----- Original Message -----
From: David Muller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: Cubasi <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Monday, December 04, 2000 6:33 AM
Subject: [Cuba SI] Australians rally for racial reconciliation
----------
Australians rally for racial reconciliation
MELBOURNE: South News (Dec. 3) - Up to half a million Australians on both
sides of the continent marched for Aboriginal reconciliation Sunday.
Over 400,000 people marched in the southern city of Melbourne, including
federal and state MPs from both sides of politics, jammed streets for more
than five hours on the Walk for Aboriginal Reconciliation. Tens of
thousands of people took part in a similar march in Perth, the capital of
Western Australia.
In the Victorian state capital of Melbourne people were carrying banners
and shouting slogans criticizing the government for its treatment of
Aborigines, Australia's original inhabitants and now its most disadvantaged
minority.
Carrying Aboriginal flags, home-made banners and "sorry" balloons: were
school, community and environmental groups, babies in pushers, children on
tricycles, an old lady walking slowly with the help of a walking frame.
Even represented were ethnic solidarity groups such as Friends of
Palestine.
The walks, and a similar event in Port Hedland, came several months after
walks attracted hundreds of thousands of people in Sydney, Brisbane,
Adelaide, Hobart and Canberra.
Political leaders from across the spectrum joined the three-kilometre
march, but Australia's prime minister, John Howard was not among them.
Howard has angered Aborigines and many white Australians by refusing to
deliver a formal government apology to the indigenous population for past
mistreatment at the hands of white immigrants.
Howard has been accused by Aboriginal lobby groups and the left of lacking
the vision and will to forge a social, economic and political accord
between Aborigines and the rest of the population. But his government's
treasurer and heir apparent, Peter Costello, joined the procession, despite
entrenched criticism of Howard's decision not to make a formal apology to
Aborigines for their suffering under white rule.
In Melbourne, public figures criticised Prime Minister John Howard's
failure to join them, while Federal Labor Leader Kim Beazley joined his
parents at the Perth event.
But Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission chairman Geoff Clarke
said politicians were now "playing catch-up football" on the reconciliation
issue.
However, politicians still had a responsibility to reconciliation in
Australia, Mr Beazley said. Also marching was former high court judge Sir
Ronald Wilson, who wrote a report on the Stolen Generations called Bringing
Them Home, and WA Opposition Leader Geoff Gallop.
ACTU president Sharan Burrow described Mr Howard's absence as "incredibly
sad". "It seems to me that when a prime minister of our country . . . can't
walk today in solidarity with Australia's indigenous people, then there's
something very sick about a government that would pit people in Australia
against each other like that," she said.
Victorian State Premier Steve Bracks and state Opposition Leader Denis
Napthine were among those who covered the 3km route from Melbourne's
Flinders Street Station to King's Domain.
Mr. Bracks, who walked alongside Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation
chairwoman Evelyn Scott and her deputy, Sir Gustav Nossal, said he
regretted Mr Howard's absence. But he was grateful other Federal Government
members had joined.
"Each of these things are a step on the way to progress for the cause of
reconciliation in Australia," he said. "I'd like the Prime Minister to be
here, but I'm happy his senior ministers will be here." .
The council, which has responsibility for overseeing the redress of
injustices suffered by Aborigines since white colonisation of Australia in
1788, was heartened by the turnout for one of the last official functions
it will perform, Sir Gustav said.
But the council will be disbanded on Thursday after it delivers its final
report to Federal Parliament. It will be replaced by a new body,
Reconciliation Australia, which will also be launched on Thursday
Council chairwoman Evelyn Scott gave a clear-eyed assessment of the
distance travelled when she said the idea of a treaty had been around since
the 1967 referendum gave the Commonwealth power to make special laws for
Aborigines.
"What we have to do now is we have to have a conversation about a treaty.
We haven't had that conversation ... The treaty will happen, but we have to
talk about it." But it is hard to have a conversation if a key player has
already decided a treaty is inappropriate and divisive.
Democrats Aboriginal senator Aden Ridgeway, a member of the council,
signalled yesterday that he had given up on the Prime Minister and vowed to
introduce his own legislation in the senate to implement the council's
final recommendations.
The march began with a performance by a group of young indigenous dancers
and wound up with a massive concert and party at King's Domain. Also
installed at King's Domain was the Sea of Hands, a public art installation
comprising 120,000 plastic hands signed by 250,000 Australians supporting
native title and reconciliation.
Originally scheduled to last just three hours, the march was still
attracting throngs of participants more than an hour after its proposed
finishing time, with road closures extended until 2pm.
In Perth organiser Tim Muirhead said the walk offered people a chance to
move forward into a future of hope, unity and commitment to justice and
reconciliation. "It's a symbolic moment of transformation where we say
thank you to the council and carry the recognition forward," Mr Muirhead
said.
This included recognition of the fact that most Aborigines, who make up two
percent of Australia's population, lived in Third World conditions, he
said.
After 200 years of white settlement, Aborigines make up 386,000 of
Australia's 19 million people and are the poorest, least healthy and most
likely to be jailed ethnic group. The average life expectancy is 20 years
shorter than that of white Australians.
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