He karanga tenei ki nga hau e wha

Protest march 13th of July at Tent Embassy at 11am: Never Say Die

Uncles, Aunties, Brothers, Sisters, Non Indigenous Comrades and Friends, Us Brisbane mob are planning on a major mobilisation to Canberra for the third week of August, which will be the opening week
of the new sittings and probably the final sitting of the Howard parliament.

We are horrified and angered by this new wave of frontal attacks on the rights of our people in the NT and across the nation.

We despise Howard and his brutal wedge style of politics and we also say that it is time to "out" his jackie-jackies and mary-marys. Modern history has always linked the name of Adolf Hitler with the Holocaust and has neglected to further connect and expose the back room architects of the "Final Solution."

We must not make that same mistake. This 2007 attack on our people is just as deadly and just as constructed as the Nazi war against the Jewish peoples of Europe. Pearson and Gordon and their fellow travellers must also have their names written on the Shame Walls of national history and they must be condemned and driven from our camps.

They are dogs and they must be treated as dogs. Join us in Canberra to confront Howard and his corrupt and rotten government!!!

SAM WATSON
BRISBANE MURRI MAN

To our Brothers, Sisters, Friends & Allies in Occupied Australia:

Modern law is based on human equality and consent of the governed. Colonialism is illegal. The physical abuse that is happening among Aborigines and us here was learned from the first encounters with the penal colonists. They tied up our women like animals to abuse them. This is not part of Aborigine culture.

The military going into our Aborigine communities will make it worse. It will turn the clock back 100 years. The depth of the problems caused by the residential schools molestation experience shows how long this abuse can last, many generations. Even the SPCA tells animal owners they can't hit a dog or cat, but they still think its okay to hit people.

We should challenge these politicians and officials to live for one week like they are forcing us to live. They could not do it.

The government is supposed to be an instrument of the people to regulate our lives for our betterment, not as an instrument of oppression. When people work together we can do more. The oppressor class is imposing situations that the public is not aware of. They do not realize what is right or wrong. Disturbing us and the environment needs our consent. We have not consented to this kind of interference by anyone, particularly the military.

Are there any Aborigines in the Australian Parliament? If so, why is there no outcry from them? Has the legislature been given the legitimate power to impose martial law on us?

The settler cultures were a product of people abused, enslaved and displaced in the early feudal period. They belonged to the king or prince in exchange for being allowed to live. The aristocracy started pushing people off the land to raise animals instead of farming. The people migrated to the cities where they died like flies. They had no means of support and they were cut off from the land. Those sent to the penal colonies had no means to survive. They were a poor culture of a poor people They treated us the way they were treated. They don't see anything wrong with that.

We remember our reality of just over 100 years. If oppression is our only reality and we had nothing before the settlers arrived, then would we have no reason to live? But we had something that we created ourselves that sustained us so we had better lives and healthy environment. This artificial brutal reality that was brought here and forced on us has to go!

Kahentinetha Horn
MNN Mohawk Nation News

the Solomon Islands

By Patrick O’Connor
28 June 2007

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2007/jun2007/ntsi-j28.shtml

A series of direct and chilling parallels exists between the Howard
government’s police-military takeover of Aboriginal communities in the
Northern Territory (NT) of Australia and its military interventions in
the Solomon Islands and other neighbouring South Pacific states.

The NT operation is being justified on the basis that the region
amounts to a “failed state” in need of an initial period of
“stabilisation”. Police and military forces are being sent in
significant numbers, we are told, in the interests of protecting
Aboriginal children from sexual abuse. The underlying motivations are
entirely “humanitarian”.

Several of the Australian Federal Police (AFP) being deployed to the
NT have previously served in the Solomon Islands. And the man
appointed as operational commander of the prime minister’s hand-picked
task force is none other than Shane Castles—former AFP officer and
Solomon Islands police commissioner.

To grasp what Howard’s plan is really about, it is important to review
the record of his government’s recent dealings in the Solomons.

In July 2003, Howard labelled the Solomons a “failed state” and
dispatched more than 2,000 troops and federal police, along with
scores of bureaucrats. The Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon
Islands (RAMSI) forces took direct control of the state apparatus,
including the police, prisons, courts, and governmental finance and
economic bodies. Howard made great play of warning that unrest in the
tiny country posed a grave threat to Australian national security. At
the same time, he sought to allay potential public opposition by
insisting that the whole affair was driven by his government’s concern
for the fate of ordinary Solomon Islanders. To that end, the mission
was prominently labelled “Helpem Fren” (Help a Friend).

