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DARWIN (TodayOnline/AFP) June 25 – Police and soldiers began deploying to outback Australia as part of a radical plan to end child sex abuse in Aboriginal communities which has been criticised as a return to the nation’s paternalistic past.
Prime Minister John Howard last week announced he would use police backed by military logistics to seize control of indigenous camps in the Northern Territory to protect women and children.
The controversial decision, which includes bans on alcohol and pornography and medical check-ups for all children under the age of 16, was taken following a damning government report into child abuse in indigenous communities.
Howard dismissed accusations of high-handedness over the plan, which was devised without consultation with Northern Territory leaders. “I have no doubt that the women and children of indigenous communities will warmly welcome the federal government’s actions.”
Aboriginal children play at one of the town camp's in Alice Springs.
“Right now I’m trying to stabilise in the order of 70-odd towns in the territory — that is a massive undertaking,” Brough said.
Federal police also began arriving in the Northern Territory capital, Darwin, along with those from several states, each of which has been asked to contribute 10 officers.
Uluru, also known as Ayers Rock.
“The fact that we hold this community together with no money, no help, no doctor and no government support is a miracle,” community leaders Bob and Dorothea Randall said in a statement released by their lawyer.
“Police and the military are fine for logistics and coordination but healthcare, youth services, education and basic housing are more essential.”
They also questioned whether children should undergo medical checks.
Mutitjulu resident Mario Giuseppe said women were scared that the police were coming to take their children away, just as the so-called “stolen generation” of Aborigines were snatched from their parents under ethnic assimilation policies between the 1930s and the 1970s.
“They think the army is coming to grab their kids and the police are coming to help them,” he told ABC radio.
“This is bringing back a lot of memories and opening a lot of scars for these old people here, they are running to the hills and hiding.”
TASMANIA (The Independent) 19 October 2006 – Mr Thomas is a member of the “Stolen Generation” – one of thousands of Aboriginal children forcibly removed from their families and assimilated into white society, under an official policy introduced early last century and not abandoned until 1975.
Australia’s treatment of its indigenous people remains a running sore, and the plight of the Stolen Generation is a principal reason. Nine years ago, a national inquiry concluded that the policy amounted to genocide.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."
