Police arrest two at Aboriginal fire protest February 15, 1999 Web posted at: 4:19 AM EST (0919 GMT) CANBERRA, Australia (Reuters) -- Australian police on Monday extinguished an Aboriginal "fire protest" on the lawns of Australia's parliament house for the second time in a week and arrested two demonstrators. Police confirmed two men were facing charges of obstructing police and possibly assaulting police as authorities tried to remove the protesters. Police could not confirm whether the men were Aborigines. The Aborigines are calling on Australian Prime Minister John Howard to leave parliament and hold talks with them aimed at ending what they called 211-years of Aboriginal suffering. Aborigines yelled angrily at seven security officers at the site after the arrests and pledged to relight the fire. "The fire hasn't been completely put out," said protest spokeswoman Isabel Coe, a member of the Ngunnawal people who traditionally lived in the area that is now Australia's capital of Canberra. "We'll be back. We're not going to give up and go away -- we can't, we've got no other choice," Coe told reporters at the site. The Aborigines re-lit the fire on Monday morning after security forcibly removed them last week. Aboriginal Reconciliation Minister Philip Ruddock has offered a meeting in parliament house, but Coe said a meeting with the government now seemed pointless. "I don't think it's going to be helpful because those things today have just shown us what they're really like and what they're really on about," Coe said. "They don't want to talk to us," she said. Last week, Aborigines from the tent embassy in front of Australia's old parliament house lit a fire on the lawns of the new parliament up the hill and placed 211 sticks in the ground to mark black suffering since white settlement in 1788. The protest follows new legislation that could allow the government to close the heritage-listed tent embassy site. Howard and Ruddock have both declined to meet the Aboriginal protesters at the fire, labelling it a publicity stunt. Australia is currently embroiled in debate over how best to achieve reconciliation with Aborigines, the country's original inhabitants whose presence dates back some 45,000 years and the most disadvantaged group in the community. According to the 1996 census, there are 386,000 Aborigines in Australia, which has a total population of 18.3 million. Aborigines demand recognition of their original ownership of the land in any new constitution drawn up if Australia becomes a republic in 2001. A 1993 court ruling gave them legal recognition of prior occupancy, overturning an 18th century legal belief that Australia was an empty land when white settlers arrived. However, Howard has only offered recognition of Aboriginal occupancy, not ownership, in any new constitution. Australians will vote at a referendum in November on whether to cut formal ties with Britain and become a republic, which would require a new constitution. Changing the constitution's preamble may be included as a second question. ------------------------------------------------------- RecOzNet2 has a page @ http://www.green.net.au/recoznet2 To unsubscribe from this list, mail [EMAIL PROTECTED], and in the body of the message, include the words: unsubscribe announce or click here mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=unsubscribe%20announce This posting is provided to the individual members of this group without permission from the copyright owner for purposes of criticism, comment, scholarship and research under the "fair use" provisions of the Federal copyright laws and it may not be distributed further without permission of the copyright owner, except for "fair use."
