They salute the same flag and fight for the same country, but the two groups of soldiers are a world apart. The chief of the Australian Defence Force, Admiral Chris Barrie, and Army chief Lieut. General Peter Cosgrove, swept into a committee room in Canberra's Parliament House on Oct. 6, followed by a noisy phalanx of advisers and senior officers. The defense subcommittee that had summoned them wanted to know why its inquiry into military justice had not been told about a series of punishment beatings in one of Australia's most respected fighting units.
Within a few hours, the chiefs were gone and behind closed doors the committee began hearing from a second group of soldiers, victims of those beatings. Among them sat a military-police bodyguard assigned to protect one of the witnesses, who had allegedly been threatened with violence in an attempt to secure his silence. Hearing the contrasting testimony of the two sets of witnesses, an observer might have been forgiven for thinking that in the Australian Army, the bonds of obligation-the lines of responsibility from top to bottom, bottom to top-had completely broken down.
What began as a probe into the culture of the 3rd Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment in the late 1990s has become more substantial and more disturbing. The military's award-winning system of equity and anti-harassment measures, and its procedures for bringing wrongdoers to justice, are not working. With reports of sexual assault on the rise, a record sum awarded in a harassment case last month, and recruitment and retention on the wane, the Australian Defence Force's credibility is under question. According to some familiar with the military justice system, promised reforms do not address the real problem-a recalcitrant military mindset. "The system is O.K.," says one senior military legal officer. "But it's not being followed through."
In August, Time revealed that a "culture of violence" had existed within 3RAR; that military police had investigated and recommended charges against 14 men; and that well-intentioned intervention by Cosgrove had been ruled unlawful, causing the first of the prosecutions to be aborted. As a result, the defense subcommittee of the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade launched its inquiry.
As this fresh investigation progresses, it is 3RAR's past command that is coming under scrutiny. Evidence now coming to light suggests that key staff within the lite paratroop battalion knew of the rough justice and failed to act. A platoon commander claims he told his commanding officer he had been illegally subjected to torture training, only to be told: "I can't let one of these incidents get outside the unit." Soldiers have similar allegations, and a civilian doctor has claimed he too spoke to a commander about the violence. Noting that the incidents formed a pattern, military investigators asked the unit's leaders whether this reflected a "systemic cultural problem." Everything was denied. But the evidence warrants further inquiry-as it did in April 1999, when the original investigation was halted. "I was given the direction it had to be wound up reasonably quickly, to get a resolution on it," military police officer Maj. Sean O'Connell told the inquiry. "I believe there were questions being raised in parliament at that time."
The ADF will now hold an inquiry of its own, to be headed by Federal Court judge James Burchett; it will also create an Inspectorate-General to act as an internal affairs bureau. "My reaction to these events in 3RAR," said Cosgrove, "is to quickly do what I can to prevent this from occurring again."
But while it's stories about battered diggers that grab the headlines, investigations by Time and the secret testimony given to the committee point to a deeper malaise: that of a military culture that fails to react adequately when violence appears in its ranks, a culture in which victims are terrified and whistleblowers feel vulnerable. And, says Roger Price, Labor M.P. and deputy chair of the defense subcommittee: "For a culture of violence to exist, you need someone's approval." Cosgrove told the committee that for the Army, the most serious allegation to emerge from the 3RAR affair was that "such activity may have been condoned." But he said the investigation was not widened in 1999 to examine that possibility for fear of losing focus on the assaults. Admiral Barrie said the forthcoming ADF inquiry would "look at that cultural issue."
It's an issue most soldiers can readily explain. Says Squadron Leader Alistair Twigg, who has served since 1969 first as a navigator and then as a reservist lawyer: "The attitude is still that you have to break people down and remodel them into those who will follow orders, and die on command, without thinking. That doesn't sit well with the developments in human rights and discrimination law since 1975."
Part of the problem is the military's reluctance to rebuke its own. Says Commander Geoff Vickridge, a senior naval reserve lawyer and defense counsel in the 3RAR prosecutions: "They've split up our defendants [the men were charged together], changed the charges, brought in a Q.C. to prosecute in front of the commanding officer, and they still haven't got the people they should be going for." Says another reserve lawyer: "The only time they prosecute an officer is when there's no choice." But a Department of Defence insider says that is unfair. "We can't win," he says. "If we don't charge someone it's a whitewash, if we do they're a scapegoat." When officers are found to be negligent, insiders say, rather than charging them the ADF uses early retirement to let them leave quietly.
On the face of it, the military provides an aggrieved soldier with many opportunities for justice. He can rely on the chain of command, reporting to his immediate superiors or a company commander and eventually to the commanding officer. If that route is blocked, the soldier can approach the unit's equity officer, the padre, the regimental medical officer, or a complaints hotline. All of these options were allegedly tried by frustrated paratroopers: none of them worked. "Every lever was pulled, but nothing happened," says a subcommittee member who asked for anonymity.
In 3RAR's case, it was only after the mother of Private Jacob Nishimura wrote to then junior Defence Minister Bronwyn Bishop ("It is imperative that I speak with you urgently," implored one letter), and Corporal Craig Smith produced evidence that a senior NCO had forced soldiers to give false testimony, that an investigation was launched, in September 1998. Captain Helen Marks, the ADF's Director of Discipline Law, says "it's a great concern" that things came to that pass. Asked at the inquiry on Oct. 6 why ordinary soldiers should retain confidence in the military justice system, Commodore Raydon Gates, the ADF's Director General of Career Management Planning, said: "I believe the system is working. I personally have confidence in what we've laid down here."
Some senior officers cite the growing number of complaints as proof that soldiers trust the system. Reports of sexual assault in the ADF have increased 175% in the past year. In the Air Force, complaints of sexual harassment are up 162.5%; in the Army they're up 30%. But not all soldiers are happy about the results. One servicewoman says she was inspired to train as an equity officer by the inadequate response her claims of sexual harassment received-and found three other harassment victims in the same course. Gates told the inquiry, without a hint of irony, that the woman's experiences would make her a better equity officer.
Last month the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission awarded $130,000-Australia's highest sexual harassment payout-to former Air Force leading aircraftwoman Katherine Williams, saying that despite the Air Force's network of counselors, there had been "no real investigation" of Williams' complaints.
All the right measures are there; it's the will to implement them that is lacking. "The problem is not so much that we lack the guidance," Cosgrove told the inquiry. "We have got to digest it and believe it." Air Force lawyer Twigg says it isn't just a matter of having enlightened officers at the top: "If each level erodes [policy] a little bit, by the time it gets down to the privates' rank it looks nothing like how it began."
In early 1999, as it was winding up its original inquiry, the parliamentary committee considered establishing a Directorate of Military Prosecutions, akin to that in the United Kingdom. The ADF rejected the proposal, saying it would threaten commanders' control of their units. If the facts about 3RAR had been known then, says a source, the committee would almost certainly have recommended an independent prosecutor. When it finally heard from the victims, it learned that one had moved interstate after threats against his family, only to have his attacker posted to his new unit. The second man's move "would appear more than coincidental," said the victim's bodyguard. If the ADF is unable to prevent coincidences like that from recurring, parliament may yet conclude that the military cannot be trusted to protect its own.