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| home | news lThe Silent Victory For Aboriginal Sovereigntyby Patrick
13 August 2004- The Aboriginal Tent Embassy managed to secure strong alliances with the City of Sydney and the Metropolitan Local Aboriginal Land Council. On Friday 6th August, the Aboriginal Tent Embassy at Victoria Park staged a historical breakthrough by winning the support of the Sydney City Council. Aunt Isobel Coe and Mayor Clover Moore agreed to workout a plan to push the agenda of Aboriginal Sovereignty ahead on State and Federal levels. Clover Moore's decision to support the Embassy's call to form the Aboriginal Sovereign Families and Nations followed after continued pressure by racists in state parliament and commercial media to shut it down. Straight after the agreement was signed residents at the Embassy packed-up and left. A relief after ten weeks of camping out in the cold and coping with racist attacks from the Daily Telegraph, Channel 10, John Law's 2UE and other 'redneck' mediums. Together with the Metropolitan Land Council, the Aboriginal Tent Embassy and the City of Sydney formed a working committee to assist in developing the foundation of the Aboriginal Sovereign Families and Nations. Source: Indymedia Tent Embassy Resolved Peacefully
I am pleased that we have a peaceful and mutual resolution for this issue that respected the Aboriginal community and maintained public access to Victoria Park. After the agreement was signed, the City worked with embassy representatives to remove tents and equipment from the parkland. Unclaimed private property has been stored so that owners can collect it. The City also arranged for its homeless persons support services to be available for anyone at the tent embassy who had no home. This services works to provide temporary or emergency accommodation for all homeless people in the city who contact it. The signed agreement commits the City to work with representatives of the Tent embassy, the Metropolitan Local Aboriginal Land Council and the Eora Nation to develop up a "Memorandum of Understanding". The memorandum will draw on similar agreements between the Metropolitan Local Aboriginal Land Council and Leichhardt, Lane Cove and Warringah Councils. Work is continuing, and all participants recognise that this will take some time. This commitment is in line with existing City of Sydney work with local Aboriginal communities to respect their self-determination and provide practical hope for the future. Source: CLOVER'S eNEWS Sydney City Council recognises tent embassy8 August 2004 - Sydney's inner-city Aboriginal community will sit down with members of the Sydney City Council tomorrow to draw up a memorandum of understanding aimed at resolving long-standing issues about land ownership and race relations. Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore committed to finalising the memorandum to end a tent embassy protest in Victoria Park on the city fringe. In a letter recognising the tent embassy, Councillor Moore said she acknowledged that the Indigenous people of inner Sydney resisted the permanent occupation of their lands and that the resultant conflict has never been resolved. Councillor Moore says Sydney's Indigenous people need to know the Council will listen to their concerns. "It's very important at this time, given the Upper House inquiry into the Redfern riot, given TJ's death, that the Aboriginal community in the city knows that the city's working with them, wants to support them and empower them and find every opportunity to help them." "So that approach has been cemented now." Source: ABC Sydney mayor blames 'hysterical' media for racist phone calls7 August 2004 - Sydney City Lord Mayor Clover Moore says her office has been inundated with racist telephone calls as a result of hysterical media coverage of the Aboriginal tent embassy issue at Victoria Park in the inner city. Last night Councillor Moore reached an agreement with the embassy occupants that ended the protest. The Lord Mayor has committed Sydney City Council to signing a memorandum of understanding with the local indigenous community. Councillor Moore says media pressure to resolve the tent embassy issue led to "ugly" racist phone calls to her office yesterday. "The racism was so bad yesterday morning at my town hall office that I had to put my reception on hourly shifts because of the very, very ugly calls they were receiving, as a result of the growing hysteria of some elements of the media," he said. "I think that's to be regretted, but I'm very glad now that we've peacefully resolved the situation." Source: ABC Tent Embassy evictedBy Michelle Cazzulino and Nicolette Burke 7 August 2004 - Aboriginal squatters who have been noisily occupying public land in the hope of setting up their own nation were last night evicted from a Sydney park. Although some in the Aboriginal tent embassy went willingly, others say their representatives had done a deal with "white fellas" and undermined their protest. Three weeks after they were due to leave Victoria Park off Broadway in Camperdown, more than 30 tents were packed up yesterday under the supervision of Sydney City Council staff. Lord Mayor Clover Moore said a memorandum of understanding was signed yesterday afternoon with tent embassy leader Isabelle Coe. It is understood the Lord Mayor offered to set up some high-level meetings with key federal politicians, including Immigration Minister Amanda Vanstone. "I can confirm that the Lord Mayor's peaceful approach has paid dividends and we've signed a memorandum of understanding with them," a spokeswoman for Ms Moore said. "They agreed to pack up and go. The Lord Mayor went to the tent embassy, had a smoking ceremony, and signed the agreement. "Council trucks were on standby to help with packing up." At the tent embassy last night, protester Eddie Davis said he and others were furious that they had been evicted without notice. He blamed other members of the tent embassy for "doing a deal with the Government" to provide free accommodation. "A white fella didn't tell me to get off this land, a black fella did," he said. Seventeen-year-old Deana Dargin said she had stayed at the embassy for almost two months and would now be homeless. "I was told we were fighting for our land," Ms Dargin said. Embassy leader Ms Coe had said she wanted to stay to establish a new "Aboriginal nation". Source: The Daily Telegraph News Ltd on Tent Embassy, image choice as racist inspired villificationby ecology action 8 August 2004 - The Daily Telegraph on Thursday last, if memory serves, published an unflattering image of Isabelled Coe with racist undertones re bogus $250 thousand in fines owed. But the Stateline