Forward from mart.
Please distribute widely.
----- Original Message -----
From: John Clancy <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Sunday, March 04, 2001 7:58 PM
Subject: world: Aust Indigenous Conf. World Native Peoples. Police
from: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
subject:world: Aust Indigenous conf. World Native Peoples. Police
More than 500 delegates representing the Indigenous Peoples
of Canada, Aotearoa/New Zealand, the USA and Australia met in Sydney
last week to scrutinise the way those nations are responding to
indigenous rights and issues. The conference was disrupted when an
arrogant keynote speech by Federal Minister for Immigration and
Aboriginal Affairs prompted a mass walk-out.
Speakers from regions as disparate as the Australian desert to the
Canadian arctic came together to discuss issues of common concern,
their histories, their displacement, and relations with the modern
states.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission Chairman Geoff Clark
said the conference would "not only promote greater awareness
concerning the scourge of racism, but also lead to decisive action
at the nation, regional and international levels in order to help
those who suffer daily from racism.î
Duane Champagne, Director of the American Indian Studies Centre at
UCLA said "Native peoples are developing a perspective and
understanding of their rights to self-government, land, and cultural
preservation from time immemorial.î
Sticking out like a sore thumb at the conference was Australia's
Federal Minister for Immigration and Aboriginal Affairs, Philip
Ruddock. During his speech on Wednesday, more than 100 delegates
walked out.
Standing firm with the government's shameful policy of refusing to
say "sorryî, he spoke only of the Federal parliament's motion
of "deep and sincere regretî.
He also promoted National Harmony Day on March 21, to which one
heckler responded "National Sorry is Day is on May 26!"
He said he welcomed international scrutiny of Australia's race
relations, and announced that the UN special rapporteur on racism, Mr
Maurice Glele-Ahanhanzo had been invited to visit Australia later
this year.
When asked what he would make of the Woomera detention centre for
refugees Mr Ruddock replied, "I think he'd understand ... that
it is a proper and appropriate way to deal with (them)î.
Later, in Mr Ruddock's presence, Aboriginal Social Justice
Commissioner
Dr Bill Jonas gave a detailed report of how four UN human rights
committees have severely criticised the Federal Government over
racism in the last year.
He urged representatives at the conference to assist the Federal
Government by helping to identify actions that would to address these
human rights issues, which included among them an apology and
compensation for our "stolen generationsî.
At the end of the conference the delegates unanimously adopted a
draft report containing more than 50 recommendations concerning
racial discrimination against Indigenous peoples, which will be
forwarded to a United Nations World Conference on Racism in South
Africa later this year.
***********
from: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Delivered-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] X-eGroups-Return: sentto-
1086467-4386-983656978-
[EMAIL PROTECTED] X-Sender:
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
EST Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [pttp]
[NativeNews][LPDC] CLINTON, COWARDICE, AND PRESIDENTIAL PARDONS
Sender: sentto-1086467-4386-983656978-
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent by Senior Staff..................thanks
Subj: [NativeNews] CLINTON, COWARDICE, AND PRESIDENTIAL PARDONS
Date: 3/2/2001 5:34:34 PM Mountain Standard Time
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Senior Staff)
Reply-to: <A HREF="mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]"> NatNews-
[EMAIL PROTECTED]</A>
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] CC: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
CLINTON, COWARDICE, AND PRESIDENTIAL PARDONS Money Shouldn't
Guide Political Decisions
Marty Jezer is the author of The Dark Ages; Life in the USA and
Abbie Hoffman: American Rebel (on which the new movie, Steal This
Movie, is based).
Clinton's last-minute pardon of financier Marc Rich was as sleazy
as the Republicans (and many Democrats) say. But worse than the
sleaze, and more indicative of the flaw in Clintons presidency, was
whom he didn't pardon: most notably the Native American activist
Leonard Peltier.
Rich, who fled the country after being indicted for allegedly
evading $200 million in taxes and illegally trading with Iran during
the Iranian hostage crisis, was pardoned because his ex-wife, Denise,
is a prominent Democratic fund-raiser who has pledged $1 million
towards the building of the Clinton Library.
