Indigenous People are Still Victims of Racial Discrimination

Göttingen
In January 2001 Australia will celebrate the 100th anniversary of its independence from the United Kingdom. In honor of this event Australia’s government is sure to present a nation characterized by equality, liberty, and freedom. Nothing will be said of Australia’s legacy of oppression, discrimination and human rights violations. There will be no official mention of the fact that United Nations human rights officials were recently denied entry into Australia. Nor will there be any mention of the fact that UN human rights committees have denounced Australia’s human rights record. Nonetheless, the Society for Threatened Peoples (GfbV) and Australia’s Aborigines will continue to protest Australia’s violations of international human rights agreements. The GfbV and the Aborigines of Australia will also continue to call on the Australian government, under the leadership of Prime Minister John Howard, to cooperate with the United Nations and to make an official apology to the indigenous people of Australia for more than two centuries of genocide, land theft and discrimination.

„Aborigines“ is a collective term used to describe the indigenous communities of Australia. These communities have a total population of between 300,000 and 400,000 people and comprise some two percent of Australia’s population. Many of the indigenous people of Australia lead miserable lives on the fringes of society and are often characterized as beggars and disturbers of the peace. In 1996, when the Howard government came to power „down under,“ the process of reconciliation with the „First Peoples,“ which was begun in 1991, stalled. Howard has massively slashed the funding and powers of the para-statal „Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders Commission“ (ATSIC). And, with a new law enacted in 1998, the government overturned a huge proportion of the Aboriginal land rights that had previously been recognized. No law has been enacted to guarantee Aborigine’s the right of self-determination. The Australian federal government also refuses to apologize for the government-ordered kidnappings of Aboriginal children. These kidnappings, which began in 1930s and continued until the early 1970s, meet the definition of genocide set forth in international law. Racism towards indigenous people is ever present in daily life and is reinforced by government policy. These facts led the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) to censure Australia in 1999 and 2000.

The Legacy of Colonialism

It is believed that there were some 750,000 Aborigines when Britain established its first convict colony in Australia in 1788. But the „Terra Nullius“(no-man’s land) doctrine declared the 5th continent uninhabited. Thus began the large-scale hunting and massacring of Aborigines. As of 1830 only 80,000 Aborigines had survived these massacres. And, it was not until 1992 that Australia’s highest court declared „Terra Nullius“ null and void. Forced relocations instigated by stockbreeders or mining enterprises and the government (during the British atomic bomb tests in South Australia from 1953 to 1963 for example), have forced the Aborigines onto the fringes of society. Very few Aborigines are still able to gather food and hunt as their ancestors once did. Most Aborigines live in the Northern Territory and the federal states of Queensland and New South Wales. Another large group of indigenous people are the Torres Strait Islanders who live on the islands between Australia and Papua New Guinea.

The „Stolen Generations“

Ever since 1997, when a report was published following a state inquiry into the forced removal of children from their families („Bringing them home“), the term „Stolen Generations“ has become synonymous with the continuing effects of discrimination in Australia. In this report it is estimated that 100,000 children were torn away from their families between 1930 and 1970. It also states that these kidnappings were part of a government policy aimed at systematically robbing Aboriginal children of their cultural identity. The report reveals that these children suffered an appalling amount of physical and psychological abuse in state and church institutions. According to the 1948 UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide (Art. II.e), the „forced removal of the children of one group to another group“ is genocide.

Peter Gunner was separated from his family in the 50s when he was six or seven years old. In July 2000 he was asked in court whether his mother or any other member of his family had run after the truck taking him away. His answer was, „All I can recall when I was in the back of the ute is screaming my head off, trying to get away.“ Peter Gunner was placed in the St. Mary Hostel in Alice Springs. During his first night there he took his blanket off of his bed so that he could sleep on the floor as he was used to doing. When the workers of the St. Mary Hostel saw this, they thrashed with a leather strap.

The probability that the males abducted in this manner will fall into trouble with the law is double that of Aboriginal children who were able to stay with their families. The vulnerability of abducted Aborigine children to addictions is also higher than the Aboriginal average. Some federal states and the Lutheran Church have apologized to the Aborigines for these crimes. But the federal government, under the leadership of John Howard, refuses not only to officially utter the word „sorry,“ but also tries to play down the gravity of these human rights violations. The minister for Aboriginal affairs, John Herron, says that „only“ 10 percent of the Aboriginal children were affected, even though the Australian Human Rights Commission found in research it performed that at least every third Aboriginal child was affected. To this day, the proportion of Aboriginal children taken away from their parents is three times the national average.

Aboriginal Land Rights Overturned In One Fell Swoop

In July 1998 the Howard government drastically cut hard-won land rights once again by changing land rights legislation (Native Title Amendment Act). The „Mabo“ judgment of Australia’s highest court in June 1992 and the „Wik“ judgment of 1996 had recognized the rights of Aborigines to reside in their traditional living areas. The judges had also ruled that the lease holders of pastoral lands or mining companies active in disputed areas also enjoy customary rights that would be given greater weight than the traditional land rights of the indigenous people under certain circumstances. But the new Howard law goes even further and makes the claims of the Aborigines fundamentally subordinate to the interests of white farmers or mining companies. Despite international protests against this racist law, the Howard government has not changed its position on this issue.

