Corroboree @ Aboriginal Tent Embassy in Sydney from Wed-Sun, July 14-19 : Melbourne Indymedia

The current coroner's inquiry that started on July 5 is planned to conclude by this Friday, July 16, and notorious right-wing newspaper Daily Terrorgraph has gone on the attack against the tent embassy with a full page article describing it as an eyesore and a waste of ratepayers' money. The paper claims that there has been an agreement for the embassy to wind up by the end of this week, and pressured progressive independent City of Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore to insist on this alleged agreement in word and deed. Clover Moore had been supportive of the embassy in words and deeds starting with its welcome on "her council's land".

Aunty Isabell Coe denied any agreement by pointing out the irony of a permission to stay in Victoria Park - which has been the site of previous Aboriginal tent embassies like in 2000 and 2002 - given "its long association with our people". No one would have ever given them a permission to invade Aboriginal land. She explains that the tent embassy in Canberra has remained for 33 years now "to remind the Government and the Australian people about our sovereign rights." On this year's "Invasion Day" (January 26) "elders gave notice to the Federal Government and people that we were forming our own Aboriginal Sovereign Government. We have come into Victoria Park as the first point of contact in Sydney." This autonomous organising is a significant development since after the recent abolishment of ATSIC (the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commissions), by the Howard government, Aboriginal people are sick of working in bodies that are in the end dominated by white men, or bureaucrats. A quite similar debate is currently happening in Aotearoa (New Zealand), where some leaders of the new Maori Party (that has been launched last weekend, when Green Left Weekly went to print) advocate a separate Maori parliament after the Labor government introduced a Seabed & Foreshore "confiscation" legislation, that lead to the resignation of a Maori MP. She landed an overwhelming victory last weekend with 92% of the votes, an unexpectedly high voter turn-out, 1500 members and supporters at the official launch, and 800 attendees at the following first national hui (all-in meeting), about the same number as have volunteered in her impressive by-election campaign. The Maori Party has decided to work within the system, and win all 7 special Maori electorates, plus more via (proportional) party vote in the general seats.

The Daily Terrorgraph invented a debate in its paper between Coe and Liberal NSW Opposition Leader John "Bulldozer" Brogden, who is worried about the establishment of "a shantytown just [2] kilometers from Town Hall" as a "permanent political statement", which is no wonder, given his and the NSW Prime Minister Bob Carr's appalling record of outdoing each other in advocating the demolition of the Redfern Block in the aftermath of the fight-back of mainly Aboriginal youths against the permanent attacks by Redfern police. Coe counters that "this is a shantytown because that's the way our people are living." By July 10, this "shantytown" has grown to 32 tents.

And Clover Moore once again took this latest challenge head on: the day following this collaborative right-wing media/opposition offensive she staunchly decided to keep supporting the tent embassy "at least until September".

Meanwhile, Redfern police got entangled in their blatantly obvious contradictions last week before the coroner's inquiry into the death of the Gamilaroi youth, TJ, on February 14. Compelling evidence and matching eye-witness reports pressured them to change their previous stories, i.e. lies, and admit that they "followed" the fleeing TJ. A diagram, published in the Sydney Morning Herald on July 8 (see also http://active.org.au/sydney/news/front.php3?article_id=3064&group=webcast ), strongly suggests that indeed two patrol cars, "Redfern 16 and 17", with together four officers chased him, which is what the Aboriginal community stated repeatedly from day one after TJ's tragic death - that is before the following "riot" that made world wide headlines in February. The driver of "Redfern 16", which chased TJ down a footpath until a gate blocked the car off (but not the bike), bailed out of giving evidence to the inquiry on July 7, instead hiring his own lawyer to give him advice about reconsidering his previous position. This raised serious suspicion about fabricating police "evidence" and flawed information policies by the police leadership.

Coinciding with the end of the coroner's inquiry this week, the Sydney Aboriginal Tent Embassy has organised a "Corroboree for Sovereignty 2004" that starts on July 14 with a dawn ceremony at the sacred fire, and continues over the following days with a film night, bands, dancers, storytelling, traditional feasts, workshops, info stalls and a final fun[d]raiser on July 19 (details on http://active.org.au/sydney/calendar/?display=zoom&event=2023 ).

[ Check also http://sydney.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=43244 ]

The tent embassy invites you to BYO camping gear and join them. It asks for donations of firewood, food & water, tents & bedding, a generator, and needs helpers and more sympathetic media/promotion. It can be emailed to VicEmbassy@planet-save.com .