Military abuse continues unabated, reinforced and recycled by the government organisation that was specifically setup to deal with it. https://youtube/watch?v=z_-2miUGOqs Although different to the types of abuse in family breakups, abuse in the military is just as horrid and insidious. Its well known that serving in defence has repercussions on families. This is made significantly worse when the serving member is being, or has been subjected to abuse. To those outside australia,,the government has been forced to create a special taskforce to try and deal with the cases of abuse that just keep on coming out. Currently over 2400 plausible complaints are in the system known as Dart. Defense abuse response taskforce. Sadly, due to political pressure and personal agendas, the taskforce as a cure is becoming worse than the disease. Unacceptably long waiting times for answers, if they are provided at all, have resulted in at least 3 suicides of victims. Remember these people served our country in its military, were abused by those they were supposed to trust, survived all that, then the pressure and stress of recounting their abuse, with no access to legal assistance or counselling until after the fact, has pushed them over the edge. The response from the taskforce was to ignore the suicides and the damage. The suicides were not reported to the australian parliament in any of the three monthly reports from the chairman of a Dart. They only relented to admit the suicides after robust interrogation at a special senate inquiry into the operations of Dart. So yes, lets make this clear, defence allows abuse to flourish unpunished, the government creates a taskforce to deal with it, defence says abuse has to stop, but the rapes, beatings, abuse of power, physical and psychological torture continues unabated with more recent examples being reported, then the taskforce had to be investigated by a special senate committee to find out why the taskforce itself is now being accused of abusing victims. The response by the chairman of Dart, to the submissions to the senate inquiry by victims, is to try and intimidate them into silence, hide or ignore the suicides, describe some of the victims as a rabid minority with an agenda (though he doesnt say what that agenda is), attempted to intimidate a protected senate witness by having one of the committee members (acknowledged by DART as a victim, has been paid a reparation payment, offered counselling and a restorative engagement meeting) detained by police under the mental health act, and has told victims who have asked for information about their claims under the freedom of information act that Dart is not subject to the FOI act, when in fact they certainly are as a government organisation under the control of the Attorney Generals Department. There is also documented evidence of threatening letters being sent to victims by the chairman, in response to the victims questions regarding progress, or the lack of, in their complaints. There is evidence of the rules being changed at will by the chairman to restrict victims from accessing levels of reparation payments, that have already been paid to other victims with similar abuses. There appears to be unfair priority given to a significant number of claims that were prepared by specific legal firms, who took a significant skim off the top of the reparation claim as a fee. There have been demands made to victims to accept assessments by Dart, which have been made without any investigations, by people who have never spoken to the victim, and waive all rights of appeal to the assessment before being told what level of reparation the claim has been assessed at. There have been precious little referrals for criminal charges being made against perpetrators. Abusers are not being made accountable for what they have done, most arent even advised of the allegations against them. Demands from victims for a Royal Commission to fully investigate the abuses, and the system as a whole have been dismissed by the Chairman as rabid, or even nonexistant. The excuse about victims not wanting to appear before a royal commission has also been used. Lets make this very clear A Royal Commission is not about who does or doesnt want to talk, its about forcing out the real truth behind the abuse so it can be dealt with properly and stopped. Its clear that anything short of a Royal Commission is just more whitewashing and attempts by defence to protect the abusers and keep a lid on the true extent and nature of abuse in our defence force. How many suicides are too many? When is enough enough? How long Is The cycle of abuse going to be allowed to continue? How long are abusers going to be allowed to remain unaccountable for their actions and abuse? Do we as a nation and as a society expect and deserve more from our military? The attached parade clip, is well worth watching, it would be hilarious to those who understand its true depth, that is if it wasnt so serious in the first place. Please enjoy, and share https://youtube/watch?v=z_-2miUGOqs
Posted on: Tue, 30 Sep 2014 00:08:27 +0000
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