever way of keeping control over the "masses" or the great "unwashed." - 

About Face Activists or U-turn ideologues: you just don't know where they really stand and this is deliberate. Others in this group include Lord Robertson, Joschka Fischer, Peter Hain, Mike Rann, and many others.

link to story

Lord Robertson began his career opposed to nuclear weapons but hey that did not stop him from later becoming UK Defence Secretary under British Prime Minister Tony Blair and later NATO Secretary-General.



Joschka Fisher was a militant German leftist who battled against "US imperialism" and in 1973 beat to a pulp a West German Police officer during a violent protest. Later as Germany's Foreign Minister he supported the "US imperialist" war in Afghanistan.


Another ex-British politician Peter Hain in his youth campaigned against apartheid and the Vietnam War but later shouted: "We must not be effete: it's time to fight" in Afghanistan.

According to The Australian newspaper: link:

Born in Britain in 1953, Mike Rann migrated to New Zealand in 1962 with his parents and brother, Christopher. While completing a master of arts in political science at the University of Auckland, he worked as editor of the university newspaper and participated in student politics. He was a member of the New Zealand Greenpeace executive that sent the Greenpeace III to Mururoa Atoll in 1972 to protest against French nuclear testing in the Pacific.

Mr Rann moved to Australia in the mid-1970s and began a career as a politician with the Australian Labor Party (ALP), becoming Premier of South Australia, one of the six states in the Commonwealth of Australia, from 2002 to 2011. As Premier he did an about face and supported uranium mining in his state.

In 2012 he was appointed UK High Commissioner.

Mr Rann was also asked if he felt regret at his actions as a Greenpeace activist in the early 1970s in New Zealand.

Greenpeace was sending boats into French pacific territory with the aim of interrupting nuclear weapons testing. In response the French State Security was provoked into bombing the Rainbow Warrior ship in Auckland Harbour, New Zealand, in 1985. Fernando Perreira, a photographer on board, drowned. Later Mr Rann as Premier of the state of South Australia supported uranium mining. We asked Mr Rann if this ideological about turn meant that the death of Fernando Perreira was in vain. - see link to story

Fernando Perreira - Photographer who drowned when the Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior was bombed by French intelligence in 1985.

In Australia the custom is when the actions of military officers, politicians or those who run organisations leads to casualties, it is assumed that those who caused the casualties be held accountable.

Rann, like Clark over Vietnam and Afghanistan, does not want to discuss this period in his life.


THE EMAIL PAPER TRAIL - HELEN CLARK

From: sashauzunov@hotmail.com
To: helen.clark@undp.org; undp-newsroom@undp.org; satinder.bindra@undp.org; abdel-rahman.ghandour@undp.org; christina.lonigro@undp.org; mette.fjalland@undp.org; monica.lorensson@undp.org; trygve.olfarnes@undp.org; sarah.jackson-han@undp.org; adam.rogers@undp.org; rebeca.grynspan@undp.org
Subject: FW: 1986 Danish Peace Foundation award to Helen Clark (UNDP)
Date: Mon, 23 Sep 2013 17:34:49 +1000

Attn Ms Helen Clark
UNDP Administrator
SUBJECT: MEDIA QUERY 

Dear Ms Clark,

It has now been 4 months since I sent you a media query, and no response from you. (19 May 2013)

 On the 7 June 2013 I received a response from your PA acknowledging receipt of my email. You are aware that as a UN Senior Bureaucrat, getting paid Australian taxpayer dollars as well as other countries' contributions, you have an obligation to respond to a question put to you, especially when your job involves in "trying to make the world a better place" and "world peace."

My question was as follows:

Ms Clark, the reason I am writing to you is to ask will you be returning the Danish Peace Foundation Peace Prize you were awarded in 1986? 

As New Zealand Prime Minister (1999-2008) you sent combat troops to the Afghanistan War in contradiction to her long held anti-Vietnam War and overall anti-War principles. During your Prime Ministership you supported military intervention in East Timor and The Solomon Islands.

I look forward to your answer.


