BY PAUL OBOOHOV
CANBERRA — Seventy police, 30 in riot gear, raided the Aboriginal Tent Embassy at 6am on February 19. They dismantled a recently erected A-frame tin goonji.
Most of those sleeping on-site at the time of the raid were women and children. One woman, using a stick from the fire to defend herself, found police drawing guns on her. Another woman, who rushed to the goonji to retrieve documents, was knocked to the ground by police and arrested. A man who came to her defence with a ceremonial stick was also arrested.
The documents, relating to the illegal invasion of Australia and theft of land, were confiscated along with ceremonial spears and a European Union flag. Police vehicles continued to intimidate tent embassy residents by constant patrolling.
Tent embassy residents called a press conference and issued a press release stating that the police action was a declaration of war and showed no regard for Aboriginal culture. They are seeking legal advice and attempting to claim back confiscated tent embassy material.
The embassy has received support from Indigenous and non-Indigenous people. Embassy supporter Neville Chappy, of Wiradjuri and Ngunnawal background, told Green Left Weekly that the parliamentary buildings surrounding the embassy had been put up illegally without consultation with Aboriginal people. He said that the occupation of the site — unbroken since the 1970s — would not be abandoned.
The federal government's National Capital Authority had declared the goonji "illegal". For months, the embassy has faced harassment from the National Capital Authority and federal territories minister Wilson Tuckey. A humpy has been torched, the sacred fire extinguished, toilets removed and the electricity cut off.
Greenpeace provided a solar power system, however, and Unions ACT and the local Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union branch provided a toilet.
Tuckey has been calling the embassy an "eyesore", arguing the nearby construction of a $5 million "reconciliation monument" makes it unnecessary. Embassy residents suspect that the federal government has plans to erect an Indigenous-staffed kiosk on the embassy site.
Embassy part-time resident Wudjarlabinna, an elder from the Gungalidda people, told Green Left Weekly that through the embassy she highlights her people's health, education and other needs. She said that the embassy is an expression of never-ceded Aboriginal sovereignty over Australia, and a living protest against the denial of the right of Aboriginal people to self-determination, the ongoing war of aggression against them and the laws made to forcibly assimilate and destroy them.
From Green Left Weekly, February 26, 2003.
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