Australia, , Aboriginal and Human Rights.

Cathy Freeman takes gold

The Australian heroine from start, when she carried the Olympic torch into the stadium, to finish, as she crossed the line to take 400m gold, was the indigenous athlete Cathy Freeman.
Against the will of many of her still oppressed people, she came to represent the symbol, albeit shallow, of reconciliation between White Australia and Aboriginal Australia. But the frenzy of flames and fireworks surrounding the Games blinded the rest of the world to the darker side of a land down under...

John Pilger is Australian journalist and documentary maker.

In 1999, John Pilger returned home to find that the elaborate preparations for the Games overshadowed a hidden world where Aborigines continue to live in Third World conditions. He revealed that some of the greatest sportsmen and women in the world were in fact Aboriginal.

Many of them, like blacks in South Africa under Apartheid, were until recently denied a place in their country's Olympic teams. He also found that the Australian Government was in the process of overturning the landmark legislation of 1992 which finally recognised Aborigines as people with common law rights before the English colonised the country.

http://pilger.carlton.com/australia

Australia and Human Rights by Anup Shah Historic oppression of the Aboriginal PeopleIn a wealthy and prosperous nation, aboriginal people live in third world conditions.

"In 1987, a sensational "discovery" was made by a Sydney University team, led by Australia's most celebrated pre-historian, Professor D J Mulvaney. They reported that the Australian population in 1788 was 750,000, or three times the previous estimate. They concluded that more than 600,000 people had died as result of white settlement."

Threat of reducing human rights commitments with the United NationsAustralia has recently decided to reduce cooperation with the United Nations on human rights issues because the UN criticized it.

Australia Threatens to Bar UN Human Rights Committees Thalif Deen, IPS

http://www.globalissues.org/HumanRights/Abuses/Australia.asp

GENOCIDE IN AUSTRALIA BY COLIN TATZ A damning report on Australian Aboriginal health and welfare By Linda Tenenbaum 14 August 1999

Aboriginal life expectancy for males is around 56.9 years, compared with 75.2 years for the rest of the population, and 61.7 years for females, as compared to 81.1 years. The death rates for Aborigines aged 35-54 are, comparatively, the worst—around 6-8 times higher than for their non-Aboriginal counterparts.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/1999/aug1999/abor-a14.shtml

“Killing members of the group”

The report states: “In 1803, Tasmania was settled. In 1806 serious killing began. In retaliation for the spearing of livestock, Aboriginal children were abducted for use in forced labour, women were raped and tortured and given poisoned flour, and the men were shot. They were systematically disposed of in ones, twos and threes, or in dozens, rather than in one systematic massacre. In 1824, settlers were authorised to shoot Aborigines. In 1828, the Governor declared martial law. Soldiers or settlers arrested, or shot, any blacks found in settled districts.

Vigilante groups avenged Aboriginal retaliation by wholesale slaughter of men, women and children. Between 1829 and 1834, an appointed conciliator, George Robinson, collected the surviving remnants: 123 people whom were then settled on Flinders Island. By 1835, between 3,000 and 4,000 Aborigines were dead.” And further: “They were killed, with intent, not solely because of their spearing of cattle or their 'nuisance' value, but rather because they were Aborigines.”

Between 1824 and 1908 approximately 10,000 Aborigines were murdered in the Colony of Queensland. “Considered ‘wild animals', ‘vermin', ‘scarcely human', ‘hideous to humanity', ‘loathsome' and a ‘nuisance', they were fair game for white ‘sportsmen'.”
The upshot of this slaughter was the appointment in 1896 of Archibald Meston as Royal Commissioner. In his Report on the Aborigines of North Queensland he wrote:

“The treatment of the Cape York people was a shame to our common humanity.” He continued: “Their manifest joy at assurances of safety is pathetic beyond expression. God knows they were in need of it”.

Aboriginal people met him “like hunted wild beasts, having lived for years in a state of absolute terror”.

His prescription for their salvation lay in “ strict and absolute isolation from all whites, from predators who, in no particular order, wanted to kill them, take their women, sell them grog or opium”. Needless to say, none of the perpetrators of the slaughter were made to answer for their actions.

Genocide in Australia
Report details crimes against Aborigines By Brett Stone 7 September 1999