The Toronto Star International News Updates Sep 15, 00:16 EDT Pre-Games march highlights plight of Aborigines SYDNEY (AP) - Hours before the Olympics opened, hundreds of Aborigines staged a protest march through downtown Sydney. About 800 slogan-shouting protesters from among Australia's underprivileged indigenous people marched through the city Friday flanked by dozens of police who stopped downtown traffic. There was no indication the protesters planned to disrupt the opening ceremony. The demonstrators gathered at a city park and stopped in front of New South Wales' state parliament house before heading to the Sydney office of Prime Minister John Howard. Howard had enraged Aborigines for his refusal to apologize for past governments' mistreatment of indigenous Australians and for weakening laws recognizing native title to land. Aborigines have lived in Australia for some 40,000 years. After 212 years of white settlement, they are now a minority of around 380,000 in a national population of 19 million. Indigenous people are Australia's poorest, least healthy and most jailed section of society. Their life expectancy is an average of 20 years less than that of white Australians. ''Always has been, always will be, Aboriginal land,'' the protesters chanted, a slogan supporting Aboriginal land-rights claims. Some demonstrators blew whistles and other carried placards reading: ''Social Justice Before Games.'' Copyright* 1996-2000 Toronto Star Newspapers Limited. -- ********************************** '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." RecOzNet2 is archived for members @ http://www.mail-archive.com/recoznet2%40paradigm4.com.au/
