Australian UN human rights chair ‘a shame’
Diet Simon - 06.02.2004 18:25
Ngurampaa sheep farm, Hebel, south Queensland - - How can a racist country like Australia have a seat on the United Nations Human Rights Commission, much less chair it? That’s the question burning the gut of Aboriginal activist Michael Anderson.
In 30 years of campaigning at home and abroad for the Aboriginal cause, that UN platform was a favourite stamping ground where he and other Indigenous people got a good hearing and built valuable connections.
Anderson was commenting on Australia's ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, Mike Smith, having just been appointed chairman of the U.N. Human Rights Commission for 2004.
Many a time, away from the public limelight, Anderson faced off with Australian government ministers in Geneva, who through clenched teeth and plastic smiles would quip, ‘You here too, again, Michael?’
And they would be struggling to control their blood pressure over Australia being grilled in the dock by Third World politicians and diplomats who did not mince words.
CERD, one of the bodies in the UN human rights system, accused Australia of genocide. Others were stringently critical of the way land rights are being whittled away.
The result was Canberra refusing to let UN investigative committees in – and having egg all over its face.
Geneva, where UN human rights activities are centred, in a way was a political ‘home’ to Anderson, an information and contacts bourse where links were spun into a tribal and indigenous global network.
No wonder he’s angry. Australia at the head of that table! He’s been fighting the idea through his networks. For now he’s lost, but….
‘I intend to be the proverbial ghost for as long as Australia sits on the UN HRC,’ he says, ‘I intend to be in their faces in the UN at every opportunity. I hope others will follow suit.’
In a media statement issued from his home here, he decried Australia’s chairmanship of the UN HRC as ‘a shame’.
‘How can a racist country like Australia be granted such a privilege?’ he asks. And he sees it helping the government on Indigenous land claims.
‘Given the fact that they continue to have outstanding matters to deal with from the fallout of the 1998 Native Title amendments, Australia are now in a position to cover up their inactivity on the recommendation made by the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD), the United Nations International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC).’
‘The government cries crocodile tears over the treatment of white farmers in Zimbabwe, while in Australia they’re granting bucketloads of extinguishments of Native Title interests in favour of European farmers, assuring security and certainty for them. What about land security and certainty for Aborigines?’
Anderson, recently elected facilitator of the Gumilaroi/Euahlayi nations living in south Queensland and northwest NSW, says in his statement:
‘I hope that the people of Australia and other countries who are aware of the real Australia will inundate foreign embassies within Australia and the various UN Human Rights Committees with submissions about the shameful human rights record.’
‘As long as Australia continues to deny its racist treatment of my people they will always be haunted by an unjust past, and our continued presence will hurt because they will be reminded of it every time they look into our faces.’
Anderson, himself a claimant to land in northwest NSW and southern Queensland, was one of the handful of activists who set up the Aboriginal Tent Embassy in Canberra in 1972.
Apart from his political and consultant activities he and his German wife now manage a sheep farm near Hebel in southern Queensland that has started giving employment to young Aborigines and modestly putting money into projects in nearby communities.
Anderson, a trained jurist, has just returned from a visit to Europe which included talks with lawyers in London about the possibility of suing the British Crown for allowing Australian governments to make laws harming the Aborigines.
Anderson can be phoned 0061-74 62 50 808.
His email address is  ghillar@hotmail.com.
Postal address: Ngurampaa, Hebel, Qld. 4486, Australia
A picture of him can be downloaded at  http://germany.indymedia.org/openposting/index1544.shtml
Written by Diet Simon
PS Some of you may have heard Michael at the didgeridoo jamboree in the Brückenforum Bonn a couple of years back.
 E-Mail: ghillar@hotmail.com  Website: http://germany.indymedia.org/openposting/index1544.shtml
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