The real reasons for the military intervention were bound up with the
strategic and economic calculations of Australia’s ruling elite. The
South Pacific has long been regarded in official circles as Canberra’s
“sphere of influence”, with Howard recently characterising it as “our
special patch”. Escalating great power rivalry in the region, driven
by China’s growing economic and diplomatic influence, poses a threat
to Australia’s strategic hegemony as well as its considerable economic
interests.

Howard’s decision to intervene in the Solomons constituted a tactical
shift, following the US-led invasion of Iraq that was launched just
months earlier. In launching the Iraq war the Bush administration
openly disregarded international law, utilising military force to
seize control of critical resources. As part of the quid pro quo for
the Howard government’s participation in Bush’s “coalition of the
willing”, Washington backed Canberra’s aggressive drive to assert its
direct control over the South Pacific.

Four years after the initial intervention, the continuing social
crisis facing Solomon Islanders demonstrates the fraudulent character
of the Howard government’s “humanitarian” rhetoric. The country
remains among the most impoverished in the world, with extreme levels
of poverty and unemployment. The majority of the population survives
through subsistence farming, while those living in the capital Honiara
have seen a significant decline in their living standards. The influx
of well-paid RAMSI and other Australian personnel has fuelled
inflation and driven up the costs of housing, food, and other
essential items.

While RAMSI-associated layers now dominate Honiara’s housing market,
thousands of local residents are forced to reside in squalid squatter
camps. Such is the level of social inequality that senior Solomon
Islands’ officials have recently issued a number of warnings. The
Central Bank’s deputy governor Denton Rarawa last month noted what he
characterised as the “RAMSI effect”, which was exacerbating inflation
and creating an unsustainable housing market bubble. Former Central
Bank governor Tony Hughes echoed these remarks and warned that “if it
is not reversed, inequality and widening awareness of what is causing
it will have disastrous consequences for Pacific nations... persistent
unfairness breeds bitterness, and unattended bitterness breeds an urge
to destroy”.

This situation has been directly caused by the Howard government’s
policies. Canberra commits more than $200 million in so-called aid
money each year to the Solomons, but virtually none of this money is
spent on health, education, and other social services. More than half
of the total “aid” bill, $112 million, funds the salaries of
Australian Federal Police, while half of the remaining sum is paid to
GRM—a company owned by Australia’s wealthiest individual James
Packer—largely for running the infamous Solomon Islands prison system.

Canberra spends just $2 million a year on education and an average of
less than $9 million a year on the health of the Solomons population.
Even these pitiful sums overstate the real level of Australian “aid”.
The $2 million in education money funds Australian university
scholarships for a small number of Solomon Islanders—those targetted
by Canberra as the next generation of the political elite. Nothing is
spent on schools or literacy programs within the country, despite an
estimated one-quarter of the population being unable to read or write.
Similarly, a significant proportion of the health funding is spent on
restructuring the government’s health ministry, rather than on direct
medical assistance. There remains an acute shortage of medical workers
in the Solomons, with a ratio of 10,000 patients to each doctor.

This is the template for the Howard government’s approach to the
social catastrophe that confronts the Aboriginal population of the
Northern Territory. And it will have very similar results.

Not a single additional cent will be spent on healthcare, education,
housing, employment, or any other social services. Howard, together
with his indigenous affairs minister and former military officer, Mal
Brough, has framed the entire operation in military terms. As an
article in the Australian noted yesterday: “Resources are ‘deployed’.
Situations are ‘stabilised’ and then, hopefully, ‘normalised’. Towns
will be ‘secured’. Maps are distributed. All part of a ‘three-phase
operation’ to rescue the children.”

The idea that the police and the army can halt child sexual abuse and
the myriad other social problems afflicting remote indigenous
communities, is utterly absurd—as the experiences of Solomon Islanders
demonstrates.

In March last year, Time magazine’s Pacific edition revealed that a
2004 report commissioned by the United Nations Children’s Fund
(UNICEF) on child sexual exploitation in the Solomons had documented
dozens of examples of child pornography, prostitution, and sex
tourism. The article, entitled “Generation Exploited”, pointed out
that the Howard government had done nothing in response to the
report’s findings and had ignored appeals from the Solomon Islands
government to provide adequate funds to address the problem. Time
noted: “Only three government welfare workers can be called on to help
the victims; they service a population of about 500,000 across a vast
archipelago.” According to the UNICEF report, which was never publicly
released, RAMSI personnel were seen “as contributing to an increase in
prostitution”.