Peltier, for his part, fled to Canada after being indicted for the
murder of two FBI agents during a shootout at the Pine Ridge Indian
Reservation in North Dakota in June 1975. Everything about that case,
including his indictment, his extradition from Canada (where he was
illegally seized without the permission of Canada), and his trial, is
controversial.
The shootout occurred during a period of high tension at the Pine
Ridge reservation. Traditionalists, supported by the American Indian
Movement (AIM), of which Peltier was a leader, were challenging the
power of the entrenched Indian leadership, which had the backing of
the FBI and other government agencies. AIMs program emphasized native
pride in identity and social and economic reform. In the two-year
period between the federal attack on an AIM encampment at Wounded
Knee and the shootout at Pine Ridge, there were 60 unsolved deaths of
Native Americans, despite the heavy presence of the FBI and officers
of the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
Although William Sessions was director of the FBI in 1975, the FBI
was still following the policies of J. Edgar Hoover, who, through
the infamous COINTELPRO program, had turned the FBI into a right-wing
force for political repression. By collecting information on and
threatening to blackmail political opponents, Hoover was able to act
as a government unto himself, illegally spying on and harassing left-
of-center political activists. As an effective leader of the American
Indian Movement, Peltier was a marked man.
The supporters of Marc Rich gave money. Leonard Peltier's
supporters didn't. Rich got the pardon.
I do not know what happened at the Pine Ridge shootout or who
fired the fatal shots, but Peltier and three other Indians were
charged with killing the two FBI men. The killer of a third victim, a
Native American, has never been identified. Of the three men accused
of murder, one had his charges dropped and two were acquitted (by a
jury in Iowa) on the basis of self-defense. Peltier fled, rather than
stand trial, because he did not believe he could receive a fair
trial given the government vendetta being waged against the AIM
activists.
Its true that at the time, Indian activists were macho and armed;
capable of shooting at FBI agents. But given Americas historic
treatment of Native Americans and the aggressive, repressive and
illegal actions the FBI was taking against AIM and other dissidents,
the FBI deaths, though tragic, should be seen as self-defense. The
Peltier Defense Fund makes the case for Peltiers innocence. His
opponents argue his guilt at the No Parole Peltier Association.
I'm impressed that Federal Judge Gerald Heaney, who denied an appeal
by Peltier in the 8th U.S.Circuit Court of Appeals, now calls for
Peltier's freedom, stating that "the FBI used improper tactics in ...
investigating and trying" the case.
Guilty or not, no one has ever considered Peltier a dangerous
criminal or a violent man. Before the shootout he had been a
community counselor, dealing with job issues and alcohol problems.
His crime, if he committed one, was fighting for his people.He's been
in jail now for almost 25 years. Even if "guilty," a meaningless term
in this political context, he's done his time.
Millions of people throughout the world have signed petitions in
support of Peltiers freedom, including the late Mother Theresa,
Desmond Tutu, the Dalai Lama, and other religious leaders of major
denominations. Amnesty International also supports Peltiers release
as does the European Parliament, and at least 50 members of Congress.
As opposed to the supporters of Marc Rich, they put their public
reputations on the line. Alas, they did not give money. As a result,
Peltier remains in jail while Marc Rich has his pardon.
Clintons pardons may have been legal, but they were also
cowardly, and cowardice, more than anything, has been the
mark of the Clinton presidency.
The right of a presidential pardon is absolute. What Clinton did
with Marc Rich was sleazy but legal. Fords pardon of Nixon and Bushs
pardon of Caspar Weinberger were similarly sleazy but also legal.
Politicians protect their friends and their political contributors.
Money buys pardons, just as it buys ambassadorships and public
policy. If Republicans dont like Clintons pardon of Rich, then they
ought to help change the political climate that transforms campaign
contributions into political power. Giving a politician money isn't
free speech, as most Republicans claim: its bribery. It appears that
Denise Rich bribed Clinton and won the release of her ex-husband.
Clintons pardons may have been legal, but they were also cowardly,
and cowardice, more than anything, has been the mark of the Clinton
presidency. Whereas Clinton has been willing to do most anything for
a campaign contribution, he has never been willing to squander
political capital for the sake of principle or the cause of justice.
