REFUGEES 
EVERYONE HAS A FACE AND A VOICE
In June a number of wonderful people walked faceless through Grafton's CBD over a period of 10 days. We got a lot of response with many people hypothesizing what we might be doing (Were we severely burnt? Did we get caught on the sheets when walking past the clothesline without noticing? Or was it just bizarre abstract art?). We had quite a negative response from Shopping World, being banned after only 3 days. Apparently we were making the shopkeepers feel threatened. A security guard (our escort) also told a faceless person, as if it was the most justified thing in the world, that we nearly had a gun pulled on us!!!- What do you expect, he was handling a lot of money!?!. Even after the staff at shopping world went undercover and found out our motivations so knew we were no threat, we were still banned and threatened with arrest. Obvious political discrimination.
On Saturday the 22 of June- a national day of action for refugee rights- we revealed our message simultaneously with Coffs Harbour residents...EVERY HUMAN BEING HAS A FACE, even those we might not want to think about. Those "swarms" of "illegals" are individual human beings with eyes, ears and emotions that see hear and feel all the injustice done to them. They also have mouths and want to voice these injustices and express their own true individual identities. If only more of us would open our ears and hearts to hear them, not just box them all as attention seeking, fundamentalist illegals that we can ignore.
I think this was a very successful action in that it caused many people, who wouldn't otherwise, to think about and discuss refugees locked in detention centres. We also managed to spread information through leaflets and a newspaper article that would otherwise often be unheard of or ignored in a rural town like Grafton.
Unfortunately the Environment Centre copped a lot of bad publicity on the radio due to our posters glued up to electricity poles with a very strong flour and water mix. I apologise for us not removing the posters. I had initially not seen it as a big deal. I tried to remove a few with great difficulty and, seeing all the other posters, felt no urgency to collect a bucket and scrubbing brush and spend a day "cleaning up" a public street displaying many indoctrinating, corporate advertisements that I don't enjoy being confronted with. Even though it was obvious that 2GF were 'green bashing' (the posters were an 'environmental hazard' so CEC is contradicting itself, who cares what the posters were actually about), other organisers and I do realise the ramifications on the Environment Centre as a community organisation.
I have sent the 'Faceless People' newspaper article to the people I write to in detention and they send their gratitude to everyone involved. This letter writing has been something I get a lot of satisfaction from because I know it directly supports refugees in detention, it doesn't take too much energy and I can really connect with them (see them as individuals). If anyone would like to write to a refugee in detention you can email mailto:[email protected] or ring me on 66494 271.
Thank you. -Kaya 
REFUGEES AND THE ARMS INDUSTRY
One of the biggest industries in the world is the arms industry, mostly based in the ‘western’ countries. A huge part of those arms goes to governments which abuse human rights in Third World countries. In the Third World, people suffer because of the use of these arms against a part (or all) of the population. They suffer impoverishment, hunger and illness because of the waste of a large part of the country's budget on arms and their inevitable companion, bribery. Those who can, then flee their country to find safety and a better life. They become refugees!! The Western countries that sell arms have created the problem (or a large part of it). They then resort to hypocrisy of "law and order" to keep refugees out of their countries, and denigrate and blame them. -Jim 