The Guardian (UK) http://www.guardianunlimited.co.uk/sydney/story/0,7369,367879,00.html Divided we fall The Olympics give Australia's aborigines the chance to bring their plight to the world's attention - but internal wrangling has already ruined one major protest. Patrick Barkham reports Special report: the Sydney Olympics Wednesday September 13, 2000 Jenny Munro cut a lonely figure on the road leading out of Sydney airport on Sunday. A couple of camera crews loitered nearby, but the 1,500-strong human chain of demonstrators, protesting about the plight of Australia's aborigines to the athletes, tourists and journalists touching down for the Olympic Games, never showed up. The first major indigenous protest of the Games - and the only one to receive the official approval of the police - was a disastrous damp squib. The human chain of one, a dispirited Munro, was left trying to fix up another demonstration to coincide with the official opening of the Games on friday. Munro, who chairs the local aboriginal land council - the nearest thing to self-government for indigenous people - attributed the no-show to "the great Australian tradition of leaving everything to the last minute". But she also criticises the profusion of aboriginal "splinter groups" who add "to the confusion" surrounding indigenous rights demonstrations at the Olympics. And one of the chief sources of that confusion is Sydney's tent embassy, run by Munro's sister, Isobell Coe. Across the city from the site of the abortive airport protest lies Victoria Park, a slice of greenery with views down to Sydney's skyscrapers. Here, a group of aborigines headed by Coe have erected more than 100 tents. With her tent pitched near the ceremonial fire, Coe distances herself from other indigenous demonstrations. "We're not a part of the protests," she says. "We're a peacekeeping camp, calling for an end to the genocidal 212-year war by white Australians against indigenous people." There has never been one group of aborigines in Australia. More than 400,000 indigenous people in the country today belong to more than 600 traditional groups who roamed Australia before the first white prison ships arrived in 1788. The groups spoke more than 170 different languages and, despite the assault on their people by the white settlers, their historic diversity and divisions are just as pronounced today. Coe is trying to be inclusive. "The aboriginal tent embassy represents over 500 nations of Australia," she says. She is organising a rally at the camp on Friday to raise awareness of aboriginal rights. At the same time her sister is trying to galvanise support for an aboriginal march from another city park past government offices in central Sydney. Meanwhile, Trevor Close, the aborigine organiser of Protest 2000, has appealed for people to abandon the tent embassy and "come and camp with us" at Bicentennial Park. "Victoria Park, where the aboriginal tent embassy presently is, will not be large enough to cope with the number of people who are entering Sydney daily and are keen to be involved in Protest 2000," he says. A fourth group is inviting people to a rally at another park, also near Homebush. Police have warned that protesters face arrest if they take action near the Olympic Park during the opening ceremony. While none of the rallies has police approval, the authorities could hardly have hoped for a better way to dissipate aborigine anger than the protesters organising their own dispersal across the parks of Sydney. Munro accuses her sister and the other groups of breaking traditional law in organising their rallies. "Those other protest groups have not sought the consent of the local community in anything they've done. These people just talk about aboriginal law but don't practise it." Coe gives her sister short shrift. "Jenny is speaking out of turn and under our aboriginal law me being older than her means I've got the right to have a say before she does. But this is a lot bigger than personalities. It's about all of us and that's why we're talking about aboriginal sovereignty, which means all of us. Not just a select few, or the ones who are paid, or the ones who are on big ego trips." The sisters, the hundreds of different aboriginal clans, and protest and political groups agree on what they want to say while the spotlight is on Sydney. They are united in their condemnation of the Australian government's record on indigenous issues and particularly the stance taken by Australian prime minister John Howard, who has steadfastly refused to apologise for the white settlers' treatment of the aborigines. "They are trying to decriminalise human rights abuses in this country," says Munro. "They want to be the champions of East Timor and they don't want anybody to see what happens in their own backyard. That's hypocrisy if you ask me." At least on this Coe agrees. "We're not against the Olympic Games but what we are against is Australia getting the Olympic Games because of China's human rights record. We say: 'What about Australia's?'" By demonstrating, and telling the watching world about how aborigines live shorter lives and spend more of it in prison or on the dole, the different protesters all hope the international community will intervene. "We've tried for a very long time to change the laws from within Australia," says Munro. "The international avenue is our last resort. If the world doesn't see merit in our argument for justice, they condemn us to more generations of oppression in this country." Tent embassy activist Fred Reynolds is a picture of those generations of oppression. Sitting smoking by the embassy's communal kitchen tent, he is 41 but looks 20 years older. Statistically, his one-year-old son Tyson is expected to die 18 years before his white male peers. Now an elder, Reynolds says he is "trying to get my life together" after years in foster homes and prison. "I've got a lot of respect for Auntie Jenny Munro and Auntie Isobell, but it's the organisation in general... The aboriginal organisations are very jealous. They fight among each other." Reynolds believes it is the way Australia's conservative government organises them. Rightwing critics divide and rule, pejoratively labelling the numerous welfare agencies the "aboriginal industry". Atsic, Australia's main indigenous body, is given A$1bn (�392m) a year to spend, largely on expensive programmes to reduce the number of indigenous people who are unemployed (currently 27%). But the structure institutionalises squabbling between different groups, turning aborigines against each other. "We are identical to the American Indians. They're our brothers and sisters, fighting the same struggle as we are," says Reynolds. "But they've got their sovereignty. They've got more people than us and they're more organised. My personal opinion is that is why we are where we are today. Our elder organisations are not working together as one. Jealousy is keeping us where we are at the moment. If it weren't for the jealousy in every organisation we'd be more advanced than we are today." -- ********************************** 'Click' to protect the rainforest: Make the Rainforest Site your homepage! http://www.therainforestsite.com/ ********************************** ------------------------------------------------------ RecOzNet2 has a page @ http://www.green.net.au/recoznet2 and is archived at http://www.mail-archive.com/ 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." 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