Howard’s appointment of Shane Castles to head his NT task force is
particularly instructive. Castles’s term in the Solomon Islands was
marked by a series of provocations, characterised by an open disregard
for legal and constitutional norms and unflagging loyalty to the
political imperatives of the Howard government.

Castles was initially dispatched to the Solomons as police chief in
April 2005 in order to consolidate Canberra’s control amid mounting
opposition to RAMSI. Twelve months later, RAMSI police sparked two
days of rioting in Honiara after they fired tear gas into a political
demonstration following national elections. The Australian police
chief’s exact role in these events has never been officially
investigated. But there is significant evidence that Australian forces
were deliberately stood down during the riots in order to create
maximum chaos, and to establish the conditions for the deployment of
hundreds more troops and police to bolster the RAMSI operation. (See
“The Howard government, RAMSI, and the April 2006 Solomon Islands’ riots”)

In the aftermath of the riots, the Sogavare government came to power
and announced the formation of a Commission of Inquiry into the causes
of the violence. Fearing an exposure of its role, the Howard
government launched an extraordinary dirty tricks campaign aimed at
demonising Sogavare and several of his supporters, and destabilising
his government.

Castles was the key player. Last October, he arrested Julian Moti, a
constitutional lawyer and Sogavare’s appointee to the position of
attorney-general, who was responsible for setting up the Commission of
Inquiry. Castles then proceeded to arrest Immigration Minister Peter
Shanel and violently raided the office of Prime Minister Sogavare. The
Australian police chief contemptuously dismissed a subsequent court
ruling that acquitted Moti of the bogus charges, and threatened to
arrest him again on the same charges. However, Sogavare sacked Castles
and barred him from re-entering the Solomon Islands before he had a
chance to do so. The Sogavare government concluded that Castles’s
“continued presence here [is] considered prejudicial to the peace,
defence, public safety, public order, public morality, security and
good government of Solomon Islands”.

That Howard is involving Castles in his filthy NT operation should
serve as a sharp warning of the methods being prepared, initially
against the most oppressed and disadvantaged layers of Australian
society, but, in the not-too-distant future, against the working class
as a whole.

See Also:
Australia: Growing opposition to police-military takeover of
Aboriginal communities
[27 June 2007]
Australian government imposes military-police regime on Aborigines
[23 June 2007]
Solomon Islands’ government dismisses Australian police chief
[4 January 2007]

Tia Taurere will be reading a statement of solidarity to our
Aboriginal brothers & Sisters.

WHEN: Mon 2nd July 2007 @ 4:30PM

WHERE: Auckland, Meet @ QEII Square(Britomart) then head to Australian
Consulate

WHY: To show solidarity to the Aboriginal communities and
beneficiaries of our neighboring Australia.

Tamaki Tautoko for this kaupapa:

Tia Taurere 021 311 815

Joe Carolan 021 186 1450

Endorsements for National Day of Action July 14.7.07
Kulin Nations (Melbourne)

Stop the Genocide on Stolen Aboriginal Land! from Aotearoa are;

Whakaminenga o Te Paatu
Te Ata Tino Toa
Conscious Collaborations-Global Indigenous network
Mana Wahine
Solidarity Union
Socialist Worker (Aotearoa)
Human Rights Project Aotearoa
Wellington Wildcat Anarchist Collective
Aocafe (Aotearoa Cafe)
Green Party Aoteatroa

In the spirit of Indigenous Unity, Struggle & Solidarity

On the 07/07/07, Yungarri Knuppanunka Aunty Sue Charles Rankin,
Aboriginal Mother and Grandmother from the Kulin Nation, (Melbourne,
Australia) in her fiftieth year will set off from Kaurna Country
(Adelaide, South Australia), to walk a journey of a 1,500 kilometers
to Uluru in Australia’s Northern Territory to bring world-wide focus
on Mother Earth changes and the continued deplorable treatment and
living conditions of Aboriginal Peoples in the homelands of her Ancestors.

Our people say if country is sick, people are sick. We have forgotten
that we are all connected, we no longer listen to our Mother Earth and
each other in a healthy manner.

