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Aboriginal war veterans to protest against racism at parade

18 April 2007 - The Gulf Times - Australia’s Aboriginal war veterans, complaining of a racist lack of respect, will next week stage a landmark separate march on the day the nation honours its soldiers.

Thousands of Aborigines served in the two world wars but were not recognised as citizens when they returned to Australia and received none of the benefits given to white veterans, march organisers said yesterday.
The protest march will be held on Anzac Day, April 25, the country’s most revered national holiday, and has drawn criticism from the main veterans group, the Returned and Services League (RSL).

But organiser Ray Minniecon, an Aboriginal Anglican pastor, said indigenous veterans of the two world wars had previously been relegated “to march at the back of the line.”

“Two men went off to war under the Australian flag from this country, two came back under the Australian flag,” he said.

“One got all the benefits of a returned soldier, like land, war pensions. The other one, who didn’t get anything, was of our people.”

“They came back under the White Australia policy, so they weren’t citizens until 1967 - they weren’t even recognised even though they had fought for the country.

“We just want to make sure that their contribution to the war is acknowledged, first and foremost,” he said.
Indigenous citizens of the US and New Zealand’s Maoris had all belatedly received recognition for their wartime service, “but our group haven’t.”

Minniecon said about 500 Aborigines fought in World War I and up to 5,000 in World War II.

The inaugural ‘Coloured Diggers’ march - all Australian soldiers are proudly known as ‘Diggers’ - will be held in Sydney’s Redfern suburb, the Aboriginal heartland of Australia’s biggest city.

Anzac Day marks the start of the gruelling World War I battle of Gallipoli in which thousands of Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (Anzac) soldiers died, but has been broadened to honour all wartime service.

Minniecon said the march would be timed so that any veterans who wanted to be part of the mainstream march in the city centre could participate in the Redfern parade later.

One Aboriginal Vietnam veteran who said he would march in both, David Williams, told the Sydney Morning Herald yesterday what life was like for black soldiers.

“When you’re serving things are pretty equal,” said the sailor who served on HMAS Vampire. “It’s when you get back that it gets hard on the black digger.”

Williams described how his uncle, who returned from the Korean War with a gunshot wound, was later taken by his family to a veterans’ hospital where they were turned away.

“They didn’t want to know us. The fact that he fought for his country, nearly died for his country, didn’t mean anything to them.”

The national president of the RSL said the veterans’ organisation would prefer that indigenous soldiers take part in the main Anzac Day parades and services.

“It’s unfortunate they don’t feel they will get the attention they need at those services,” he said.

Aborigines are now a minority in Australia after more than two centuries of European settlement, numbering about 470,000 people out of a total of 20mn.

Many live in squalid outback camps, where unemployment, alcohol dependency and lawlessness are rife.

Source: The Gulf Times

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