Startup of REFUGEE CAMP on Matargarup (Heirisson Island) in the Swan River next to the city of Perth as a result of the developing humanitarian crisis as homelands are closed down …. one strike and you’re out of your home if you haven’t paid the electricity bill. Homeless are taking refuge in churchyards…
OPEN LETTER from Ghillar Michael Anderson to:
H.E. Mr. Ban Ki-moon, UN S-G
Re: Refugee Camp in Perth and developing Humanitarian Crisis
As the appointed Ambassador of the original Aboriginal Embassy, the Convenor of the Sovereign Union and Head of State, Euahlayi Peoples Republic, I herewith bring to your attention the humanitarian crisis that has now developed in the state of Western Australia. This crisis is a consequence of the Western Australian government’s policy of shutting down up to 150 Aboriginal homelands and communities, which they have wrongly stated to be financially ‘unsustainable’ and economically unviable. We regard these actions as an an act of war and aggression against the various tribal Nations in Western Australia.
Already we have seen the Lockridge Aboriginal community in Perth bulldozed with impunity after the Commonwealth government of Australia had just completed building new dwellings. The people are homeless and have now crowded into other family homes creating massive overcrowding, which leads to family confrontation and lateral violence that affects not only children but adults alike.
In the northern part of Western Australia the Aboriginal community of Oombulgurri was progressively closed down:
First, the government closed the services. It closed the shop, so people could not buy food and essentials. It closed the clinic, so the sick and the elderly had to move, and the school, so families with children had to leave, or face having their children taken away from them. The police station was the last service to close, then eventually the electricity and water were turned off.
Finally, the 10 residents who resolutely stayed to the end were forcibly evicted, given just two days notice of eviction and allowed to bring only one box of belongings each. They had to leave behind cars, whitegoods, tools and personal possessions.
[http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/nov/27/the-trauma-of-oombulgurris-demolition-will-be-repeated-across-western-australia]
Most recently we have been contacted by Aboriginal representatives in the Kimberley of armed police raiding Aboriginal communities where they have shot on site the pet dogs in front of the horrified community. Furthermore, we have other incidences where armed police smashed into an old woman’s home, whilst she was showering and without reason opened the door and pulled back the shower curtain and exposed her nakedness. Only yesterday we have been advised that armed police stormed the home without any just cause, of two elderly women who were asleep in their beds.
In a recent media statement [3 March 2015] WA Minister for Indigenous Affairs, Peter Collier, commented that the establishment of the refugee camp by the Djurin Republic (Nyoongar Nation) on Matargarup also known as Heirisson Island in the middle of the Swan River adjacent to the city of Perth itself, was a preemptive act without cause, while at the same time stating that nothing will happen to these communities within the next two years. I do not think that the Minister gave any thought to what he was saying when he made this comment, for it certainly gives no comfort to those who have now been targeted. The news reports of this evening Perth time, carry stories that the Premier of Western Australia, Colin Barnett, said that he will soon make arrangements to send in the police riot squad to remove and shut down this refugee camp.
These actions by the Western Australian government are direct violations of all known humanitarian laws and are counter to the international ambition of world peace and harmonious relations.
The majority of the people of these homelands have never been displaced and have at all material time maintained their cultural norms and beliefs to their Country and natural Law for millennia.
For the Western Australian government to now dispossess and displace the Peoples of these homelands is designed to facilitate an expeditious expansion of mining interests and other developments.
We are now witnessing a full cycle of the historical wheel, that is to say when the Australian colonies and their British masters relied on the textile industries for their wealth, the colonial states of Australia, including Western Australia, cleared the land of Aboriginal Peoples in order to prevent Aboriginal resistance and opposition to the usurpation of their Country, without any form of redress or compensation.
These recent most despicable acts of the Western Australian government are a repeat of clearing the land so as to ensure no opposition to mining and other commercial ….goto: www.sovereignunion.mobi
