Green Left Weekly's Jim McIlroy and Paul Benedek
spoke to Brisbane Murri community leader and Socialist Alliance activist Sam Watson about key issues facing Indigenous people today.
Could you tell us about the trial in Goondiwindi you've just attended?
In November last year, a group of young Murris from the Toomelah Mission, across the NSW border from Goondiwindi [south-western Queensland] entered a private farm residence. The residents caught one of them, a 16-year-old youth, and terrorised this young kid. They tied a noose around his neck and dragged him behind a ute along the river bank to punish and intimidate him.
After a lengthy period, the police out at Goondiwindi finally charged the two men with lesser offences relating to assault. January 18 was the first appearance of these two guys. My wife and I drove out from Brisbane and a group of senior Aboriginal people from the Toomelah Mission came into Goondiwindi to be in court, and we were there with placards calling for justice to be served.
The Aboriginal community expects justice in this state. Two white men seriously assaulted this young Aboriginal. They committed a severe criminal offence and should be subject to the full extent of the law.
In this society, there seems to be two systems of justice operating. Whites commit offences against Aboriginal people and escape with impunity. Aboriginal people go into custody and they end up dead. We are going to put this racist justice system, and the agencies of this system such as the police, under notice that a clear line is being drawn. We're going to retreat no further.
Could you comment on the current development of the Palm Island situation, following the death of Aboriginal man Cameron Doomadgee in police custody in November?
The Murri community in Queensland will fully support the Doomadgee family and the Palm Island people. There'll be a directions hearing on January 28 and at that hearing we'll receive some indication of how the coroner will run the inquest, and how the police will handle the case.
At this point, we have no great confidence in the Queensland police service and whether it will accept any sort of responsibility. We have substantial information that the police officer involved is actually being placed on a temporary posting down at Surfers Paradise, which is a plum police position in this state. Despite the death of an Aboriginal man in custody, this officer has not been questioned in relation to any criminal conduct, but in fact has been rewarded with a prize police posting.
The Queensland Police Union has already given clear notice of its attitude to the proceedings, and we need the entire Aboriginal community and supporters across Australia to be there at all times to send a very strong message to the coroner and to the criminal justice system that that police officer should be charged with a serious offence. If found guilty he should receive a lengthy and appropriate custodial sentence. We will accept nothing less.
We will fight this particular death in custody matter to the absolute nth degree.
On February 13, as well, we will be observing the first anniversary of the murder of the young Aboriginal man in Redfern, so that will also be a matter that we will be keeping a very close eye on.
What is the focus of this year's Invasion Day rally in Brisbane on January 26?
Aboriginal people have always honoured our fallen warriors. As part of our 2005 Invasion Day rally we'll be observing the 150th anniversary of the legalised execution and murder of Dandalli, who was one of our great warrior chiefs in the Brisbane area. He was executed in front of the post office in Queen Street for allegedly murdering a number of white settlers, whom he saw as illegal, armed invaders of his tribal country.
Could you explain the importance of the anniversary of the Freedom Rides?
The Aboriginal people will be coming together to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Freedom Rides across northern NSW, which were undertaken in 1965 by Uncle Charlie Perkins and the student comrades from the universities in Sydney.
The 1960s was an enormous decade for Aboriginal people, because of the challenge mounted by the Freedom Rides to the racism and segregation policies of northern NSW. The Gurindjis staged one of the first land rights struggles. And we had the 1967 Aboriginal referendum.
The 1960s launched the Black rights movement that swept across the country in the 1970s, '80s and '90s.
What is your view on the debate about "mutual obligation" and the Aboriginal communities of the north?
Only cronies like Noel Pearson support the idea of "mutual obligation" for the provision of essential services to Aboriginal communities. Instead, we should be extracting back rent for the 200 years of dispossession of our land.
Every cent generated by the Australian economy since 1788 ought by rights to be owed to the Aboriginal people for war reparations. We should sit down at a treaty negotiation table with a huge calculator and figure out every single cent that's due as reparations for the theft of our land and the exploitation of our culture.
The Brisbane Courier-Mail and the Australian have crafted [an image for Pearson] in order to advance their own agenda. If he attempted to stand up in Brisbane in a place like Musgrave Park and declare himself to be an Aboriginal leader, the Murri community would reject him very quickly.
What's your opinion of PM John Howard's new Aboriginal consultative council, intended to replace ATSIC?
They will represent no-one but themselves. They have no support at all among the Aboriginal people.
What do you see as the strength of the Aboriginal movement at present?
Well, here in Brisbane, we have a very cohesive, very strong, very dynamic Aboriginal community, and we conduct community business through our community councils and meetings. We involve elders, senior people and our young people coming through.
The Aboriginal community should be given power and more resources to conduct our own business. In Brisbane, we have a substantial number of Aboriginal trusts and organisations that are running our community business very effectively.
We have an Aboriginal corporation that's going to build a $5-million community centre here in Musgrave Park for the benefit of the people. Everwhere you see Aboriginal organisations that are capable of administering large amounts of money and getting goods and services out to the people in need.
So we don't need John Howard's "mutual obligation" rubbish. We just need the resources to alleviate the enormous pressures that are on our families and on our communities.
Finally, what do you see as the future of the "reconciliation process"?
Reconciliation will never advance until the Australian people realise that Howard is a threat to the future of this nation. Until Howard is removed, until we have a decent government in power, with a prime minister who is prepared to honour and acknowledge the need of this country to reconcile with Aboriginal Australia, then this country is doomed to repeat the mistakes and travesties of 200 years of racist terrorism.
From Green Left Weekly, January 26, 2005.
Visit the Green Left Weekly home page.