Australian government defends its treatment of Aborigines From AP 13mar99 10.15(AEDT)AUSTRALIA made a special appearance before a UN panel today to reject allegations that it discriminates against Aboriginal property rights and to assert that it has taken steps to right old wrongs. "The expropriation of indigenous lands was a tragic event, but it is difficult to reverse past situations," said a report by the government delegation. Nonetheless, it said, Australia was pressing ahead with rectifying this complex issue. The government said that under modifications to Australian law, 79 per cent of the country's land was now subject to claims by holders of indigenous land rights. But the panel expert on Australia, Gay McDougall of the United States, said that according to social indicators the indigenous people of Australia continued to be disadvantaged compared with the rest of the population. As one of the 150 countries that has ratified a treaty against racial discrimination, Australia ordinarily takes its turn to submit to reviews by the committee of 18 independent human rights experts who supervise adherence to the accord. But Australia's appearance today was considered unusual because it was called under an urgent procedure known as "early warning measures" ordinarily used for countries accused of gross abuses like Rwanda, Yugoslavia and Sudan. The original 90 minutes planned for the review was stretched to three hours, and then was continued to Monday morning. ------------------------------------------------------- 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."
