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From: Lorenzo Komboa Ervin XXXXX@mindspring.com
Date: Thu, 28 Aug 1997 23:19:26 -0400 (EDT)
Message-ID: 199708291032.UAA23344@yarra.vicnet.net.au
Mailing List: LEFTLINK@vicnet.net.au
Introductory comment by Left Link moderator:
[Below is a posting from Lorenzo Ervin initiating an international campaign to boycott the Sydney 2000 Olympics. Although it has a number of factual errors and makes some unsubstantiated claims it has been posted to the list for the information of subscribers.]
================================
BOYCOTT RACIST AUSTRALIA!
In 1993, after fierce bidding, the year 2000 Olympic Games were awarded to AUSTRALIA over China by the International Olympic Committee, allegedly because of a better human rights record. But is this so? You be the judge. Here is a list of crimes by the white racist regime:
* mass murder [genocide] of 500,000 Aboriginal (black) people and the continued theft of their lands. These murders continue with deaths in H.M.S prison service and police custody to the present day. AUSTRALIA is based on the rape and theft of the lands of Aboriginal peoples. Even the courts of the country are recognizing this, but the government is openly defying the court system, as well as international law and public opinion by refusing to abide by the Mabo, Wik, and other rulings granting native land title.
* The rise of Pauline Hanson, the openly white racist politician, who is against Asian immigration and the human rights of Aborigines, and who is for a "white AUSTRALIA" restricted immigration policy, which discriminates against non-whites. She calls the Aborigines "savages" and "cannibals" who should be eliminated from "civilized society." The rise of her One Nation Party, a fascist, white supremacist electoral movement, is a serious development which will continue to impact on Australia's position in the world making it a pariah nation, based on her present influence on the government, and likelihood of being elected Prime Minister.
* Government stealing of 100,000 Aboriginal (black) children and giving them to white families, in some cases sending them out of the country. This was done by police agents, who literally came and dragged them out of the arms of crying parents, theft of newborns from hospitals, and forcing the parents to give them to white authorities or be imprisoned. Light-skinned Aborigines were given to White families to raise, while dark-skinned youth were thrown into foster homes and juvenile prisons. This sort of thing has not been seen since Nazi Germany, and was clearly a policy of racial genocide. The federal government refuses to punish those responsible for this criminal policy, return the persons to their rightful families, or make any sort of restitution. It has taken an unrepentant white racist posture, denying at all they were responsible, or that anyone should be concerned 30 years after the crimes were committed. Not recognizing that yesterday's children must live with the result of these harmful policies.
* The deaths of *numerous Aboriginal persons in police custody, yet no criminal prosecution or impartial inquest, which would establish their deaths as homicide, instead of rubber-stamping their deaths as "suicide" has ever taken place. Over 350 black persons have been killed like this, according to the Royal Commission on Deaths in Custody, although others in the Indigenous rights movement have said as many as 1,000 may have died in as little as the last two decades.
* One of the highest levels of police shootings of civilians in the world, and a reputation for police brutality, especially against the poor and racial minorities. Literally hundreds have been killed in the last decade alone by the racist and repressive police forces of AUSTRALIA.
* Sydney, the site of the Olympic Games, has one of the world's worst ghettos, Redfern, which is a historically black community. The white government has slated the community for demolition, rather than rebuilding housing fit for human beings; the residents are subjected to daily police brutality, random racist violence, poverty and degradation. The Australian government should be held accountable for these squalid conditions, and made to build decent housing for the black community of Redfern, keeping the community intact, not driving out the poor!
* The Australian government is holding Denis Walker, an Aboriginal leader, in prison as a political prisoner. Mr. Walker is a co-founder of the Australian Black Panther Party in the 1970's, co-founder of the Aboriginal Tent Embassy in Canberra, site of Parliament, and has engaged in numerous struggles on behalf of the indigenous people of the country over the last 20 years. As a result he was framed on criminal charges in 1993 of assaulting an officer and resisting arrest, when he tried to stop racist cops from despoiling Aboriginal lands and artifacts. He disarmed one cop, but did not otherwise harm him, during a government harassing raid. That is why he is being held in prison as a "dangerous criminal". Mr. Walker has been called the "Nelson Mandela of AUSTRALIA", and his confinement is clearly politically motivated. We call upon the Australian government to release Denis Walker and to stop persecuting him because of his race and political outlook. He is a political prisoner, held unlawfully by the Australian regime, in violation of international law and human rights standards.
* For several years the Australian government has been engaged in military and political intervention in Papua-New Guinea, which has cost the lives of over 10,000 (predominately Black) persons in Bougainvillean territory, which seceded from the white settler regime for its own independent nation, and to stop mining corporations from exploiting and destroying their lands with strip-mining. AUSTRALIA, working with the mining companies and the puppet PNG government, provoked a civil war, and is arming the colonial regime.
