SAW closes Defence Force Recruiting on campus

On Monday UOW held its Spring Careers Fair and decided to invite Defence Force Recruiting, amongst a wide range of socially and environmentally devastating employers.

With the occupation of Afghanistan by NATO and Australian miliary forces coming up to its ten-year anniversary and Defence Force Recruiting arriving on campus to sign up students for this and other exercises in imperialism and aggression, SAW figured that the opportunity to protest was too good. So we simply packed a few signs (“End the occupation of Afghanistan” “Don’t choose a career in killing”) and a banner (“Students Against War”) into a bag, walked inside the fair, and then set up directly in front of the military’s stall.

We stood around for about twenty-five minutes in front of the stall, smiling, laughing, taking photos and chatting with eachother. The army staff immediately vacated the stall and stood off to the side, occasionally abusing us but mostly staring on in bewilderment (one woman, after a short conversation, suprisingly told us that she could see the point of what we were doing). Security, who were gathered inside the fair in large numbers but simply didn’t seem to notice us walking in, also rushed over and started hassling us and telling us we had to leave, but then gave up after a while when we didn’t move.

Then after about half-an-hour of this we left, feeling our point was made, and went and got some coffee. The war in Afghanistan and UOW’s support for it through its weapons research program can expect to come under more pressure from SAW as the population turns against this unpopular conflict and more Afghans and Australian and NATO soldiers die for no real purpose at all.