Regards

Sasha Uzunov
Independent Film Maker
Melbourne, Australia.
Tel: +61 


My bona fides are available to be viewed at the following links:







From: sashauzunov@hotmail.com
To: helen.clark@undp.org; undp-newsroom@undp.org; satinder.bindra@undp.org; abdel-rahman.ghandour@undp.org; christina.lonigro@undp.org; mette.fjalland@undp.org; monica.lorensson@undp.org; trygve.olfarnes@undp.org; sarah.jackson-han@undp.org; adam.rogers@undp.org; rebeca.grynspan@undp.org
Subject: FW: 1986 Danish Peace Foundation award to Helen Clark (UNDP)
Date: Wed, 24 Jul 2013 13:26:01 +1000

Dear Ms Clark,

It has been just over 2 months since I put in my media query. I am awaiting a response.

cheers
Sasha Uzunov


From: sashauzunov@hotmail.com
To: helen.clark@undp.org; undp-newsroom@undp.org; satinder.bindra@undp.org; abdel-rahman.ghandour@undp.org; christina.lonigro@undp.org; mette.fjalland@undp.org; monica.lorensson@undp.org; trygve.olfarnes@undp.org; sarah.jackson-han@undp.org; adam.rogers@undp.org; rebeca.grynspan@undp.org
Subject: FW: 1986 Danish Peace Foundation award to Helen Clark (UNDP)
Date: Tue, 9 Jul 2013 10:07:44 +1000

Attn Ms Helen Clark,

Dear Ms Clark,

It's been a month since my media query. I'm following up for a response to my questions below.

Cheers
Sasha Uzunov
Independent film maker/journalist
Melbourne, Australia


From: sashauzunov@hotmail.com
To: helen.clark@undp.org; undp-newsroom@undp.org; satinder.bindra@undp.org; abdel-rahman.ghandour@undp.org; christina.lonigro@undp.org; mette.fjalland@undp.org; monica.lorensson@undp.org; trygve.olfarnes@undp.org; sarah.jackson-han@undp.org; adam.rogers@undp.org; rebeca.grynspan@undp.org
Subject: 1986 Danish Peace Foundation award to Helen Clark (UNDP)
Date: Wed, 26 Jun 2013 22:51:50 +1000

Hi Sharon,

Any luck with Ms Clark's response?

cheers
Sasha Uzunov


From: sashauzunov@hotmail.com
To: helen.clark@undp.org
Subject: RE: 1986 Danish Peace Foundation award to Helen Clark (UNDP)
Date: Fri, 14 Jun 2013 09:29:38 +1000

Thank you Sharon.

I look forward to Ms Clark's response.

cheers
Sasha


From: helen.clark@undp.org
To: sashauzunov@hotmail.com
Subject: RE: 1986 Danish Peace Foundation award to Helen Clark (UNDP)
Date: Fri, 7 Jun 2013 21:02:12 +0000

Dear Ms. Uzunov,

This is to acknowledge you email and request below. Ms. Helen Clark is currently travelling on official mission and we will bring your request to her attention upon her return to New York next week.

With best regards,

Sharon Kinsley
Deputy Chief of Staff and Deputy Director
UNDP Executive Office of the Administrator

From: Sasha Uzunov [mailto:sashauzunov@hotmail.com] 
Sent: Monday, June 03, 2013 12:39 AM
To: hdr media; William Orme; UNDP Newsroom; Satinder Bindra; Abdel-Rahman Ghandour; Christina LoNigro; Helen Clark; Mette Fjalland; Monica Lorensson; Trygve Olfarnes; Sarah Jackson-Han; Adam Rogers; Rebeca Grynspan; Carolina Azevedo
Subject: 1986 Danish Peace Foundation award to Helen Clark (UNDP)

Attn UNDP

I'm still waiting on a response from Ms Helen Clark over my query below.

cheers
Sasha Uzunov
Independent film maker and freelance photo journalist
Melbourne, Australia
tel: +61 


For media enquiries, please contact: Carolina Azevedo, +1 212 906 6127,carolina.azevedo@undp.org or William Orme, +1 212 906 6763, william.orme@undp.org; or UNDP Newsroom, +1 212 906 5382, undp–newsroom@undp.org.


Subject: 1986 Danish Peace Foundation award to Helen Clark (ex New Zealand Prime Minister)




Attn Ms Helen Clark
UNDP Administrator

Dear Ms Clark,

My name is Sasha Uzunov, an Australian freelance photo-journalist and independent film maker. 

I'm also a former Australian soldier who served in East Timor. As a civilian cameraman I've worked in Iraq and Afghanistan. 

below are some of my previous stories



My bona fides as a film maker:




Ms Clark, the reason I am writing to you is to ask will you be returning Danish Peace Foundation Peace Prize you were  awarded in 1986? 

As New Zealand Prime Minister (1999-2008) you sent combat troops to the Afghanistan War in contradiction to her long held anti-Vietnam War and overall anti-War principles. During your Prime Ministership you supported military intervention in East Timor and The Solomon Islands.

I look forward to your answer.

Regards

Sasha Uzunov
Tel: +61 
Melbourne, Australia