The Jury’s citation reads:

“George Gittoes AM: For exposing injustice for over 45 years as a humanist artist, activist and filmmaker, for his courage to witness and confront violence in the war zones of the world, for enlisting the arts to subdue aggression and for enlivening the creative spirit to promote tolerance, respect and peace with justice. ”

Gittoes grew up in the Sydney suburb of Rockdale and studied Fine Arts at The University of Sydney. In 1970 he helped establish The Yellow House artists collective in Kings Cross with others including Martin Sharp and Brett Whitely. Gittoes’ activism evolved through his work as a painter, film maker and photojournalist. He has chronicled conflicts and social upheavals in places including Nicaragua, Somalia, Cambodia, Western Sahara, Northern Ireland, Bosnia,Bougainville, East Timor, South Africa, Palestine, Iraq and Pakistan. In 1995 Gittoes was a witness to the massacre of thousands of Rwandans at a displaced persons camp where they had sought protection from UN peacekeeping forces. This inspired his painting The Preacher, which won the 1995 Blake Prize for religious art.

Congratulations again George!

The Federation of Ethnic Communities’ Councils of Australia (FECCA)’s held its national biennial conference entitled Multiculturalism in Action: Building a better future for all Australians

in Sydney on 5-6 November 2015. The Conference coincided with the 40th anniversary of ECC NSW and the SBS.

I was invited to speak on a panel which discussed the legacy of multiculturalism in Australia, particularly in relation to a potential case for a National Multicultural Act, on the first day of the conference. Few photos and a copy of my contribution are below.

FECCA Conference 2015 -Legislating Multiculturalism_- Dr Ozdowski

I met with Hon. M.A. Sumanthiran, Member of Parliament of Sri Lanka since 2010 representing Jaffna Electoral District and the official Spokesperson for the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) Party to discuss the current human rights situation in Sri Lanka.

Hon. Sumanthiran was educated Colombo, Madras and Melbourne and is one of Sri Lanka’s top human rights and constitutional lawyers. He has appeared in a number of fundamental rights cases and judicial reviews of parliamentary legislation and executive action including the charging of levy for water and establishing a revenue authority. He prevented the forced expulsion of Tamils from Colombo and successfully challenged an anti-conversion bill which the courts struck down as being unconstitutional. He has also appeared for petitioners against the proposed 18th and 19th amendments to the constitution which were found to be unconstitutional and required two-thirds majority in Parliament and a referendum. He has worked on a number of public interest cases including the on-going attempt by residents of the Valikamam North High Security Zone to get their land back from the Sri Lankan military. His human rights work has led to him being threatened and being branded “traitors in black coats” by the Sri Lankan military.

Hon. Sumanthiran is now working on the implementation of the recent UN Human Rights Council report: ‘Promoting reconciliation, accountability and human rights in Sri Lanka.’

It was a pleasure to host Mr Steve Killelea AM at the WSU Open Forum on:  Positive Peace – What creates inclusiveness?  Steve is an accomplished entrepreneur inhigh technology business development and his custemers include: Visa, Mastercard and American Express; stock exchanges in the New York, London and Hong Kong and most of the world’s ATM’s.

Steve has used his wealth to finance philanthropic activities focused on sustainable development and peace. He is the founder of the Institute for Economics and Peace  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institute_for_Economics_and_Peace – an international think tank dedicated to building a greater understanding of the interconnection between business, peace and economics. The Global Peace Index study ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Peace_Index ), launched in May 2007 attempts to rank the world’s nations’ and regions’ peacefulness. The Institute was recently ranked in the top 15 most impactful think tanks in the world on the Global Go to Think Tank Index.

The 2015 Global Terrorism Index will be released on 17 November. Now in its third year, the report provides a detailed analysis of the changing trends in terrorism across 162 countries, over the last 15 years. It investigates the patterns of terrorism by geographic activity, methods of attack, organisations involved and the national economic and political context. Socio-economic indicators are also analysed to determine the key underlying factors that have the closest statistical relationship to terrorism.

For more about the Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP) see the Attachment.

2015-11-07 IEP Country Risk Analysis