Underreported Indigenous Struggles for May 2007 : Melbourne Indymedia

Underreported Indigenous Struggles for May 2007

The month itself seems to have been one of full circles, as alot of old, unresolved matters came bursting to the surface -- while a few others tried to dig themselves a little deeper...
underreported indigenous struggles for May

May 27 - Taino Nation: Amerindian groups call on Barama to cease Akawini logging -A release from the two groups said yesterday that Barama began logging in Akawini in February 2006 "ostensibly" on a subcontract it signed with the IWPI. According to Akawini Toshao, David Wilson, the Akawini Village Council has never seen this subcontract "and we were never consulted before IWP entered into this subcontract with Barama."

Central Americans protest Canadian mining cartel - Busloads of people surrounded the Salvador del Mundo monument in front of the Canadian Embassy in San Salvador today to protest the Canadian Government's role Central American mining, and specifically in the 29 mining projects currently active in El Salvador. The event was the culmination of the Central American Alliance against Metallic Mining conference held last weekend in Cabañas, El Salvador, where the Canadian "Pacific Rim" company is currently operating.

Poisoned by Pesticide, Bananeras rise up! - Many had spent their lives toiling on banana plantations that U.S. companies operated in this region some 30 years ago. By day, the workers had harvested bunches of fruit to ship to North American tables. At night, some had sprayed pesticide into the warm, humid air to protect the trees from insects and rot. As the decades passed, the workers came to believe that the pesticide, called DBCP, had cost them their health.

May 24 - Desert Rock power plant: BIA issues death certificate for Navajos - The BIA's cozy relationship with Navajo politicians and the corporation Sithe Global was obvious in the BIA's recommendation to build the Desert Rock power plant, the third power plant in the Four Corners area. Navajos said the draft environmental impact statement is no more than another alien document, another BIA-issued death certificate for the Navajo people.

"They already made their decision to approve the project and this DEIS is just going to justify their decision," said the Navajo from Sanostee. "But not if I can help it, our elders and our youth are ready to stand with us against the Sithe Lords and their puppet DPA (Dine' Power Authority)."

May 23 - Indigenous Resistance Movement Defends Traditional Beliefs - Twenty indigenous people have been occupying the abandoned building of the Museu do Indio in Rio de Janeiro since October, to call attention to "500 years of resistance to genocide," a view of their history that has acquired new relevance in the light of the Vatican's latest position on Christian evangelisation during the colonial era.

Borei Keila Community Relocation - In 2003 it was touted as a great leap forward into developing a social housing program, an alternative to the widespread forced land evictions in Cambodia. Four years later, in May 2007, men, women and children are living under tarpaulins amid the rubble of their demolished houses. This is the plight of families living at Borei Keila in the heart of Cambodia's capital.

Chago win right to return home, for the third time - In 1966, the British Government leased Diego Garcia and the Chagossian Islands to the US Government, for a strategic military base. But the US government wanted a land free of people, and so in that same year until 1973, the British government secretly and systematically removed the entire population... recently, the court once more reaffirmed the Chago's right of return.

May 15 - 7 Peasants Arrested for Defending their Land - Santiago del Estero's Peasant Movement (MOCASE) issued a communique informing that seven peasants were arrested in El Quebrachito town in Santiago del Estero province, Argentina on Friday. According to MOCASE, the peasants were arrested for protecting their territory from the interests of local large estate owners.

Tibetan women take to the streets against Beijing slavery - Thousands of Tibetan women met yesterday in Dharamsala, shouting that they would never accept Beijing's slavery. They gathered in the Indian city to observe the 48th anniversary of the day when thousands of other Tibetan women rose up against Chinese rule only to be forced into exile by the invading People's Liberation Army.

Biofuels displace indigenous people - Indigenous people are being pushed off their lands to make way for an expansion of biofuel crops around the world, threatening to destroy their cultures by forcing them into big cities, the head of a U.N. panel said Monday.

West Papua: Police Surrounds Indigenous Church - On May 15, Indonesian Police occupied the Kingmi Church in the capital of Papua province, Jayapura... Six police trucks and a water canon were stationed outside the church offices. Paramilitary police armed with rifles occupied the roof of the building, and more than 50 policemen were positioned outside. Following the police action, 200 members of the Kingmi Church protested outside the headquarters, blocking one lane of traffic.

Burma: In the Name of Development - It is the latest bloody chapter in the world's longest-running civil war that has lasted nearly 60 years and sent millions fleeing into Thailand. The conflict also displaced 500,000 people in Burma. But the newest offensive, out of sight in the jungle, is driven by the Burmese junta's aim to control resource-rich eastern Burma by enslaving some villages and destroying others - killing, forcibly relocating or driving out the inhabitants.

