ABORIGINES SEEK UN RULING ON LAND.
by Graham Williams
Lawyers for Aborigines began proceedings in Canberra yesterday to
seek a hearing by the International Court of Justice of Aboriginal
claims to be the rightful owners of Australia whose lands were
wrongfully seized.
The process aims to force Australia to enter negotiations to grant
Aborigines compensation for seizure of the lands and for genocide,
and to give them rights to self-determination and terms of
co-existence.
The lawyers sent applications to the UN Secretary-General, Dr
Boutros Boutros-Ghali, and to the International Court (the UN's
judicial arm), with copies to the Prime Minister, Mr Keating, and
three ministers.
The application by Mr Paul Coe, chairman of the National
Aboriginal and Islander Legal Services Secretariat, claims the
Aborigines have been subjected to "unprovoked aggression,
conquest, pillage, rape, brutalisation, attempted genocide",
destruction of their culture and the denial of self-
determination. It asks the Australian Government to admit its
"false pretense" in claiming Australia was unoccupied at the time
of colonisation or to move that the UN General Assembly ask the
International Court of Justice to rule. The application also asks
Dr Boutris-Ghali to refer the matter to the court.
Lawyers led by a barrister, Mr Charles Kilduff, former chief
magistrate in the ACT, (Australian Capital Territory) have worked
on the apllication since the occupation of the old Parliament
House on January 27 by 100 Aborigines. Four of them were charged
with trespass and their case is being used to get the Aboriginal
claims into the international arena.
The trespass cases will go before the ACT Magistrates Court on
Monday but applications for a stay of proceeedings were filed in
the Supreme Court of the ACT pending the outcome of the appeal to
the UN.
Mr Coe said: "This gives the Government a great opportunity, if it
is sincere about reconciliation, to bite the bullet and let the
international court decide who are the true, legal owners of the
continent. Australia, totally out of whack with the international
community, is still living lies based on might is white and white
is right."
He said the key question the ICJ would be asked to decide was
whether at the time of colonisation in 1787, Australia belonged to
no-one or to the Aboriginal peoples and nations.
Mr Coe said Australia could ignore 500,000 Aborigines but not "400
million indigenous peoples around the world who support us."
ends.