Who bombed the Hilton? (28 page)

There is no question that after the bombing Australia implemented a much more rigid and systemised process of determining who was to be kept within our borders and who was to be kept out.

That said, the situation is a lot more complicated than first meets the eye. It is very easy, as we have seen, to simply caricature a government as a bunch of civil liberty stomping fascists intent on eroding individual rights simply because they're fascists and that's what fascists do. Usually things are more nuanced and human. The bringing to heel of Abhiik Kumar in August 1978 is born as much out of exasperation as out of genuine fear.

Evidence in years to come will bear out that none of these entities — ASIO, COMPOL, the federal government, the police — have any doubt that this man is responsible for the Hilton bombing and other atrocities here and abroad. They are frightened of him and want to convict him. Yet despite their collective might, all their authority and money and organisational clout, they have severely underestimated their target.

I'm sure if I was a physicist I could name the tendency or principle associated with bringing a highly volatile and mobile element to stasis which in turn causes it to erupt catastrophically. When it is revealed on 9 August that Michael Brandon's passport has been cancelled, the outrage from the membership of the Australian Ananda Marga on behalf of their spiritual leader is immediate, vocal and deeply disturbing. The actions it unleashes completely outweigh reactions to the arrests of Anderson, Alister and Dunn eight weeks earlier.

Exactly what the Australian authorities think is going to happen next is impossible to know. It could be a wait-and-see scenario. Perhaps the embedded ASIO agents were hoping that the free Baba euphoria would loosen lips, although one imagines Seary's exposure as an informant would make this less likely.

What they aren't expecting is an assault on federal parliament.

A hardline policy

On Wednesday afternoon, 16 August 1978, about 24 hours after the annual budget speech, the cut and thrust of Question Time in the House of Representatives is just concluding. The House is jam-packed with politicians bickering, joking and flirting. As things start to wind up, Prime Minister Fraser pulls his lanky length upward and starts to lead his entourage across the chamber towards the exit. At that moment a young man in the public gallery leaps to his feet screaming ‘Free Michael Brandon',
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and hurls something at the members below. The pollies jerk their heads up in fright as they are showered in reams of paper. It seems a little comical now, to have been so frightened by a rain of Ananda Marga leaflets, but one of the things Malcolm Fraser told me (when he'd done chastising me for looking into the bombing at all) was that this protester could have been throwing hand grenades.

‘Really?' you say. ‘Really?' Yes. Back in those innocent times no one is searched or questioned or prevented from entering the public gallery of Parliament. There are no walk-through metal detectors or wands or wary security guards on alert. What is even more extraordinary is that when the screaming protester, Margii Roger Thompson of Newtown,
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is hauled away by the attendant, there isn't even a law to charge him under. In 1978 the parliamentary privilege that allows Australian politicians to say and, to some extent do, whatever they bloody well want within that chamber also extends to members of the public in the gallery. Strictly speaking the attendant who hauls away the ranting Thompson doesn't even have the right to remove him. Under the laws of the day, he is able to scream and shout and throw things to his heart's content. He is simply representing the sect and acting on his right to legitimately protest against the police persecution of the Australian Ananda Marga leader.

Three weeks later, parliament goes into another panic when an aide sees a shoe box left in a toilet off King's Hall. The aide prises off the lid, spies Ananda Marga leaflets inside and decides that it's probably a bomb. The building is evacuated.

This incident, according to the papers, ‘spotlights the lack of security surrounding all federal parliamentarians, from the Prime Minister down'.
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Then it happens again:

This time the Commonwealth Police haul the woman away and question her for two hours. But as before, there is no law to charge her under, so she is released. The papers report that this second incident is once again motivated by the sect's anger at ‘Michael Brandon, head of the Ananda Marga in Australia [having] his passport confiscated on August 9 after his return to Australia from a visit to India.' The difference this time, however, is that the shouting and leaflet-throwing woman ‘hardly raised a ripple in the House', with Speaker Sir Billy Snedden choosing simply to ignore her, while several members are reported as letting out a collective groan.
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While this could be evidence of how quickly Aussie politicians toughen up in the face of danger, it's possible that many of them have inside information that's girding their loins … Something secret.

