 ENIAR MONITOR ISSUE NO. 1
WINTER 1998
Welcome .. .to the first issue of The Monitor, the quarterly newsletter of the European Network for Indigenous Australian Rights (ENIAR).
ENIAR is an informal network of individuals and organisations from across Europe who are concerned about violations of the human rights and fundamental freedoms of Australia's Indigenous Peoples.
ENIAR is non-profit making and staffed entirely by volunteers.
The Monitor seeks to highlight both abuses of Indigenous rights and attempts to achieve racial reconciliation in Australia - neither of which get much attention in the mainstream European media.
The Monitor also aims to help stop abuses, by putting international pressure on key decision makers in Australia. You can play your part by responding to our urgent action requests. Please do write - your letters really can make a difference.
See you in the Spring,
Richard Wakelam,
Editor.
Legal win undermines attempt to slash land rights
Two Aboriginal Peoples have won a historic legal victory which threatens to seriously undermine an Australian Government attempt to slash land rights.
The Miriuwung and Gajerrong Peoples this month won Federal Court recognition of their rights to almost 8000 square kilometres of land in the far north of Western Australia. Their victory casts doubt over the Government's Native Title Amendment Act. This controversial Act supposed that the Miriuwung and Gajerrong no longer held rights to certain areas - a supposition which has now been disproved.
Aboriginal leader Pat Dodson claimed that the Court's decision showed that the Federal Government had misled the public as to the real effects of the Act.
'They have told the Australian public that they weren't about extinguishing native title, they were simply confirming where native title has been extinguished. That is not the case," said Mr Dodson.
Although the Miriuwung-Gajerrong decision does not stop State Governments from using the Act to extinguish land rights, it could expose them to massive compensation claims should they do so. Justice Robert French, president of the National Native Title Tribunal, claimed that the decision showed that disputes over land should be settled by negotiation and not litigation.
"Australia should take note of the experiences of the parties to the Mariuwung-Gajerrong case and recognise that mediation is a more inexpensive way to achieve practical results which are supported by all parties," said Justice French.
The Western Australian Government has spent four years and more than AU$3 million contesting the case. They are expected to appeal against the Federal Court verdict in the High Court. The Native Title Amendment Act, passed earlier this year, enables the Australian States to pull off the bizarre legal trick of extinguishing native title in certain areas by "confirming" its supposed prior extinguishment.
 UN condemns uranium mine
An Aboriginal group has this month come a step closer to winning United Nations support for their campaign to save their land from a uranium mine.
The Mirrar people, whose lands lie within the borders of Kakadu National Park in the Northern Territory, have long claimed that their unique culture and environment are threatened by the proposed Jabiluka uranium mine. This week their claims were backed up by a report from a special UN inspection team which condemned the mine as a threat to World Heritage.
The report was welcomed by the Mirrar. "We're thrilled," said Mirrar spokesperson Christine Christopherson. "But it's still such a shame that Australian people, or the Government, can't come to the same conclusion."
Crucially, the report recommends that Kakadu be put on the UN World Heritage In Danger list. Such a move would severely embarrass the Australian Government and increase the international pressure on them to stop Jabiluka. The UN World Heritage Committee is expected to make its decision on Kakadu at its annual meeting in Japan next month.
The Mirrar are in no doubt as to what they should decide.
'We will be pushing for Kakadu to be inscribed on the World Heritage In Danger list in Kyoto in December," said Mirrar spokesperson Jacqui Katona.
The Mirrar's environmental concerns centre on the 20 million tonnes of radioactive waste that Jabiluka will produce. The mining company, Energy Resources of Australia, proposes to mix this waste with concrete and dump it in huge pits on site. But a number of experts believe that this plan doesn't hold water - either literally or figuratively - and that the waste, which will remain radioactive for 300,000 years, will eventually contaminate the park.
Such concerns have been heightened by ERA'S failure to contain waste at its nearby Ranger uranium mine. Seasonal flooding at Ranger has repeatedly led to contaminated water being released into Kakadu.
The Mirrar are determined not to allow their land to be poisoned and their sacred sites damaged.
Senior traditional owner Yvonne Margarula said, "This is our country. The Mirrar have said no to this mine. It is our responsibility to protect this country and we will not allow this hole to be dug."
For further information visit the Mirrar website at:
www.mirrar.net/
Jailed for just a sip of beer
In August this year, Margeret Nalyirri Wynbyne was taken away from her 4 week old child and locked up for 14 days in a Darwin jail. Margeret, 24, had no previous criminal record. When she returned to her home at Kalkaringi, some 800 kilometres away, she found that her baby, Courtney, no longer wanted to breast feed. Her crime was to drink from a can of stolen beer.
Margeret is one of at least 500 people who have been sentenced to imprisonment for minor offences under the Northern Territory's controversial mandatory custodial sentencing law. This law, which came into effect in March 1997, forces the Territory's judges to jail anyone who is convicted of a property offence. Although NT Chief Minister Shane Stone denies that the law is discriminatory, it is widely expected to have most impact on Aboriginal people, who are the poorest section of the NT community.
