Racism inflames anger

Increasing racial tensions inflamed by the Howard Government's 
racist policies have boiled over into violent responses by 
Indigenous communities. The death in custody of an Aboriginal man 
on November 21 sparked riots on Queensland's Palm Island two 
weeks ago. And in a shocking incident last week an Aboriginal 
youth accused of attempted theft was dragged with a rope by the 
neck around a river bank for 40 minutes, near the Queensland town 
of Goondiwindi.

Sixteen-year-old Allan Boulan was found allegedly attempting to 
steal a motorbike by the owner of a cattle station. In a reprisal 
that has been described as "KKK type stuff" he and his friend 
were then beaten with sticks.

Following this, his friend was bound to a tree and forced to 
watch while Boulan was stripped, bound and dragged around the 
river bank. It is enormous good fortune that he was not 
strangled. As it was, he suffered rope burns, head injuries and 
severe bruising to his body, and has experienced traumatic nausea 
and vomiting ever since.

The Goondiwindi beating, and the death in custody of Cameron 
Doomadgee in Palm Island Police Station, followed another death 
in custody at Normanton Police Station some time ago. The deaths 
at Palm Island and Normanton are both the subject of an 
investigation by the Queensland Crime and Misconduct Commission.

The events at Goondiwindi and Normanton, as well as those on Palm 
Island, are a clear outcome of government policies of neglect and 
outright hostility towards Aboriginal people.

The Government has gone out of its way to denigrate and demonise 
attempts by Indigenous communities to overcome poverty, 
discrimination and more than 200 years of dispossession.

The Howard Government has historically moved to block all 
campaigns and legislation favouring the rights of Aboriginal 
people, because they are seen as standing in the way of vested 
corporate interests. The Government has also consistently refused 
to apologise to Aboriginal people over the Stolen Generations, 
for the same reason.

The deaths in custody at Palm Island and Normanton, the death of 
Aboriginal boy Thomas ("T J") Hickey who was being pursued by 
police in Redfern, Sydney, and the shocking assault on Allan 
Boulan at Goondiwindi, are all symptomatic of a disastrous 
decline in relations between government and the Aboriginal 
community.

This manifests itself in a degree of public apathy or ignorance 
of the problems facing Aboriginal people, as well as blatantly 
racist criminal behaviour by some individuals and groups. All of 
this has been given tacit encouragement by the Howard 
Government's callous attitude and policies towards Aboriginal 
people.

The introduction of punitive new welfare laws targeting only 
Indigenous Australians is another demonstration of the arrogance 
and racism driving Government policy.

Aboriginal Senator Aden Ridgeway recently pointed out that the 
Howard Government still refused to acknowledge that there was an 
urgent problem concerning the treatment of Aboriginal people, 
despite the disproportionately high rate of Aboriginal people in 
custody, and the appalling incidence of Aboriginal deaths in 
custody.

He commented: "This country does have major race relations 
problems that are escalating under the reign of the Howard 
Government. I believe there is a growing indifference of 
Australians — the great Australian silence about the increasing 
rates of imprisonment and deaths in custody of Indigenous people 
and treatment under the criminal justice system.

"Indigenous people in this country are 15 times more likely to be 
imprisoned than anyone else. Last year, 75 percent of deaths in 
custody of prisoners detained for no more than public order 
offences were Indigenous Australians."

Robbie Williams, the ATSIC Commissioner for south-east 
Queensland, remarked grimly: "There's been some militant rednecks 
who have taken the law into their own hands. There's a few people 
who are starting to think it's open season on Aboriginal people. 
It started in Redfern, now it's up on Palm Island: it could be 
escalating."