May 12 - A Plea from the Marshall Islands - During our struggle to get the US Navy to stop bombing our island municipality of Vieques, people from all over the world gave us their solidarity. A Land is Life Conference took place in Vieques. People from Hawaii, the Marshall Islands, Guam and the Philippines came to share their experiences and show solidarity for our struggle. The US no longer bombs Vieques. But it has left its toxic wastes there to continue contaminating the land. Its clean up operations are not careful of the islands eco system nor do they use the best technology avalable to minimize the contamination.

May 4 - We Will not Let Any Development Plan Endanger our Culture - Argentina - "Pioneer operated for almost six years within the community. During all these years there were conflicts because the company refused to recognize the community invoking its right to operate under the contract granted. The US company sold all its assets in Argentina to another US transnational company, Apache Corporation. So it also sold the liabilities and lawsuits of the previous company. What is more, there are over 10 oil wells in our community that are not operating . Apache cannot exploit these oil wells although the provincial government granted it a license to do so. The community refused, and we will not allow another incursion in our territory, so the oil wells are stopped. So now they want to know how this situation will be solved."

Peru: Amazon indigenous warn Oxy over toxins - Members of the indigenous Achuar communities in the Amazon basin in the Peru-Ecuador border region have notified US Oil Company Occidental Petroleum (Oxy) that they will bring a lawsuit against the company in the US if it will not clean up toxic waste from drilling.

May 2 - Shell Disobeys Court Order; Continues Gas Flaring in Nigeria - "While Shell and its shareholders count their profits, all we can count are the early graves that their toxic gas flares keep sending our people. It is morally wrong for Shell to continue with gas flaring despite a ruling that has ordered them to cease it. Shell continues not only to waste Nigeria's natural resources in this way, but is criminally wasting the lives of poor people in our communities who cannot avoid the impacts of gas flaring."

Lawsuit against TotalFina for Crimes against Humanity Reopened in Belgium - According to the plaintiffs, the oil corporation is responsible for providing logistical and financial support to the Burmese military junta that seized power in the country, several decades ago. Burmese opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Ky supports the lawsuit and said TotalFina is 'the cornerstone of the military regime'. The complicity between corporations and the Burmese dictatorship has been pointed out in several opportunities. The regime has pleased the company by allowing forced labor, among other abuses.

International day of action against Barrick Gold - Yesterday over a dozen events were organized around the world in protest against the World's largest Gold Mining company - Toronto-based Barrick Gold. (also see Barrick CEO admits liability)

May 1 - Tradtional Land owners overturn mine expansion bid - Indigenous people of the Gurdanji, Mara, Garrawa and Yanyuwa language groups in the Northern Territory have just had a victory in stopping the expansion of the Macarthur River Mine, a proposal that would have diverted a river that is of great importance to their dreaming: their identity.

History Wars Part 457:

Chapter 7

Aboriginal land management

In this chapter we will further explore how Aboriginal people managed their lands. We will see that in addition to the ‘technical’ demands of land management (what to do, where, when, how), Aboriginal people had a socio-political system of land management of great complexity, but one which widely distributed the rights to use the resources of the land among Aboriginal people. It was these cultural differences in perceptions of land ownership and rights of use that Europeans found incomprehensible, and thus another convenient excuse to dispossess Aboriginal people of their lands.
Objectives

When you have successfully completed this chapter you should be able to:

*

discuss some of the effects which white settlement had on Aboriginal people in Australia
*

identify some specific land management practices employed by Aboriginal people
*

discuss the reciprocal ‘owning-and-sharing’ nature of Aboriginal resource management
*

explain the massive depopulation of Aboriginal Australians since 1788.

Paths into the present

Let’s start with further reading from your textbook.

Textbook Berndt & Berndt 1996
Ch. XIV "Paths into the present" p. 490-514.
Significant terms and concepts

* cultural relativity

* popular stereotypes

* impact of the outside world

* depopulation of Aboriginal people

* social conservatism of Aboriginal people

* ‘homeland’ movement

* ‘repetitive’ societies

* attractions of European settlements

* ‘Macassan’ impacts

* the role of stations

* Aboriginal vs European attitudes to land

* roles of Aboriginal women

* missionary impacts

* Pindan cooperative

* European vs Aboriginal social norms

* urban Aborigines

* effects of dependency

Activity 7-1

Make careful and appropriate notes as you work through this chapter of your textbook, paying particular attention to the significant terms and concepts listed above.

