Cockburn Sound Women’s Peace Camp 1984

The Cockburn Sound Women’s Peace Camp, held over two weeks at the end of 1984, was one of Western Australia’s most notable anti-war protests.

 
The Sound Wimmins Peace Camp or Cockburn Sound Women’s Peace Camp was an anti nuclear protest and an encampment for women only, held at the entrance to HMAS Stirling Naval Base, Garden Island, WA in December 1984.
It was inspired by the international peace movement especially women’s peace camps at Greenham Common, protesting the deployment of US nuclear cruise missiles at the RAF Greenham Common airbase in Berkshire, England (1981-1991), and the joint US/Australian military surveillance facility at Pine Gap, Northen Territory (Nov 1983).
 
Cockburn Sound represented a ‘transnational example of lesbian/feminist protest’ as approximately 500 women came from all over Australia to join the camp.
 
“The 1980s presented new mobilisations of lesbian politics, particularly anti-war in focus… After Pine Gap, some women turned their attention to Cockburn Sound, creating the Sound Women’s Peace Camp to target the HMAS Stirling Naval base on Garden Island (1984).”
  Sound Women’s Peace Collective was formed by Sydney and Melbourne groups Women For Survival and a WA group, Women’s Action for Nuclear Disarmament (WAND), and played a key role in preparing the event. The Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) was also represented at the camp.
  The camp was held for two weeks from 1-14 December 1984 at Point Peron in Cockburn Sound, near the HMAS Stirling Naval Base on Garden Island, which had become a de-facto Base for frequent nuclear powered and armed US Warships, who also utilized the services of local women for ‘rest and recreation’. The Sound Women's Peace Camp aimed to focus attention on US bases in Australia and the violation of the Indian Ocean as a Zone of Peace, as designated by the United Nations General Assembly.
 
Pre-approval was sought and gained from Premier Brian Burke’s state parliament, to locate the camp on the crown land bordering the naval base.
 
The initial plan, to transport participants across the continent from the east coast by a ‘peace’ train, fell through. But several hundred women still made it across the Nullabor Plain in buses. They formed ‘affinity groups’, attended non-violence training activities and practiced ‘consensus decision making’ as part of the camp. The camp was highly organised, with childcare, a transport service and a water collective, which brought in fresh water and had wastewater removed.  Activists expressed support for Aboriginal Land Rights and called for the redirection of defence spending into areas of social need and to protect and refurbish the environment.  
During the two-week protest the Navy bussed defence personnel onto Garden Island in a convoy of buses with their windows taped, as if in Northern Ireland.
 
Temperatures were hot during the day (reaching 40 degrees Celsius) and an array of actions included street theatre, water ballet, and a mock auction. A vigil was kept at the main gates throughout the camp’s duration. On Thursday 6 December the protesters participated in an action called ‘Break the Sound Barrier’. They stormed the main gates to Garden island which were closed and guarded by Federal police. Women were lifted over the gate by protestors and detained on the other side. 75 women were arrested that day and those that refused bail spent the night in Bandyup Prison. They were all released the next day after being charged with trespassing on Commonwealth land.
 
The local media painted the women as wild ‘man-haters’ which obscured the real aims of the protest:
‘Anti-nuclear protesters stormed the gates to Stirling… 200 painted, chanting women worked themselves into a frenzy and pushed comrades over the fence. 75 were arrested. On one side is the strong lesbian element, butch hairstyles and boiler suits, and on the other those who genuinely wanted a peaceful protest’.
Dale Kerford, Sound Telegraph, 12 December 1984
 
On 12 December protesters staged a ‘sit-in’ outside a United States naval communications station office on the second floor of Perth’s Council House. Eighteen women were arrested in that event, while others performed street theatre on the steps of Council House, carrying a mock Trident missile.
 
Women protesters also held a ‘synchronised swimming protest action’, in defiance of the law not allowing them to cross the boundary into the Defence base. They climbed down the groin and went into the water on the other side of the fence-line, knowing they were unlikely to be arrested in the ocean.
 
As Eastern states women left the camp by bus on 15 December, Perth women turned to the task of cleaning the site and as promised to the State Government, a concerted revegetation project was undertaken, and native trees and shrubs were planted in what had previously been a sandy dust bowl.
 
Some local Rockingham residents were antagonistic and aggressive to the protestors before the protest even began, fuelled by negative media in the Sound Telegraph.  On day 9 of the camp about 70 local residents, waving the Australian flag, marched up the causeway and argued with the women until police stepped in. Larrikins drove up to the camp at night and threw paint and eggs at the tents.  Rockingham residents also signed a petition, asking that the camp be removed.
However other local residents were supportive and dropped off boxes of fruit and cartons of eggs.
The camp received donations and telegrams of support from many parts of the world while local support included the Seaman's Union and the Waterside Workers Federation providing the use of their holiday cottages. “The media generally ignored the very real sacrifices the women made to come there, their courage in the face of enormous difficulties, their humour and ingenuity in demonstrating against nuclear war. They ignored the creativity expressed in catchy peace songs, inventive banners and slogans.  They did not report the touching 85th birthday party given a leading peace and equal rights campaigner, Dr. Irene Greenwood, who had been awarded the Order of Australia for her work… While the protest as a whole was controversial it caused discussion, focussed national and world attention on US bases in Australia, made the ANZUS Treaty the subject of debate and showed the danger of being tied to America's military apron-strings”.
 
Although local protests continued nation-wide, this was the last National Peace Camp organised.
 
People involved in WAND: Ella Peaty, Wendy and Sam Lowe (sisters), Ruth Ellis, Roxy McGuire, Jessie, Gail, Michelle