At the very moment the impassioned sect member is demanding the return of her beloved leader's passport, a group of men are sitting in a room in the very
same building finalising Submission No. 2520. This submission is the final Cabinet Minutes of the Intelligence and Security Committee, who have formulated Australia's very first Policy and Organisation in Relation to Counter Terrorism. These blokes aren't mucking about, and missy up in the gallery is lucky she wasn't lobbing grenades, given that the Committee has just agreed that:

(a)
Australia adopt a ‘hardline' policy in dealing with terrorist incidents, that is: —

(i)
the police and, where it is appropriate to authorise their employment, elements of the Defence Force, be instructed to take firm action against the terrorists and obtain their surrender;

(ii)
if tactical negotiations aimed at surrender fail and in particular if violent action by the terrorists (for example, killing or injuring hostages or major property damage) is anticipated, action to be taken to subdue the terrorists by force; and

(iii)
the timing and manner of such forceful action and the tactics applied to facilitate its success be, in the final balance, subject to the principle of minimising the risk of the loss of innocent life; and

(b)
only in particular circumstances and as the ultimate alternative, when all options available under sub paragraph 1 (a) above have been considered and found unacceptable, would the possibility of concessions (other than minor concessions such as food and medical supplies) be considered by Ministers in consultation with the Prime Minister.
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So there you have it: no more Mr Nice Guy stuff. The gloves are off and while this document, which will remain secret for the next 30 years, makes it clear that this new policy is not to be published, it does encourage the Australian Government to issue statements ‘emphasising Australian opposition to any attempt by terrorist organisations to achieve their aim by terrorist acts, and the Australian Government's intention, if any such attempt were made within its jurisdiction, to take all appropriate action to counter it'.
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However, it is all very well to hammer out this kind of manifesto within the cool wood-panelled rooms of parliament when you imagine your foe is some kind of faceless gun-toting thug. It's quite another to keep the hard line when faced with the burning flesh of a pretty young heiress.

The immolation of Lynette Phillips

While the bureaucrats are busy writing policy and scrambling to review the laws surrounding parliamentary privilege in order to criminalise future disruptions of federal parliament, a 25-year-old Australian member of Prout, Lynette Phillips, travelling on a British passport, disembarks from the cross-Channel ferry at Folkestone on 26 September 1978.
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Accompanying the dark-haired Lynette are two women, a Brazilian and a Swede, also members of Prout. They are stopped by Customs and their bags are searched. Contained in their luggage is material on self-immolation, and in Lynette's shoulder bag is a statement that reads: ‘Lynette Phillips (Santi) Proutist Universal Citizen … Lover of humanity … Self Immolated in London on September 26th, 1978.'
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How do the British authorities react?

They decide to make it someone else's problem. The Brazilian and the Swede are dragged into security for immediate deportation back to Ostend, from whence they came. Lynette, despite her disturbing threats, is given permission to stay in Britain for two months. While this seems utterly absurd, particularly given that the three English Margiis — Shaw, Waring and Kidd — are in jail about to face trial for attempted murder in London in a month's time, within hours it's clear the authorities are still passing the buck. As soon as Lynette walks through passport control into the diesel fumes of an autumnal English day and heads for London, the British Home Office alerts Scotland Yard. The police then tail her all the way to Parliament Square, arrest her, then escort her back to the ferry and deport her to Belgium. There is an unnerving and faintly ridiculous photograph that immortalises the moment at Parliament House with Lynette, head bowed and swathed in pale baggy robes and matching skull-cap, standing beside her captor in shiny uniform and helmet — a cowed serf next to a cartoon bobby.
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The Brits will claim that this is all done with the full knowledge of the staff at Australia House. The London police state that they contacted ‘authorities' at Australia House and requested a passport photograph of ‘Miss Phillips' in order to ‘aid them in recognising her if she attempted to carry out her plans to set herself alight'.
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Within a week the staff at Australia House will deny they were ever contacted by the British police, and will say that they didn't know Lynette had been deported until two days later, on 28 September.

Arriving in Belgium, Lynette, the daughter of mining millionairess Millie Phillips and her exhusband, businessman Harold Phillips,
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is undaunted. With unwavering intent she travels to yet another capital of international significance — this time, Geneva.

When Lynette arrives in the Swiss city on 2 October, her frantic parents, who were eventually informed of her deportation, have been fruitlessly looking for her for days. So too are members of the Ananda Marga in London and Sweden, who claim that she contacted them on 27 September after her expulsion from London and will not, despite their protestations, be dissuaded from her quest. They do not attempt to contact her parents.
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As night approaches in Geneva, Lynette, en route to the Palais des Nations, the United Nations building, stops at a service station and buys a can of petrol. She locates a pay phone and calls a number of news agency offices within the Palais ‘asking them to send photographers as something would shortly be happening in the Palais des Nations. It would be “spectacular”.'
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Lynette, reportedly an introverted girl, privately educated, who dropped out of Medicine and craved attention, isn't wrong about that.

Lynette sits down on the lawn out the front of the UN and calmly places placards of heavy paper on the grass: ‘Prouts Universal — Prout (progressive utilization theory) … a flaming torch in the dark night of exploitation … UNO holds the lives of billions but delegates prefer luxurious lives to their human responsibilities … Baba Nam Kevalam [The word of the Father is truth].' She takes off her shoes and places them and her handbag neatly on the grass and pours the petrol over herself and sets herself alight. The Margiis have another martyr. Lynette is number eight.
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