* The July 1997 false imprisonment, beating, and deportation of visiting USA black activist, Lorenzo Komboa Ervin, when he was attempting to speak to the Aboriginal population and general public of AUSTRALIA during a book speaking tour. The government deportation charges came at the behest of racist politician Pauline Hanson and her One Nation Party, who were opposed to his talking to Aborigines, accusing him of "spreading terrorism". This tour was cut short because of biased immigration policies which allow the political banning of speakers out of favor with the government, in clear violation of international law. In addition, AUSTRALIA has no policies of civil rights for the black population, nor any civil liberties for its citizens including freedom of speech for controversial/unpopular persons. The national government routinely spies on and represses activists, domestic and international visitors.
* Political banning and denial of travel visas to activists, political figures and others that the conservative government is opposed to. This includes Lorenzo Komboa Ervin, and Irish Sein Fein leader, Gerry Adams, but also thousands of other Left-wing political or social figures. The government has admitted having a list of at least 100,000 persons for its immigration exclusion list, which includes many persons strictly on the basis of their political beliefs or affiliations.
* For over 100 years, the Australian government had a White Australian immigration policy, which effectively kept out non-White persons from visiting and/or receiving citizenship, until the late 1960s. The government is still enforcing parts of the 1958 Immigration Act laws which still are discriminatory. Black people coming to Australian for any purpose are especially harnessed, searched, accused of "dealing drugs", summarily deported and jailed. The Olympics will only increase the number of such cases.
* Giving a safe haven to WWII Nazis and other fascists. AUSTRALIA is one of the main destinations for fugitive war criminals because it gives them political asylum. It has had a long-standing fascist movement of its own, and many government officials in the current government are sympathetic to right-wing ideology and organizing. For instance, the Ku Klux Klan has been given a free hand to organize in Queensland state especially, and the National Action movement, Pauline Hanson's "One Nation" Party and other fascists are all flourishing, due to government and corporate support or acquiescence, even when they engage in or incite acts of violence.
If the truth be told, Australian is an outlaw nation whose racial policies are little different from apartheid South Africa, and we want to build an international movement against its trade and tourism similar to the anti-apartheid sanctions campaign. We call on all persons who believe in human rights and oppose racism to join us in this protest campaign. We must expose the racist Australian police state to the world and tarnish their false image of democracy and tolerance.
WHAT IS BOYCOTT 2000?
Because of these and other actions by the Australian government, we call for the creation of a Boycott 2000 Coalition to create a worldwide protest against the Sydney Olympic Games and especially an economic boycott in support of the Aboriginal inhabitants of the country. Because of a history of similar racist repression in South Africa, the United States, and Europe where white governments have engaged in racist and repressive actions against non-white population groups, we especially call upon Black communities all over the world to help us wage this fight, but we want all anti-racist and human rights organizations to join us in an international campaign against AUSTRALIA and especially an economic boycott in support of the Aboriginal inhabitants of the country.
WHAT CAN YOU DO?
1. Do not attend the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney, AUSTRALIA, and tell everyone you know not to attend. Call on them to begin a tourist and trade boycott of AUSTRALIA before and after the Olympics. In fact, advise your church, club, union, college and other community institution about the racist mistreatment of Australian Aborigines and get them to join the economic boycott campaign.
2. Write letters of protest to the Australian government about its racist and politically biased immigration policies, including the permanent banning order against Lorenzo Komboa Ervin filed by Philip Ruddock, Minister of Immigration, (to the Prime Minister below).
3. Don't use products made in AUSTRALIA such as Foster's
beer, Qantas airlines, etc. A full list of products and services will be
posted later.
4. Write letters to the Australian government about its racist treatment
of the Aborigines and Torres Strait Island people living in the country to:
Mr. John Howard
Prime Minister
Parliament House
Canberra ACT 2600
AUSTRALIA
e-mail: john.howard@liberal.org.au
5. Begin a campaign in your county to convince Olympics team officials and the government of your country not to send athletes or to participate in the Australian Olympics in the year 2000.
6. Begin a sanctions campaign in your country to convince the government authorities and business associations in your country to cut off all military aid, trade and economic support, and other foreign aid to AUSTRALIA until it recognizes the human rights of the Aboriginal people, gives them reparations for centuries of abuse, and recognizes their title to the land.
7. MAKE A DONATION to the Boycott 2000 Coalition. We will need money to fight, for printing, copying, mailing, phone calling and a host of other things. Your financial contribution is important:
BOYCOTT 2000 CAMPAIGN
Account # XXXXXXXX
XXXX Tennessee Bank
XXX Market Street
Chattanooga, TN. 37402 (USA)
8. Reprint this article in your newsletter, newspaper, or internet newsgroup to get the word out on the boycott. Write to newspapers, call radio talk shows, and television news departments as well.
9. If you would like a speaker to visit your college, community or your country to talk about the boycott and international human rights, please write to:
Lorenzo Komboa Ervin
Black Autonomy International
XXXXX Avenue
Chattanooga, TN. 37404
e-mail: XXXX@mindspring.com OR:
XXXXX@hotmail.com
(Boycott 200 Web site under construction).
-END-
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