Activists lobby black Olympics boycott
01.12.1998
By: KOCH A Source: QNP
ABORIGINAL activist Murrandoo Yanner will travel to Africa next year where he will encourage black nations to boycott the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games.
Mr Yanner yesterday said he had been invited to South Africa by Samora and Humelo Biko, sons of famous anti-apartheid fighter Steve Biko, who was murdered by South African security forces.
Mr Yanner, who is chairman of the Carpentaria Land Council, Burketown, revealed his intentions at yesterday's opening of the World Indigenous Pathways conference in Toowoomba.
He said indigenous people also would be arranging a rally to Sydney before, during or immediately after the Olympic Games.
They hoped the rally would attract one million people, including international athletes and disadvantaged people.
``It will be a peaceful rally, but it will be a protest to highlight the plight of Australia's poor, and my indigenous brothers and sisters,'' Mr Yanner said.
``It is not only Aboriginal people. I almost cry when I come to the city and see white people sleeping in parks, children selling themselves.
``That wouldn't happen on our communities even despite all the violence _ nobody would have to sleep on the roads.
``On our communities, babies are dying and there are suicides, including my eight-year-old cousin recently, and incarceration rates of our people are the highest in the world.''
Prominent Aboriginal leader Charles Perkins told the international delegates that Australian people could never achieve reconciliation until Prime Minister John Howard gave an unequivocal apology to indigenous people.
``There can be no going forward and certainly no reconciliation until the nation recognises the rights of the first owners,'' Mr Perkins said.
``While the Constitution remains as it is, racism is institutionalised as a powerful force in the hearts and minds of people and in the fabric of the lives of indigenous people.
``Without this apology, there can be no reconciliation. Our children can never really be friends and the conscience of the nation will never rest in peace.''
Mr Perkins also was critical of the recent Government rejection of a suggestion that a memorial be erected to acknowledge the thousands of Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people who died in Australia's ``black wars''.
``As usual, our Prime Minister and the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs (Senator John Herron), in particular, exposed their lack of understanding of Australian history and lack of compassion for the present,'' he said.
Mr Perkins, speaking outside the conference, alluded to other problems with the 2000 Sydney Olympics.
He revealed that the Indigenous Advisory Board to SOCOG, of which he was a member, was meeting in Sydney tomorrow to discuss whether to continue in their role.
``The Olympic authorities _ SOCOG _ are not listening to us. We are just the token Aborigines,'' he said. ``We meet every two months and for all we are achieving, we might as well write letters to the Pope.''
He said a major disappointment was the continued refusal to appoint former ATSIC chairwoman Lois O'Donohue to the board of SOCOG.