As a result of the new land legislation, the traditional rights of the indigenous people are being progressively eroded. Yvonne Margarula, spokeswoman of the Mirrar people and holder of the land title to the area on which the partially developed Jabiluka uranium mine is to be located, was arrested because she peacefully squatted on the Jabiluka construction site. The land of the Mirrar lies like an island in the middle of the Kakadu National Park, which is on the UNESCO’s world heritage list.

In its judgment on the „Yanner Case“ of October 1999, the highest court in Canberra acknowledged the rights of the Aborigines to hunt and fish in their traditional manner, but only for the purpose of personal consumption. Some federal states and environmental activists have already protested this ruling, warning that the Aborigines would now hunt in protected areas and endanger threatened animal species. To this day the Aborigines‘ rights to land, water, plant and animal resources, paths or religious sites are perceived as obstructions to European-styles of development.

Discrimination Leads to Destitution

For years Aboriginal organizations have complained of double standards in health care services. The average life expectancy of Aboriginal women is 62 years, that of Aboriginal men, 57. The national Australian averages are 81 and 75 respectively. Illnesses such as diabetes, asthma and heart disease, as well as syphilis, leprosy and trachoma (an infectious eye disease that leads to blindness) are disproportionately widespread amongst the Aborigines. Many children suffer from anemia, parasitic bowel infections and brain damage caused by poor nutrition. In response to these facts members of the Howard government have made the cynical observation that 80 percent of these health problems are due to excessive alcohol consumption, smoking and bad eating habits.

The unemployment rate among Aborigines ranges from 38 to more than 50 percent compared with the national average of nine to ten percent. More than half of the Aborigines who graduate from school do not find work. Thirteen percent of Aboriginal children do not attend school and 50 percent leave school early. In rural areas, many secondary schools are located more than 100 kilometers from Aboriginal communities. Only 20 percent of Aborigines still speak their native languages.

Jail Sentences for Trivial Offences

Indigenous people make up about two percent of Australia’s population, but the proportion of imprisoned Aborigines is several times as high. In New South Wales Aboriginal youths are arrested if there is mere suspicion that a crime has been committed. Since 1997 Aboriginal youths in the Northern Territory are placed in jail for petty offences. In 1998, a 13-year-old girl was held in a prison for six weeks because of minor offences. The prison was located 1,500 kilometers from her family, which she was not even allowed to contact. Statistically, at least half of the Aboriginal men aged 20 to 24 have been imprisoned at least once in the past five years. Arrests on charges of drunkenness, „disorderly behaviour,“ insulting officials and resisting state authority are the most frequent. Because their financial situation often precludes the payment of the fines imposed, they are imprisoned.

The conditions of imprisonment are inhumane, and the number of suicides during custody is alarming. A 16-year-old Aborigine jailed on suspicion of drunkenness hanged himself in his cell in Alice Springs in 1998. The police had not evaluated his emotional state nor had they informed his family that he was being held in custody. The appalling conditions in Australian prisons have been common knowledge for years. But the recommendations made by official commissions of inquiry are ignored.

Derision Instead of Reconciliation

In 1991 the Australian government called for a process of reconciliation to establish a new covenant between the descendants of the white settlers and the First People. A commission was formed and for ten years Aboriginal, state, and civil society representatives negotiated this new covenant. At the end of May 2000 the Howard government ceremoniously published the „final document“ produced by the commission. But this document contains neither an apology for the crimes of the past, as was expected by all Aborigines, nor does it list major Aboriginal demands – land rights and a contractual regulation of self-determination. Instead, the „final document“ contains a collection of euphemisms. Tired of the humiliations suffered during this process, top Aboriginal leaders shunned the concluding ceremony.

Our Demands

Together with the Aborigines we demand that the Australian government

• Provide United Nations experts unrestricted access to Australia so that they can carry out their international legal mandate and protect human rights;
• Apologize for the genocide of the Aborigines;
• Acknowledge the land rights of the indigenous people of Australia;
• Establish a contractual provision that guarantees Aborigines the right to self-determination;
• Guarantee the participation of Aborigines in all political decisions affecting them;
• Protect and promote the social and cultural heritage of the indigenous people of Australia.

We demand that the German government complain to the Australian government about the barring of UN human rights committees from Australia. The German foreign minister, Joschka Fischer, has stated that it is his intention to strengthen the United Nations. But Germany’s efforts to obtain a permanent seat on the Security Council must not lead Germany to remain diplomatically silent in the face of human rights violations.

We call on all European governments to refuse to enter into new economic or political agreements with Australia as long as Canberra refuses to sign the European Union’s human rights clause.