In setting out upon this peaceful journey, my intention is to promote
awareness of and better our relationship with our Mother Earth and
each other. We, each of us cannot continue on the course we are
currently on and just hope everything will be ok. My people have
sought always to maintain balance and its restoration through
reciprocal relationships with all things this is expressed through our
shared values, beliefs and practices.

There must be a shift in attitude we must become conscious of our
relationship with each other and our Mother Earth, we are all
connected. Each of us is responsible. We cannot continue to close off
our ears and eyes to the continuing plight of my People and our Mother
Earth. This time of ignorance, greed and complacency must end.

I look forward to sitting down with people in communities along the
way, to share our stories and to see how we can all work together to
bring about peaceful change for the betterment of all people and all
life.” All life is sacred, I am walking this ancient earth as my
Ancestors have done from time immemorial I walk it for all those who
have brought us here and for all those still to come.
ALL WELCOME
People who can make it to Adelaide are encouraged to come down to see
the walkers off and share a farewell BBQ Breakfast

DATE: Saturday the 07/07/07.

TIME: 6am Depart by 7am

WHERE: Tauondi Aborignal College
11 Lipson street Port Adelaide South Australia

Alternatively, people can share art, music or words of support online at:
www.peacepilgrimage.net/sacredlife or www.myspace.com/peacepilgrimage

For media enquiries please contact:
sacredlife_media@...

For further information about the walk please visit:
http://peacepilgrimage.net/sacredlife

Aunty Sue is a long time campaigner for Aboriginal Rights:

TODAY AT HIGH COURT - CALL TO END GENOCIDE
by Genocide prosecutors Wednesday April 13, 2005 at 01:17 PM

Photo's and rundown of today's action at the High Court Registry
Melbourne...Aboriginal elders calling an end to the Genocide

http://melbourne.indymedia.org/news/2005/04/90701.php

http://angryindian.blogspot.com/2007/07/aotearoa-imc-he-karanga-tenei-ki...

PROTEST

Hi people there has been changes to Saturdays protest 12:30. march
from the Tent Embassy to march to Garema Place Civic, and rally at

Aboriginal Tent Embassy
Saturday 14th July 2007
Saturday 12:30.

Join us in a march from the Tent Embassy to new Parliament House.

How can we celebrate NAIDOC when the government occupies Aboriginal
Communities with armed forces?

Invasion is happening again in Australia. The Howard regime similar to
Hitler’s regime has occupied communities. While they say it’s in the
best interest of the Aboriginal people we know it’s a land grab.

Fight for Justice for Aboriginal people.

Yours in the Battle

Kerry

Kerry Reed-Gilbert

Associate Dip Adult Ed (Aboriginal)

BEd (Adults)

Kuracca Consultancy & Communications

PO Box 623

Dickson ACT 2602

Ph/Fax: 02 6241 7346

Mobile: 0415 469 512

Web: http://www.kuracca.com

In case you were unable to open up the PDF Communique, you can have a
look at the Blog spot for updated pictures.

http://harrietspirit.blogspot.com/

INDIGENOUS ANTI-CANADA DAY
NATIONAL DAY OF ACTION AND RESISTANCE
COAST SALISH TERRITORY

On July 1st 2007, over 200 Indigenous women, children,
Elders and men took the streets and the train tracks
on a march and blockade to mark their resistance to
Canada as an oppressive force against their people.
The march began at Grandview Park and proceeded down
Commercial Drive to Venables Street where the CN rail
lines were occupied and blocked for over an hour.

During the blockade a Canadian flag was burned on the
tracks by an Indigenous person, and several other
Canadian souvenir flags that had been painted with the
words �No Justice on Stolen Native Land� were burned
by about 40 Indigenous people at the action.

The group stayed strong throughout the blockade in a
show of force to let the Canadian government know that
Indigenous people will not take state oppression any
longer.

The march returned to Grandview park, again blocking
traffic on the roads and intersections. The police
presence was small, consisting of mostly bicycle
units, and efforts to direct traffic were non-existent
for at least an hour.

U-Tube Videos to come

____________________________________________________________________________________Ready

"Today we are remembering our eldest elders, those who initiated the long
struggle of resistance against the arrogance of Power and the violence of
money. They, our ancestors, taught us that a people with pride are a
people who do not surrender, who resist, who have dignity." - from Our
Word Is Our Weapon

"they are dogs and must be treated as dogs"I take exception to this ,Dogs are loyal,loving animals and treated with respect will be your life long mate.This mob can get stuffed if they have no respect for our animal friends.