The one-strike-and-you're-in policy has been condemned by Australia's Human Rights and Equal Opportunities Commission (HREOC).
"It is ridiculous, an undeniable violation of human rights," said HREOC's Chris Sidoti. "It doesn't work, it's a waste of taxpayers' money and the Chief Minister won't listen to anybody."
Under the NT law, mandatory sentences apply to such offences as theft, unlawful entry and criminal damage. Adults are automatically jailed for 14 days for a first offence, 90 days for a second offence and 12 months for a third offence. Juveniles are automatically jailed for 28 days for certain second offences.
Mr Sidoti believes that the automatic prison sentences, "exacerbate a particularly unacceptable situation," namely, the vast over-representation of Indigenous people in Australia's jails.
According to a study by the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission, Aboriginal people made up over 90% of the NT's prison population in 1993, despite making up less than 25% of the population as a whole. The Northern Territory Government has yet to reveal how these figures have been affected by the introduction of mandatory sentencing. The sentencing law is also likely to exacerbate another unacceptable situation - the terrible regularity with which Aboriginal people die in custody.
During the 1980's, over 100 Aboriginal people died in Australian prisons and police stations. According to a 1991 Royal Commission report, many of them were driven to suicide by isolation from their families and by the feeling that they had no hope of avoiding further spells in custody.
Mr Stone's sentencing law is likely to put more Aboriginal people in this unenviable position. Many will be cut off from family completely, simply because their homes are so far from the NT's only detention centres in Darwin and Alice Springs. Others may abandon all hope of a better future, cursed by the knowledge that another offence - no matter how trivial - will land them in jail for an even longer period. Some may take the most drastic step of all.
Being seen to be tough on crime may help Mr Stone win more white votes; it is also likely to cost more black lives.
Action
Please write a polite letter to:
The Hon. Shane Stone,
Chief Minister of the Northern Territory,
GPO Box 4396,
Darwin,
NT 0801,
Australia.
Urge him to repeal the mandatory custodial sentencing law. Argue that it:
Clearly breaches the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which states that children should only be imprisoned as a last resort.
Runs directly counter to the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, which recommends that Aboriginal people only be imprisoned as a last resort, and only then close to their families.
Will contribute to the pressures that cause Aboriginal people to die in custody.
We need a bigger boat
BY Les Melezer
In 1991, the Australian Government of Paul Keating launched a formal Reconciliation process which aimed to bridge the gap between black and white Australians by 26 January 2001, the 100'h birthday of the Australian state.
Les Melezer (Director FAIRA) says that although the timetable isn't going to be met, Reconciliation shouldn't be abandoned. Instead, its white and black supporters should start pulling together on a new course plotted by the Indigenous leadership.
Far out to sea, and catching his first glimpse of the shark Jaws, the Amity policeman muttered, "We're going to need a bigger boat."
That understatement seems fitting now, given the gravity of the menace facing Reconciliation.
The Reconciliation plan says that a "document of reconciliation" ought to be drafted. The Prime Minister, John Howard, has already dismissed the document out of hand, without any discussion of contents. He has been shameless in his disregard for Indigenous leadership, his denial of Australia's history of sustained racism and injustice, his hostility towards land rights and his opposition to self- determination.
Eight years ago many genuine people supported the far sighted proposal that Australia should negotiate an agreement with the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples. As 1999 approaches, they face the reality that Reconciliation will not be achieved by 26 January 2001 and that the Reconciliation movement may lose its momentum and vision. Many Indigenous people sense that enthusiasm may be turning into resignation that the existing state of relations is inevitable.
I am a strong advocate for a treaty between the Australian Government and the Indigenous peoples. But I have learnt over many years not to underestimate the depth of resistance to Aboriginal rights. I have also learnt to articulate and focus on the real objectives.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have paid dearly for the lack of political activism and the softening of demands which characterised the 1990's.
We have paid through enforced Government penalties following the Native Title decision in the High Court.
We have paid through the lack of substantial gains following the political upheavals of the 1970's and 1980's.
Reconciliationists have been strong supporters of the Aboriginal cause. But their separation from Indigenous political activists, and the supposed neutrality of their goal, have made it hard to maintain a strong political movement.
Reconciliationists must now learn from the experiences of the 1990's and regroup with revised goals and strategies.
The first lesson is that the Government, regardless of its political persuasion, will always be ultra-conservative and reluctant to consider any long-term settlement with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples.
The second lesson is that proper settlement with Indigenous Peoples will not be reached in Australia without international pressure.
The final lesson is that it is Indigenous Peoples themselves who must set the political objectives and "stock the political armoury". The Reconciliation movement of the future must give more support to Indigenous political activism.
Les Maiezer is General Manager of the Foundation for Aboriginal and Islander Research Action (FAIRA).
For further information visit the FAIRA website at www.faira.org.au or subscribe to the free FAIRA newspaper, Land Rights Queensland.
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