Aboriginal leader welcomes Australia�s exclusion from international racism conference By Diet Simon in Cologne August 25 � An Australian Aboriginal rights activist, Michael Anderson, has welcomed Australia�s being refused an invitation to the Asian Preparative Conference For the World Conference on Racism. Anderson said in Geneva, where he is making submissions to United Nations human rights bodies, that he was overwhelmed to learn that Iran sent Australia a letter that they were not invited to attend and participate in Asia's Regional Inter-Governmental preparative conference for the World Conference on Racism Iran is hosting. �This is a significant international incident,� said Anderson, now attending the Geneva session of the ECOSOC Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. �I believe that one of the influencing factors (for Australia not being invited) was to do with Australia�s treatment of its Aboriginal peoples, and Australia's criticisms of the UN's Human Rights expert Committee�s conclusions on Australia's violations of international laws and other international human rights instruments.� �Given the descriptions of racism and discrimination against Aboriginal people and Australia�s continuing restrictive immigration laws that prefer white South African and white Zimbabwean immigration to that of Asians is also a main feature that would cause a major incident such as this one.� Anderson said that comments like last weekend�s by the chairman of the Joint Parliamentary Committee on Treaties, Andrew Thompson, would not be helping Australia's cause either. Anderson also says having genocide placed on the agenda of the World Conference on Racism is a significant breakthrough. �It must rather unpalatable for the Australian Government since the international community have been made aware by the Sovereign Union of Aboriginal Peoples of Australia that Australia does not have a law against genocide and that the Government admitted that they deliberately chose not to include it as a crime in Australian domestic law.� �Australia's horrific history of crimes against the Aboriginal peoples is now being unfolded to and listened to by the international community. That history is now compounded by the federal government�s decision on the 28th June to grant Australia military forces civil powers.� Anderson said that he had no doubt these powers would now be tested through a sortie of action to quell the anticipated Aboriginal protests around the Olympic games. End. -- ********************************** 'Click' to protect the rainforest: Make the Rainforest Site your homepage! http://www.therainforestsite.com/ ********************************** ------------------------------------------------------ RecOzNet2 has a page @ http://www.green.net.au/recoznet2 and is archived at http://www.mail-archive.com/ To unsubscribe from this list, mail [EMAIL PROTECTED], and in the body of the message, include the words: unsubscribe announce or click here mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=unsubscribe%20announce This posting is provided to the individual members of this group without permission from the copyright owner for purposes of criticism, comment, scholarship and research under the "fair use" provisions of the Federal copyright laws and it may not be distributed further without permission of the copyright owner, except for "fair use." RecOzNet2 is archived for members @ http://www.mail-archive.com/recoznet2%40paradigm4.com.au/