Although the Berndt’s don’t use the term ‘cultural relativity’, what they are getting at in the beginning of this chapter is called ‘cultural relativism’ by anthropologists. It basically means that you can’t say that one culture is ‘better’ than another in the broadest sense, because each culture differs in often fundamental ways. Therefore judgments about the superiority or inferiority of one culture vis-a-vis another are meaningless as each has different values, goals and norms: you can’t judge the quality of a rugby player by the standards used for playing cricket—they’re into different ‘games’.

And so it is with Aboriginal societies: to appreciate their qualities we have to look at them through the values of Aboriginal people. For tens of thousands of years—if not longer—Aboriginal societies met the needs of their people for daily sustenance, for personal growth and development, and for the satisfaction of the human spirit.

They did so in ways that were ecologically sustainable and socially just. They largely avoided the warfare, slavery, religious persecution, empire-building, destruction of nature and oppression of the human spirit which characterised/characterises so many other cultures, particularly the ones which established empires, colonies, and the neo-European states (e.g., Canada, USA, Australia, most Latin American nations) that have dominated our view of ‘world history’ as well as the present global polity. Indeed, the successful maintenance of such ecologically-responsible and socially-just societies for such an extended period ought to be seen as a triumph of the Aboriginal peoples which is possibly unique in human experience: certainly no peoples on any other continent were able (as a whole set of societies) to duplicate that achievement.
Examples of management practises

Selective burning has already been described: it was a far more sophisticated and labour-intensive task than the widespread yearly burns currently practised by many graziers and state forest authorities. Burning probably increased the land under sclerophyll (Eucalyptus) forest in eastern Australia, reducing the extent of the less-food-rich (from Aboriginal perspectives) rainforests.

Waterhole protection was common in arid zones. Deep holes in rocks were covered with stones to preserve the water in the holes. Young trees getting established in a waterhole were pulled out (if the hole was small in an arid region): the people knew that both humans and a range of animals needed the water more than the tree.

Eel-farming occurred in Western Victoria. A large number of stone races, canals, traps and walls were built forming an ingenious, labour-efficient aqua-culture that supported whole villages of stone houses. Similar ‘intensification’ of food resources occurred in coastal areas where fish trap structures were built (Flood, 1989, p. 214-222).

One of the great questions is why Aboriginal people did not take up more intensive agriculture, as was practised by their neighbours to the north (and by Macassans on mainland Arnhem Land at times). It is possible that Aboriginal people appreciated that Australian soils, especially in the far north, are generally highly infertile, while the seasonal rain and droughts would not support the kind of slash-and-burn mixed gardening that is characteristic of farming in Papua New Guinea. It is also possible that they felt it was simply too much unnecessary work, as the Brendts’ observed (p. 108) on an Arnhem Land mission. But another explanation may also be true: Aboriginal people may have felt that farming altered the sacred nature of the landscapes created in the Dreaming, and shunned such behaviour accordingly.

There is an interesting parallel in North America: running north to south across what is now the United States was a remarkable cultural divide between Indian groups. To the east of it farming was commonplace wherever soils and climate permitted. To the west of that line, none of the many diverse groups of California, the north-west Pacific states or the Great Basin were farmers, although they had contact with farming cultures and plenty of arable land. Instead, those peoples remained hunter-gatherers and resisted attempts to make them into farmers.

In 1876 some of the Nez Perce Indians fought a valiant, but doomed war to avoid being forced into farming on reservations: they argued, "the earth is our Mother and we will not cut into her breast". Given that Aboriginal people also saw the earth as their mother, perhaps similar ethical rather than practical constraints on farming caused them to shun farming for other ways of making a living.

Another important element in land management was the role of sacred sites and totemic food taboos. By placing certain areas ‘off-limits’ except for certain persons at limited times (and generally for rituals rather than hunting), in effect numerous wildlife sanctuaries were established across the landscape. Similarly, taboos against eating animals considered to be totemic ancestors reduced the pressure on certain species by reducing the number of people who could eat those plants or animals.
To own is to share

Turn now to a selected reading which illustrates how resource (land) ownership was typically associated with sharing of resources rather than exclusive rights of use.

Reading 7-1 Myers 1986
"Always ask: Resource use and landownership among Pintupi Aborigines of the Australian western desert" pp. 173-195.
Significant terms and concepts

* Radcliffe-Brown’s view

* ritual groups

* Lee/DeVore view

* flexibility of territorial boundaries

* Pintupi society

* fluidity of groups

* coresident groups/camps

* defined resource areas/sociocentric ‘ranges’

* shifting residence patterns

* expectation of reciprocal privilege

* life-cycle pattern

* ownership = ‘the right to be asked’

* ‘travelling men’

* asking etiquette

* ‘one countryman’

* nature of ownership

* local groups

Activity 7-2

Make careful and appropriate notes as you work through Reading 7-1, paying particular attention to the significant terms and concepts listed above.