Presidential clemency or a pardon for Leonard Peltier would no doubt
have been controversial. Many in the law enforcement community would
have been outraged, as would have been the Republicans. But the
Republicans have been outraged at everything Clinton has done; the
Marc Rich pardon, to them, is simply another target of opportunity.
Pardoning Peltier would have rallied Democrats and given them
cause to defend Clinton against his Republican attackers.
Its been all too easy to defend Clinton when he's under attack by
Republican looneys who, as with Elmer Fudd and his obsession with
Bugs Bunny, think they can bring him down with a clumsy blunderbus.
But the wascally wabbit always wins, as Clinton will always win
against such cartoonish politicians as Dan Burton and Arlen Specter.
If the Democrats want to survive the unsavory legacy of their
cowardly ex-President, they need to make it a party position to
support Leonard Peltier. To eradicate the residue of Clintons sleaze,
they also need to take the lead in getting corrupting money, hard and
soft, out of our political system.
Originally published at:
http://www.tompaine.com/opinion/2001/02/27/1.html
© 1999-2000 The Florence Fund Reprinted under the Fair Use
http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html
doctrine of international copyright law.
Tsonkwadiyonrat (We are ONE Spirit) http://nativenewsonline.org/
Native News Online a Service of Barefoot Connection FREE LEONARD
PELTIER!! " YOU ~ARE~ THE MESSAGE"
List info at: http://nativenewsonline.org/
To subscribe to this group,send an email to: ndn-aim-
[EMAIL PROTECTED] Archived on line at:
http://www.eScribe.com FREE LEONARD PELTIER
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox
Claudia K White BS, CT ~Main Line News~(c) 2001 Human & Civil
Rights~Campaign International http://www.angelfire.com/ut/Angel1 Web
Read & Subscription Information
http://www.egroups.com/messages/MainLineNews
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo
Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
*************
from: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
subject: Aust: A new Nation founded on racism and genocide
Wednesday, February 21, 2001
(via smh - FEATURES & ARTS )
A new nation founded on racism and genocide
An honest look at Australia's history since Federation would find
disturbing parallels with Nazi Germany, writes Mary Kalantzis.
There are two Australian Federation stories.In story No 1 we are
the first nation to be founded at the ballot box,
with a Federation compact built on peaceful compromise. Federation
sees the world's first government of the working class elected with
the consent of the ruling class. It was the moment of social welfare,
the creation of a basic, living wage, the eight-hour day and
regulated working conditions.
But there's another Federation story.
Federation set in place three distinctively local initiatives:
White Australia, protection of the industry and trade of white men,
and a regime of racial separation for Aborigines.
Federation was hardly the making of a "nation" in the sense of an
independent power whose sovereignty rested in the people. Australia
was unequivocally a part of the British Empire, and its people were
subjects, not citizens.
The one point of difference with the Imperial Government was race.
This was the only thing distinctively Australian about Federation,
and if there was an Australian nationalism, this was its essence.
Within the idea of race were the issues of immigration, trade and
Aborigines.
At the Intercolonial Conference of 1896, Joseph Chamberlain,
Secretary of State for Colonies, had reminded Australians of their
imperial responsibilities: "Bear in mind the traditions of Empire,
which make no distinction in favour of or against race or colour."
However, distinctions in favour and against race the Australians
nevertheless were to make, and in no uncertain terms.The Federation's
first major pieces of legislation were the Immigration Restriction
Act banning coloured immigration, and the Pacific Island Labourers
Act to repatriate the South Sea Islanders working in the Queensland
sugar plantations.
Another Australian difference with the Imperial Government was
trade. Federation marked a sharp turn away from the imperial
principles of laissez-faire economics and free trade because the
interests of the Australian economy were antithetical to the
interests of international economy in which inferior and lowly paid
races might unfairly compete against Australians, whose industry was
based on high wages.
So, the Australians erected high tariff walls. It was possible to
replace the South Sea Island labourers on the sugar canefields of
north-eastern Australia with better paid white labour only if there
were a tariff on sugar imports and a bounty on sugar production.
In so far as Federation was a moment of nation-making, it was around
a package of compromises to regulate the market for the benefit of a
nation personified as "Australians". Tariffs protected not the rights
of man, but the rights of "Australians" against the unfair
competition of other races.
