CANBERRA, July 21– Hundreds of people have joined a two-day protest calling for the closure of the secretive U.S. Pine Gap intelligence base in Australia’s Northern Territory (NT).
Around 300 people on Monday gathered near the front of the base, followed by a smaller protest on Tuesday morning calling for the facility to be closed and the land on which it sits returned to the local Arrernte people, the traditional Aboriginal owners of the area.
Located near the NT city of Alice Springs in central Australia, the Pine Gap facility was established by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency and Australia’s Department of Defense in 1966.
The highly classified base reportedly uses information gathered by satellites to provide surveillance and targeting information for U.S. military targets.
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) reported that Monday’s protest was the largest rally at the site since 1987.
David Shoebridge, a federal Senator from the Greens party, told the ABC at the protest that Pine Gap was a foreign military base that was established in the interests of a foreign military that is not respecting international law.
“We’re letting them use our land, this key real estate, I think to commit some of the worst atrocities we’ve seen,” he said.
The NT police force said that two people, aged 19 and 34, were arrested for disorderly conduct during the second rally on Tuesday morning, during which protesters used a vehicle to block the main road leading to the base. (Namibia Daily News/ Xinhua)