While the key element in Myers’ argument has to do with the flexible nature of ownership and rights in land use, the major theme is that most resources are to be shared, providing that the proper etiquette of asking is followed. This ‘asking’ in turn provides owners with information on resource use, thereby improving management decisions.

Another important feature of this perspective on land ownership is that it demonstrates the flexible, dynamic and overlapping nature of land claims. The kinds of maps produced by Tindale and others as shown in Figures 7-1 and 7-2 are therefore somewhat misleading.

Figure 7-1

Tindale, 1974, p. 148

Figure 7-2

Kirk, 1981, front endpiece.

The ‘sharp’ boundaries—even on Tindale’s relatively large-scale map—are misleading. More accurate are the sort of conditions shown in Figures 7-3 to 7-5 below.

Figure 7-3

Davis and Prescott, 1992, p. 56

Figure 7-3 illustrates sharing of a marine resource zone.

Figure 7-4

Davis and Prescott, 1992, pp. 80-87

Figure 7-4 illustrates the dynamics of frontier movements.

Figure 7-5

Bryce, 1992, p. vi

Although Figure 7-5 illustrates dialect regions, keep in mind that a language group normally is the same as a culture/political group. Therefore the large areas of overlapping ranges for the eleven dialect groups shown is remarkable and illustrates the complex political relationships associated with land ownership, claims, and usage.
Depopulation after 1788

One factor which contributed to the dispossession of Aboriginal people from their lands was the apparent ‘emptiness’ of much of Australia which early white explorers repeatedly commented upon. Professor Radcliffe-Brown’s 1930 estimate of only about 250,000 Aboriginal people living in Australia in 1788, an average density of only 1 person per 31 square kilometres (Kirk, 1981, p. 39) is indicative of white claims of the general ‘emptiness’ of the land.

More recent assessments, however, bring those assumptions under critical scrutiny. Studies of the effects of European contacts with relatively isolated peoples elsewhere on the globe (see especially Crosby, 1986) have shown that introduced diseases and exotic plants and animals spread quickly through vulnerable populations and ecosystems, causing massive depopulation of aboriginal peoples even prior to local contact with the white invaders. The pattern is well established for North and South America, the Canary Islands, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands.

Butlin’s (1993) study of Australian conditions reveals similar events. Most noteworthy was the spread of smallpox and venereal diseases which had deadly effect directly, and via increased infertility indirectly, on Aboriginal Australians. New estimates therefore place the likely Aboriginal population at about 1 250 000 in 1788—five times greater than earlier estimates (Butlin, 1993, p. 139). (This is similar to revised estimates reported in Crosby, 1986 for other ‘New World’ locations.)

Now, if we deduct the nearly 86% of contemporary Australians who live in cities and towns from our 1990 total population of about 17 million, it means that about 2.4 million Australians presently live in rural areas. Ignoring the fact that many of these are Aboriginal people, it means that in 1990 the rural population of ‘modern’, ‘advanced’ Australia is less than twice the 1788 population of Aboriginal hunter–gatherer Australians! The average population density in rural Australia today is just 1 person per 3.2 sq.km—compared with 1 person per 6.2 sq.km in 1788. It was only the rapid depopulation of Aboriginal people (to about 67 000 persons in 1933, its nadir) that could allow whites to pretend the country was unpopulated and open for settlement.

It was the loss in the 145 years from 1788 to 1933 of 95% of the Aboriginal land managers (i.e., the 95% drop in Aboriginal populations) that meant the end of Aboriginal land management over much of Australia’s landscapes.
Summary

In this chapter we have overviewed some of the changes in Aboriginal society since 1788. A variety of land management practices were noted. Special emphasis was given to the ‘owning-but-sharing’ nature of land management, while the effective depopulation of the Aboriginal people has been seen as the primary factor behind their loss of land management over most of the continent.
Self-test questions

1. From the perspective of cultural relativism which statement would be acceptable?
(a) Aboriginal people had a primitive technology
(b) Aboriginal society had a superior understanding of the spirit world
(c) white Australians are better educated than Aboriginal Australians
(d) white Australians have better methods of resource use than do Aboriginal Australians
(e) none of the above.
Answer ( )

2. Which statement is false about Aboriginal people?
(a) they emphasised the unchanging quality of life
(b) they fought each other in frequent and unrestricted warfare
(c) they stressed the importance of tradition
(d) they were ‘repetitive’ societies
(e) they were socially conservative.
Answer ( )