The other main difference between Australians and the Imperial
Government was over Aborigines. In the relative silence which
continued to veil the processes of invasion and genocide, Federation
marked a new way of not speaking about the fate of formerly sovereign
indigenous nations.
Or, at least, barely speaking about them, or speaking about them
only to state how they would not be spoken about. Aboriginal people
were mentioned only twice in the new constitution -and both times to
legislate their absence.
This framework for not speaking about Aborigines was quite new.
British colonial rule had made a serious effort to ensure that
Aborigines enjoyed certain rights. But this ineffectual imperial
framework of rights was abandoned in the era of Federation.
A new way of not having to speak about Aborigines, called without
irony "Aboriginal Protection", emerged around the time of Federation
and was to last halfway into the 20th century. This evolved into a
system which institutionalised Aboriginal people on reserves - a
system so authoritarian as to amount in many cases almost to
incarceration. Aborigines were put into the same category as
prisoners and lunatics in a society which was, at the time, busily
setting up "modern" institutions to remove every manner of social
evil and such evils out of sight and, therefore, out of mind.
At the same time, "mixed race" children were removed from the
reserves and from their families. It was thought that interbreeding
with whites would at least give them a chance. For the remaining
Aborigines, however, it was a matter of "smoothing the pillow of a
dying race"- to quote a phrase in common use at the time. As an
inferior race and a primitive culture, modern rationality held they
were destined to disappear.
Racial segregation, removal of citizenship rights -this was the new
nation's new solution to the burden of a history which had begun with
invasion and ended in genocide.
When we dare to tell this second, more difficult story of
Federation, it's a modern story which is in its fundamental shape is
not dissimilar to Germany's. The big picture ideas are no different
to those in Germany in the 1930s and '40s: of the necessity to create
"one people, without admixture of races" (to use Prime Minister
Alfred Deakin's words); of unbridgeable racial inferiority; of races
destined to die out; and of the eugenics of progress.
Nor were the technologies of race
management so dissimilar: the enforced
separation in concentration camps; the
petty regulation of freedoms of
movement and association.
Nor, too, were the effects so different in the Australian case, a
genocide in which 90 per cent of the Aboriginal population died over
a century, and the wholesale destruction of peoples with distinctive
languages and ways of life.
This is edited from the third Barton Lecture delivered yesterday by
Mary Kalantzis, professor of education and executive dean of the
faculty of education, language and community services at RMIT
University, Melbourne.
(JC..Probably only 2% of our present politicians are interested in
caring for the Aborigines -in any way. The "Law in all States" is
ignored in the matters of Deaths in Custody which occur weekly. The
Police will throw them into pickup trucks to get them jailed, or
collect them via the Mandatory Sentencing Laws in most States. The
crimes are generally petty beyond belief -like stealing a pencil or a
can of coca cola, or swearing insults at police while drunk. The ages
of the inmates begin from 8 to 70. Politicians are afraid of the cops
seemingly because the cops could tell the media about pollies crimes?
All jails seem to be equipped with hooks or window bars set low
enough for the inmates to tie a noose with their football sox or boot
laces, or strips of blankets, shirts etc.
The simple remedy is for these upright, uptight cops to either
drive the natives to their camps, or just not charge them, or just
blame their own bad temper -the problem with altercations. Natives
naturally prefer to sleep on sand and in the bush. Most deaths in
custody are caused because the Aborigine, separated from his people
and his freedom -just prefers to die. One way is not to arrest unless
he or she has a volunteer tribal cell companion.
You must all know that politicians are there for the money. It is
a life of dollars and protective police culture, corruption. Abos are
for kicking. If necessary-Bare cells, no clothes-Yes! At least they
will not be found dead. The black people never had clothes in 1788).
JC
=======================================================
Knowledge is Power!
Elimination of the exploitation of man by man
http://www.egroups.com/group/pttp/
POWER TO THE PEOPLE!
Subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Change Delivery Options:
http://www.egroups.com/mygroups
Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
_________________________________________________
KOMINFORM
P.O. Box 66
00841 Helsinki
Phone +358-40-7177941
Fax +358-9-7591081
http://www.kominf.pp.fi
General class struggle news:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
subscribe mails to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Geopolitical news:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
__________________________________________________
