Police Rap

Women Against Racism (W.A.R.) had worked in solidarity with the PAC (Pan-Africanist Congress) in Canberra.  We were part of a nine month 24/7 picket of the South African Embassy which had Trades and Labour Council support. We helped establish the Southern Africa Liberation Centre in front of that Embassy.  We were part of the organising of solidarity rallies and marches remembering massacres, against black deaths in custody and for land rights and sovereignty.  We worked with the BLF and striking laundry workers and cleaners.  

In 1988, with the help of special branch and ASIO, a member of W.A.R., Kerry Browning, was arrested by police and charged with blowing up diplomatic vehicles. Kerry’s husband Maxwell Nemadzhivanani, the PAC representative in Canberra, was also charged. The case was a frame-up that finally ended in acquittal, but it took a long time and a lot of fund raising and a lot of  energy. And it finished W.A.R.  A documentary of the story - ‘A Wall of Secrecy’ (1992) – was made by filmmakers Amanda King and Fabio Cavadini.