3. Which of these was not exported to Macassan traders?
(a) cloth
(b) pearlshell
(c) timber
(d) tortoiseshell
(e) trepang.
Answer ( )

4. Which group of Australian Aboriginal people were better conditioned to alien impact than the other?
(a) Arnhem Landers
(b) central Australians
(c) Murray River people
(d) Western Desert people
(e) Tasmanians.
Answer ( )

5. Popular stereotypes of Aboriginal people included which of these?
(a) dirty
(b) irresponsible
(c) lazy
(d) shiftless
(e) all of the above.
Answer ( )

6. Which animals were produced by Aboriginal people in especially constructed facilities?
(a) eels
(b) emus
(c) kangaroos
(d) possums
(e) none of the above.
Answer ( )

7. Which of these factors mitigated against the development of agriculture by Aboriginal people?
(a) droughts
(b) infertile soils
(c) religious beliefs
(d) variable rainfall
(e) all of the above.
Answer ( )

8. Among the Pintupi, who were the ‘travelling men’?
(a) affines
(b) coresident groups
(c) elder landowners
(d) one countrymen
(e) young men.
Answer ( )

9. In Pintupi country defined resource–areas are mainly based on:
(a) ancestral homelands
(b) good hunting areas
(c) prominent landmarks
(d) sacred sites
(e) waterholes.
Answer ( )

10. New estimates put the 1788 population of Aboriginal Australians at about:
(a) 250 000
(b) 700 000
(c) 1 250 000
(d) 2 000 000
(e) 5 000 000.
Answer ( )
Preview to Chapter 8

In the final chapter in this module we will review some current patterns and trends in Aboriginal land use in Australia.
Bibliography and suggestions for further reading

CQU Library cat. no.
Bryce, S. 1992, Women’s gathering and hunting in the Pitjantjatjara homelands, Institute for Aboriginal Development, Alice Springs, NT.
330.99401 1 Butlin, N. 1993, Economics and the Dreamtime, Cambridge U.P.
304.2 109 Crosby, A. 1986, Ecological imperialism: The biological expansion of Europe, 900-1900, Cambridge U.P.
333.2 2 Davis, S. & Prescott, J. 1992, Aboriginal frontiers and boundaries in Australia, Melbourne U.P.
994.01 2 Flood, J. 1989, Archaeology of the Dreamtime, Collins Publishers, Sydney.
994.0049915 7 Kirk, R.L. 1981, Aboriginal man adapting, Clarendon Press/Oxford U.P., New York.
R306.0899915 24 Tindale, N. 1974, Aboriginal tribes of Australia, ANU Press.
Additional references

The bibliography and suggestions for further reading in Chapters 5 and 6 are generally useful to Chapter 7’s topics as well.
Answers to self-test questions
1. (e)
2. (b)
3. (a)
4. (a)
5. (e)
6. (a)
7. (e)
8. (e)
9. (e)
10. (c).

Just like Apartheid South Africa modeled its State managed "bantustans" ie pass system for the indigenous was based on Australia's Aboriginal "reserves" so Australia shows the racist way again thanks to Howard.

Lest we forget Howard as a Young Liberal opposed the May 27th 1967 Referendum to count Aboriginals as peopel and not as "flora & fauna' as previously dictated by law and the Constitution....

While overseas I suggest claiming you are a New Zealander kids to avoid being blamed for this racist crap, the war in Iraq, not signing the Kyoto Protocol, David Hicks, extraditing Oz citizens to USA prisons for "copyright infringement and all the other crime sof the Australian Government.
"Don't blame me I didn't vote for the bastard" might not wash with everyone you meet !

Sunday, June 10, 2007. 10:30am (AEST)
Howard to blame for Canada's Indigenous rights backflip: report

By Richard Reynolds

Canada's most influential newspaper is reporting that Australian Prime Minister John Howard may have convinced Canada to end its long-time support for the United Nations (UN) Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

For 23 years Canada was a staunch supporter of the declaration.

But in May of last year, Mr Howard visited Ottawa and the Toronto Globe and Mail says things began to happen within days.

The newspaper is quoting unnamed political sources as saying Mr Howard convinced Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper during his visit that the declaration would be "problematic."

Mr Harper issued an edict that Canada no longer supports the declaration, choosing to ignore advice to the contrary coming from three government departments.

But the paper also reports that a spokeswoman for Mr Harper says there is "no truth" to the accusation Mr Howard influenced Canada's position on the declaration.

Australia and Canada, alongside the US and Russia have been lobbying intently to have the UN General Assembly scuttle the declaration, which has already been approved by the UN's Human Rights Council.