---------- Forwarded message ----------

Date: Jul 5, 2007 6:23 PM
Subject: [Fwd: Maori support for Australian Indigenous Peoples]

- Hide quoted text -

Dear Brothers and Sisters of our nearby land of Aotearoa,

This is an open letter to THANK ALL OF YOU who participated in the occupation of the Australian Consulate in Auckland,this week.

My name is Di Stewart & I am an Indigenous woman from Nth Queensland,in Australia. As you are aware we as Aboriginal people are currently under direct attack,from John Howard's Gov't,which is a very RACIST,BIASED,GREED DRIVEN Organisation.The majority of Australians would like to imagine themselves to be a people who "give people a fair go"...what a load of ROT!!!!

We are and have always been a thorn in the sides of the Colonial Invaders ever since they put foot on OUR LAND and declared it for English rule. We have never surrenderd our lands or sold them....they were and continue to be STOLEN from the Original Australians. We are and have always been treated like, nothing worse than animals,in fact the animals have been treated better than us.Our people have been decimated,hunted,stolen from their Homelands and then they "Governments of Australia"have the audacity to BLAME Aboriginal people for their plight.

We are not a 3rd World country,but to see many of our countrymen/women & children being forced to live in 3rd World conditions is beyond belief. John "Hitler"Howard and his cruel Liberal Government and I use the word Liberal.. lightly, have much to answer for and undoubtably will earn himself the title of a Great Criminal for his part in the genocide of our Indigenous Australians.This latest ploy of the Aust Gov't has seen "Hitler Howard",begin his stand for Martial Law in Australia,and if the rest of the Australian population thinks that this will just stop with Aboriginal people then they are in for a VERY RUDE awakening.... This is just the Beginning.!!

Whilst there is indeed Child Neglect & Abuse in our communities,there is also the same happening in White Anglo homes as well.I ask the question does he intend to Invade their homes with the NATIONAL GUARD as well?...of course not.This is our privilage and only ours alone...we have been set back in this country to 200 and so many years again. I applaud the Maori people for their support of my countrymen,women and children,but that alone will not solve the problem.Although it is very heartening to hear that we are at least being watched and cared for in this world.Sometimes it doesn't feel like we as a Nation of people have any hope at all. My personal belief is,that to bring about change of a substanial nature we have to SPEAK WITH ONE VOICE. There is no Aboriginal Leader/s so to speak of and it is my greatest wish to see all Original Australians stand together against the tryanny & injustice that we all face on a day to day basis.
We must also acknowledge the support that many white Australians give to us,and to not let this become a BLACK/WHITE issue... which is exactly what Howard wants,for him to go ahead and impose TOTAL Martial Law on us.Ironically we have recently "Celebrated?"the 40th Anniversary of the Referendum which overwhelmingly gave us the "RIGHT TO VOTE"... and to be recogised as Citizens within our own Country. How Generous....

Their are many capable,educated,intelligant and willing Aboriginal people who are already doing the Hard work on the ground,but lack of goodwill and funding by this and previous Governments in this country, intend to keep Aboriginal People where they think they should be: UNSEEN & UNHEARD. Better still get rid of us altogether and therfore no more problem. I AM ASKING FOR HELP...AS A MOTHER & GRANDMOTHER FOR ALL OF THE INDIGENOUS PEOPLES OF THIS PLANET, TO PLEASE UNITE AS ONE FORCE AS WE ARE ALL THE TRUE CUSTODIANS OF MOTHER EARTH, to help us in our fight against the injustices that are occurring in OUR ANCIENT,SPIRITUAL,LAND,,, AUSTRALIA.

May your Ancestors be with you all in your struggles as well,
Di Stewart....Dulguburra Yidinji Woman of North Queensland. Email Address: di_di_61@bigpond.com

just because youve been treated like crap doesnt mean you should make comments advocating the abuse of another speices,maybe you should start getting some self respect first

am justing posting this anywhere and everywhere...

Wellington (Aotearoa) solidarity protests:

July 13th 12:30-1:30pm demonstration at Oz Consulate (meeting 12:15pm at park across road, Hobson Street, Thorndon).

Saturday July 14th 12-2pm, meet 12pm at Midland Park on Lambton Quay to rally and march to Te Aro Park as part of the international day of action. DIY protest but speakers and musicians organised at some points....

Hey Fuckers Dont Be Hatin On Us NATIVES WE DO IT BIG!