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Disaster black armada prohibited toxic
The Black Armada (Indonesian: Armada Hitam) was a name applied to Dutch merchant and military vessels which were prevented from sailing to the newly proclaimed independent Indonesia from Australian ports due to waterfront strikes or 'black bans' by maritime trade unions from 1945 to 1949.
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End of World War II
On 15 August 1945, the Empire of Japan announced its surrender, bringing to an end both World War II and the Japanese occupation of the Dutch East Indies. Two days later, on 17 August, Indonesia proclaimed its independence, however the Netherlands refused to recognise the claim and sought to re-assert Dutch control over its former colony.
"Black ban" on Dutch shipping
The ban began on 23 September when Indonesian crew members of four Dutch ships berthed in Sydney held a sit-down strike, refusing to work on Dutch-flagged or chartered vessels, over a pay dispute and claiming that the materiel on the ships was intended to be used to suppress the independence movement. The Indonesian sailors made a request to the Waterside Workers Federation of Australia to join the boycott, and WWF federal secretary Jim Healy said that the union would not be a party to aiding in the suppression of an elected independent Indonesian government.
The next day, three ships in Brisbane were held up by the bans, as well as the SS Karsik in Melbourne. The disputes committee of the Trades and Labour Council endorsed the unions' ban, declaring six vessels in Brisbane to be "black".
The Dutch government responded to the boycotts, insisting that any military materiel and personnel on the ships was for the purpose of fighting pro-Japanese militia in Indonesia. Commander Huibert Quispel of the Netherlands Indies Government Information Service stated that the vessels were "mercy ships" carrying food, clothing and medical supplies for the Indonesian people, and that by boycotting them, Australia's militant trade unions were only aiding the Japanese, and the "Quisling Jap-sponsored government" of Indonesia.
In December 1949, after Dutch recognition of Indonesian independence, a conference of 17 trade unions passed a motion raised by Healy to lift the black ban on Dutch shipping, ending the dispute which had run for over four years.