We are at a point in history where the governments of Australia blatantly expose themselves as having gone military-mad, as if they have acute paranoia. They continually and blatantly attack the most vulnerable in our communities and argue that they are concerned for our welfare and the widening 'Gap' in terms of the disparity in our education, etc., while calling us Australian citizens. But we know we are not Australians citizens under the Australian Constitution and never have been and this is why governments can commit the gross violations of human rights against us and think they can get away with it.
The governments, when exercising the prerogative powers of the Queen as the constitutional head of Australia and its colonial State, have maintained a consistency of racism and genocide, which began on the arrival of the First Fleet, the first illegal boat people in 1788. The pattern of racism and genocide can be tracked through the annals of the Australian system right to this reigning monarch.
I remind the public that in 1954 the young Queen Elizabeth on her first trip to Australia as Queen personally signed a law in Canberra that permitted the ethnic cleansing of the Australian Capital Territory, clearing it of resident Aboriginal Peoples. When she was on Australian soil she was the Queen of Australia exercising all authority and power that she had as Queen of Australia.
In 1953 the Royal Powers Act enabled to the Queen, when present in Australia, to exercise any powers the Governor-General would normally exercise:
Exercise of statutory powers by the Queen
(1) At any time when the Queen is personally present in Australia, any power under an Act exercisable by the Governor General may be exercised by the Queen.
When the recently coronated Queen Elizabeth II came to Canberra in 1954 one of the first Acts she personally signed into the law of the Australian Capital Territory was an Ordinance: Relating to Aborigines [No. 8 of 1954] cited as the Aborigines Welfare Ordinance 1954. It was this Ordinance that was used to remove resident Aboriginal people from the Australian Capital Territory to surrounding areas in New South Wales.
Now we find that proxy agents, in the guise of governance, continue to sign laws into place to remove Aboriginal people from their homelands yet again, as is the recent case in Western Australia and now South Australia, following on from the Northern Territory Intervention of 2007.
Clearly, this monarch and her colonial authorities do not consider Aboriginal Peoples have any rights whatsoever.
There can be no negotiations with a belligerent autocratic government.
The only people who are protecting the Australian governments against the Aboriginal sovereign identity within this country, are the courts who lack political independence and make decisions on citizenship and their own jurisdiction, even though Commonwealth legislation in this country states that laws are for the 'Aboriginal Race and Torres Strait Islanders' and not for the Aboriginal citizens of Australia.
The human rights violations we are experiencing all over this country are themselves genocidal and unfortunately we do not have sufficient legal and political intelligentsia to take on fully the governments and their laws in the way that we should be. The 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide Article II defines genocide as:
Article II: In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
The forced removal of Peoples from their ancient homelands is totally unacceptable and relates to Article II(c) in particular. As First Nations Peoples we must fight this autocratic dictatorship, no matter what the cost may be.
Contact:
Ghillar Michael Anderson
Convenor and Joint Spokesperson of Sovereign Union of First Nations and Peoples in Australia and Head of State of the Euahlayi Peoples Republic
ghillar29@gmail.com, 0427 292 492, www.sovereignunion.mobi
Comment
"land-hungry governments drooling lustfully over our resources"
I disagree strongly with the WA and SA governments on the shutting down of these homelands in their respective states. People remain in these remote areas for several reasons. Firstly, it is their birth country and they have duties to uphold within it. Country also, as we know, needs constant caring. You cannot make the traditional lands fallow as they need our constant care.
The second reason is to escape the twin evils of white civilisation, grog and drugs, and the concomitant horrors of domestic violence and other crimes. But this means nothing to the land-hungry governments drooling lustfully over our resources to hand to the mining industry. They still have the need, as they have since the invasion 227 years next month, to clear the lands of those who do not wish to exploit the bones of their ancestors.
This push against government removal of those living on and in these remote areas was very strongly put by those attending the Aboriginal summit aka the Freedom Summit and it was easily recognised that stopping these removals was to be a matter of priority but it was left to the summit delegation of (now) 20 when and how to do it.
I truly hope that this thread from Michael is but the first step now to moving forward in protecting our nations and our Peoples’ rights to remain living there.
Ray Jackson, president, Indigenous Social Justice Association
Prix des Droits de L'homme de la Republique Francaise 2013
(French human rights medal 2013)
1303/200 pitt street, waterloo, Australia 2017
61 2 9318 0947
0450 651 063
We live and work on the stolen lands of the Gadigal people
By Ghillar Michael Anderson, Convenor and
Joint Spokesperson of Sovereign
Union of First Nations and Peoples in Australia
Other Aboriginal news
Raid on Redfern Aboriginal Tent Embassy
Freedom Movement – “the Aboriginal struggle and our voices will be reclaimed, January 26”
Raid on Redfern Aboriginal Tent Embassy – “Australia’s racism unabated”
The ‘Aboriginal’ Housing Company’s deplorable action in intending to orchestrate the eviction of the campers on The Block’s Redfern Aboriginal Tent Embassy should be seen for what it is – an attack on the rights and hopes of First Peoples. This morning the police called in to The Embassy. This follows on the back of teh controversial ‘Aboriginal’ Housing Company’s commercial development partner recently advertising the removal of Aboriginal people from nearby districts as an incentive for prospective renters.
The Freedom Summit’s Freedom Movement heralds today’s arrest of one of their delegates, and Embassy stalwart, Wiradjuri woman, Jenny Munro, as a clear sign that First Peoples in this country are held without any respect for their rights, cultural and otherwise, and that their dignity as human beings does not matter. They have only one choice offered to them – assimilation.
The Freedom Movement condemned the arrest of Ms Munro.
The Freedom Movement’s Arrernte Elder, Rosalie Kunoth-Monks said, “Jenny having just lost her mother should not have to go through the indignity of losing her mother earth simultaneously. If it is a Black on Black action, I ask those Black people who are coming from the other side to take a good hard look at themselves. Jenny is one of the champions of the movement of people who are asserting their prior occupancy of this country. We say we have never given away this land and to be assaulted by other black people is unforgivable. Jenny can rest a little easy knowing she is a champion of the black cause. To be given the truth and justice, it is now time to talk Treaty. We must let Jenny know she is the much loved black struggle of Australia!”
The Freedom Movement’s Narrunga Elder, Tauto Sansbury said, “That is a nice Christmas for First Nations People being evicted off your own land. It is shameful, shameful, deplorable and ongoing racism. It does not end, but it will end. This racism, along the racism of homeland community closures, world record incarceration rates of our peoples, the removal of our children, the smashing of our cultures, of our right to be who want to be is why we are converging on Canberra on Invasion Day. It is why there will be national actions in every region of this continent on that day.”
Freedom Movement stalwart, Kamilaroi Elder, Dr Marcus Woolombi Waters said, today in regards to the attempted shutdown of the Redfern Tent Embassy, “This action today highlights two things - 1) that the division between Middle class Blacks defining our culture down to pennies and profit in wanting to sell our souls remains our greatest obstacle. Remember this is the same development company that advertised "The Aboriginals have moved out of Redfern" in its advertising campaign. And 2) What happens when we turn up on mass as word spread across social media on what was happening - if we unite and show our voice in numbers we will win, just as we won in Redfern today and in Brisbane two weeks ago with Musgrave park. This is why as many as possible should get to Canberra and unite in our major cities, Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne on Australia Day to mark a National Day of Action. We need to come together and show we represent the hundreds of thousands of our mobs and show them we have a voice...”
The embassy stands as evictions are to be held off for now.