footage on showed the complete opposite vibe and reality. My view this amounts to snide, cynical media villification by the Telegraph picture editors. The above observation might be a fair intellectual basis for a referral of the Telegraph to the Anti Discrimination Board with potential useful damages pay out to perhaps Isabelle Coe and maybe even Sydney City Council given the above bogus fines allegation. Again a basis for review of Telegraph media licence? Not a bad little earner just like the financial settlement of a Piers Akerman defamation suit with Ian Cohen MLC? Further IMC readers might know of Adbusters - journal of the mental environment. They did a cover with a woman's face airbrushed like some pseudo Lara Croft character with the word 'love' in the bottom right corner: Turn the page or was it the back cover which had the same face but intense contrast with you know bit of facial fuzz above top lip, slightly less symetry of features, eyes less appealing etc with the word 'hate' bottom right corner. Same person, face, biology, different editorial intent. It's media manipulation pure and simple. Notice in the specific case of the Coe/Seaton exchange here the footage played at the end of the Stateline at the wrap on Friday, had Isabelle in gentle lobbying style voice with even a hint of pity for Seaton MLC saying, words to effect of, several times to her quietly and diplomatically 'Darlin, you are on Aboriginal Land. Darlin, you never got permission to be here.' and then more annoyance than anger or aggression 'Stop being so racist' or similar. It was quite amicable but serious exchange and Seaton responds to the gentle rapproach with a smile as she retreats. (A smirk I misinterpreted as smug based on Tele photo) But what does the Telegraph run with? A split second frame completely atypical of the whole dynamic of the exchange which shows Isabelle at that slightly annoyed moment. How does it look? Like she is a militant aggressive even attacking person. Which is impossible when you see Seaton smile who would hardly be in that state if fearful. So there you have the racism of The Telegraph for the world to see in technical precision thanks to Stateline footage. By the way the footage also showed the robust Aboriginal fellows at the camp turned away, showing their back to Seaton doing tent maintenance, while Seatons is wandering around looking like a lost soul looking for someone to confront for the media, but being studiously ignored. So much for allegations of threats with a sledge hammer as per Telegraph. Unsubstantiated rubbish by the looks. Source: Indymedia Aboriginal Tent Embassy in Sydneyby Norman Brewer 13 July 2004 - On May 20, with the start of the inquiries into the death of the Gamilaroi youth in Redfern/Waterloo and the subsequent "riot", activists around Aunty Isabell Coe and returned campaigners against gold mining on sacred sites at Lake Cowal established an Aboriginal Tent Embassy in Victoria Park adjacent to the University of Sydney. [..] The current coroner's inquiry that started on July 5 is planned to conclude by this Friday, July 16, and notorious right-wing newspaper Daily Terrorgraph has gone on the attack against the tent embassy with a full page article describing it as an eyesore and a waste of ratepayers' money. The paper claims that there has been an agreement for the embassy to wind up by the end of this week, and pressured progressive independent City of Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore to insist on this alleged agreement in word and deed. Clover Moore had been supportive of the embassy in words and deeds starting with its welcome on "her council's land". Aunty Isabell Coe denied any agreement by pointing out the irony of a permission to stay in Victoria Park - which has been the site of previous Aboriginal tent embassies like in 2000 and 2002 - given "its long association with our people". No one would have ever given them a permission to invade Aboriginal land. She explains that the tent embassy in Canberra has remained for 33 years now "to remind the Government and the Australian people about our sovereign rights." On this year's "Invasion Day" (January 26) "elders gave notice to the Federal Government and people that we were forming our own Aboriginal Sovereign Government. We have come into Victoria Park as the first point of contact in Sydney." This autonomous organising is a significant development since after the recent abolishment of ATSIC (the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commissions), by the Howard government, Aboriginal people are sick of working in bodies that are in the end dominated by white men, or bureaucrats. A quite similar debate is currently happening in Aotearoa (New Zealand), where some leaders of the new Maori Party (that has been launched last weekend, when Green Left Weekly went to print) advocate a separate Maori parliament after the Labor government introduced a Seabed & Foreshore "confiscation" legislation, that lead to the resignation of a Maori MP. She landed an overwhelming victory last weekend with 92% of the votes, an unexpectedly high voter turn-out, 1500 members and supporters at the official launch, and 800 attendees at the following first national hui (all-in meeting), about the same number as have volunteered in her impressive by-election campaign. The Maori Party has decided to work within the system, and win all 7 special Maori electorates, plus more via (proportional) party vote in the general seats. The Daily Terrorgraph invented a debate in its paper between Coe and Liberal NSW Opposition Leader John "Bulldozer" Brogden, who is worried about the establishment of "a shantytown just [2] kilometers from Town Hall" as a "permanent political statement", which is no wonder, given his and the NSW Prime Minister Bob Carr's appalling record of outdoing each other in advocating the demolition of the Redfern Block in the aftermath of the fight-back of mainly Aboriginal youths against the permanent attacks by Redfern police. Coe counters that "this is a shantytown because that's the way our people are living." By July 10, this "shantytown" has grown to 32 tents. And Clover Moore once again took this latest challenge head on: the day following this collaborative right-wing media/opposition offensive she staunchly decided to keep supporting the tent embassy "at least until September". The tent embassy invites you to BYO camping gear and join them. It asks for donations of firewood, food & water, tents & bedding, a generator, and needs helpers and more sympathetic media/promotion. It can be emailed to VicEmbassy@planet-save.com Source: Indymedia related links :
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