Inikah wajah "anak bapak" demokrasi dan HAM? Anjas --------------------------------------- Canberra 'trying to sanitise black history' By DEBRA JOPSON Members of the stolen generation were forced to hold a media conference in the back of a cut-price market yesterday because the Federal Government wanted to hide that part of history as Australia celebrated indigenous culture in the Games opening ceremony, Ms Lowitja O'Donoghue said yesterday. The Sorry Day Committee had been denied the use of the Sydney Media Centre, where thousands of international journalists are based, because the stolen generations' story was one the Federal Government did not want told, she said. "It is about sanitising the message and we weren't about sanitising our message", she said. Ms O'Donoghue, co-patron of the Sorry Day Committee with the former prime minister Mr Malcolm Fraser, attacked the Office of Indigenous Affairs in the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, saying that of a staff of 52, only four were indigenous. The head of that office, Mr Peter Vaughan, had ensured the committee could not use the media centre. "Under this Government, white people are making more and more decisions for indigenous people. It's a trend which we want to reverse," she said. Some international journalists found their way to the media conference to hear nine Aborigines from around the nation. The chairman of the Northern Territory Stolen Generations Aboriginal Corporation, Mr Maurie Ryan Japarte, who travelled to Sydney on a one-way ticket because he could not afford the return fare, wished everyone a happy Olympics, but said he wanted it known his people had suffered atrocities and molestation. "This country's human rights is 20 years behind everyone else," he said, calling for a bill of rights. Ms Valerie Wenberg, who had been placed in the Bomaderry children's home, and alleges she was raped and beaten in a family home to which she was sent, broke down as she told the gathering: "There is no justice in this country." _________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com. Share information about yourself, create your own public profile at http://profiles.msn.com.
