- by Violet CoCo
- The Guardian
- Issue #2194
Violet CoCo at a climate rally, Adelaide, 2023. Photo: matthrkac.com.au – flickr.com (CC BY 2.0)
Interviewer: Royce Kurmelovs
Royce Kurmelovs: Can you explain a little about what happened?
Violet CoCo: Yeah, so recently I was a part of the Freedom Flotilla Coalition and Global Sumud’s attempt to break Israel’s illegal siege on the Palestinian people, which is causing a starvation of their population. We were intercepted in international waters, kidnapped at gunpoint, and held on a prison ship, which many have compared to a concentration camp. I personally was beaten, tortured and sexually abused, along with many other of my fellow humanitarian peace activists. In fact, it was actually part of the induction to the prison ship that we went through a torture chamber, that is how calculated the cruelty of Israel is.
RK: Can you explain more about what you mean by “torture chamber”?
VC: So on the prison ship, there was a configuration of shipping containers into a box, and that was like an open-air cell for over 100, almost 200, people that were on this particular ship. There were two prison ships. They pushed us into a shipping container with five Israeli soldiers in there, in the dark. They beat each one of us in turn, like in a production line, and sexually assaulted many of us, tasered some of us, and then ejected us into the container yard.
RK: You have been arrested something like 40 times in Australia and you’ve dealt with the Australian criminal justice system in one way or another. Do you have any observations?
VC: Because I have that experience, I was able to do a little bit better, and you know I was able to keep our comrades singing. We sang “We Shall Overcome.” That really helped keep the spirits high in between moments of uncertainty in terms of the level of violence and calculated violence.
I haven’t experienced this same level of violence in the prison system here, but I know that others have. I know that while they don’t necessarily beat into prisoners here in the southern colony, they do things like putting – I mean, obviously sometimes they do, we’ve had all the reports from First Nations people – but other weapons they use in the prisons here, is that they’ll put people they want beaten into cells with volatile characters and use inter-prisoner violence to enact similar attitudes. This is because it’s a colonial attitude. The only people who have worth are people with bank accounts, billions of dollars, companies and property. Those who call for justice and piece are subject to cruelty and oppression.
RK: How did the Australian government help?
VC: I hear that Penny Wong had made a phone call. I hope her wrist is okay. I hear that she’s maybe calling in the Israeli minister. They might have tea together. I don’t know what’s going to happen in that room, but I don’t expect it to be enough.
RK: Most people will know you for your climate activism. Can you talk about the relationship between what’s happening in Gaza and what’s happening on climate change?
VC: The carbon footprint from the from Israel’s genocide in Gaza exceeds 31-to-60 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent. There’s extreme air pollution, water and soil contamination, tens of millions of tonnes of debris, much of which is filled with unexploded ordnance, asbestos, and decomposing human remains. The genocide is the equivalent of running 84 coal power plants a year, and in the first four months, the emissions generated were more than 21 climate vulnerable nations combined. 99% of these emissions are linked to Israel’s aerial and ground attacks.
We also see that, you know, obviously this is an ecocide. Trees and animals also don’t like being bombed, and we know that Israel has intentionally destroyed ancient olive groves to plant their own trees in a project to completely wipe out the Palestinian existence and culture.
I think the relationship here is something that you really understand if you listen to Indigenous perspectives of what it is to be indigenous to a place, because that is to be connected to its ecology and be a part of that ecology’s functioning. So, yes, ecocide and genocide run hand in hand. It has here in this colony, and it does in Palestine, because their way of life is intertwined with the natural environment. That’s where they eat from, that’s where you know they cultivate their beauty and their nature.
RK: Is it possible to address climate change in any meaningful sense, if there is no international series of rules or laws that might constrain something like what’s happened in Gaza, and the human rights abuses. Is there a relationship there between these two issues?
VC: Absolutely. If we cannot control the military industrial complex’s capacity to utterly destroy ecosystems and to use extraordinary emissions in their pursuit of wealth, we will all suffer the consequences. We cannot address climate change if we don’t address Gaza.
