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A Long March from Melbourne to Canberra to Plead the Cause of the Aboriginal
Community
Le Monde with AFP
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/112404H.shtml
Tuesday 23 November 2004
A walk embarked on Tuesday November 23 by Michael Long, a former Australian
soccer player - i.e. participant in the sports discipline that remains the
beacon on this continent - from Melbourne to the Australian Prime Minister's
seat in Canberra, must induce the government to take measures to improve the
lot of the Aborigines, one of the most destitute communities in the
industrialized world.
Tuesday November 23, a former Australian football player of Aboriginal
origin, very popular in Australia, began a several hundred kilometer walk that
will take him as far as Canberra, where he hopes to meet Prime Minister John
Howard, to sensitize him to the fate of his community.
Michael Long, who stopped playing Australian football in the mid 1990s,
left his house in Melbourne Tuesday on foot for the administrative capital of
Canberra, 660 kilometers [410 miles] away. "I'm not a politician, but I know
how to make the distinction between good and evil," declared Michael Long, who
doesn't know whether John Howard will be in Canberra when he arrives, nor
whether he will agree to see him.
The Stolen Generation
The former professional athlete has set himself this challenge in order to
sensitize the population to the problems of his community and to demand an
apology from the government for what the Aborigines call "the stolen
generation". This term refers to thousands of children of mixed aboriginal
origin who, up until the mid 1960s, were abducted from their parents to be
placed in foster homes or European institutions so they should become
assimilated.
Michael Long also wants the government to take measures to ameliorate the
conditions of existence for 400,000 Aborigines, who number among the most
destitute communities in the industrialized world. Stricken by drug use and
alcoholism, Australian Aborigines have 20 years lower life expectancy than
other Australian residents. Their suicide, homelessness, and incarceration
rates are also much higher. John Howard has, up till now, refused to apologize
to the members of the "stolen generation", deeming that today's Australians may
not be held responsible for the mistakes committed in the past.
Gasoline, the Aborigines' New Scourge
Elsewhere, Tuesday November 23, an Australian Aboriginal community group
has demanded that the government open an inquiry into the deaths among its
youth occasioned by a practice of drugging themselves by inhaling gasoline that
is becoming increasingly widespread.
The community group Central Australian Youth Link Up Service (Caylus)
points out that nineteen Aborigines in the Northern Territories aged 15-25 have
died, from 1998 to the date when the last detailed account was taken, from this
practice that is becoming increasingly widespread among Aboriginal youth. The
organization calls for a legal inquiry to draw attention to the phenomenon and
its social roots.
Health authorities attribute the increase in this form of drug use to the
poverty, social fracture, criminality, and health problems Australia's first
inhabitants, a minority of 400,000 largely destitute members, must face.
The justice department of another state, Southern Australia, has already
demanded an inquiry into the deaths of four young Aborigines, also caused by
inhaling gasoline.
Caylus considers that the problem is "largely underestimated" in spite of
a new law in the Northern Territories decreed last month that devotes 10
million dollars (7.7 million Euros) to the fight against this phenomenon.
Translation: t r u t h o u t French language correspondent Leslie Thatcher.
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Tsonkwadiyonrat (We are ONE Spirit)
Native News Online a Service of Barefoot Connection
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