On 15 May 99, at 12:40, Trudy Bray wrote about South China Morning Post: Secret fund for 'stolen:
> South China Morning Post
> http://www.scmp.com/news/template/Asia-Template.idc?artid=1999051402001100
> 9&top=asia&template=Default.htx&maxfieldsize=1993 FridayMay 141999
>
> Australia
> Secret fund for
> 'stolen generation'
>
> ROGER MAYNARD in Sydney
> The Australian Government has set aside
> hundreds of millions of dollars in
> compensation for the so-called "stolen
> generation", it was revealed yesterday.
>
> "John Howard chose the hard way - he chose
> to ignore the national obligation for an apology
> and send it through the courts."
>
> Aboriginal Affairs Minister John Herron
> claimed cash payments were "inappropriate
> and impractical".
>
> Mr Howard is believed to have resisted a
> formal apology because of fears it could
> increase the Government's liability.
>
The other day I sent this:
From: Self <Single-user mode>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Senator Herron's answer to Robert Manne
BCC to: Trudy and Rod Bray <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, [EMAIL PROTECTED], Graham.Edward[EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Send reply to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date sent: Mon, 10 May 1999 23:28:27 +0800
Captain J. A. F. Duffield-Whyard (Retired)
12 Hurrey Place
BEECHBORO WA 6063
10 May 1999
The Federal Minister for Aboriginal Affairs
Parliament House
CANBERRA, ACT, 2600
Dear Senator Herron,
Should I be surprised? You wrote:
"I must say, however, that the Commonwealth is not seeking to justify the events of the past otherwise than to say that they were within the law. At the same time it does not accept that the child removal policies were deliberately designed for the destruction of a race of people, but were implemented at a time when the policies were considered to be in the best interests of the children."
As a person born in a Nazi prison camp, and a retired member of the armed forces of our nation, I do hope that our current rash of ADFA graduates do not adopt your position in international law. Should they serve in Pakistan, would they be justified in amputating a hand for theft?
Senator, Hitler and his henchmen would perhaps justify the vilification, victimisation, murder and genocide of many European minorities in Nazi Germany as "...the events of the past" and they would also say that "...they were within the law" at the time. Further, ask any of the children born as a product of Hitler's pursuit of the perfect Aryan "race" if they are happy about the ideas that "...were implemented at a time when the policies were considered to be in the best interests of the children."
However, I do note that Germany has paid, and continues to pay reparations for its deeds under the Nazis, in spite of the fact that current generations were not responsible for their predecessors deeds. Also, modern Germany has implemented policies to educate their children about the horrors of war and totalitarianism.
I note further, that as a person whose father-in-law was severely injured at Eora Creek on the Owen Stanleys in 1942, that the Japanese have undertaken none of the remedial and ethical work of Germany, and I sympathise with returned servicepersonnel who cannot forgive the Japanese, for this very reason.
I do wonder why apology and remedial action comes so hard to some.
Your loose use of the European folk taxonomic term, the eugenic idea "race," I leave for a future date.
Sincerely,
Jim Duffield
>
>
|\/\/\/| ****** Jim Duffield GMT+08 [EMAIL PROTECTED] ********
| o o|
C _) "In Germany, they came for the Communists, and I didn't speak up
| ,____| because I wasn't a communist. Then they came for the Jews, and
| / I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then, they came for
| | the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a
trade unionist, then they came for the Protestants and I didn't
speak up because I wasn't a Protestant. Then they came for me,
and by that time, there was no one left to speak up."
Pastor Martin Niemoller,when arrested by the Nazi Gestapo in the late 1930s:
******* http://www.omen.net.au/~staffy/ **************
* 12 Hurrey Place BEECHBORO WA 6063 AUSTRALIA *
* Ph: 61 8 9377-7871 Fax:61 8 9377-7871 (Pls ring first) *
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