SYDNEY, Australia – On the day that most of Australia celebrated the nation’s founding, word came down that a police sergeant on Palm Island in the north of this sprawling nation was being charged with manslaughter and assault in connection with the beating death of an aboriginal man in his custody two years ago.
The decision by the Queensland attorney general reversed a court ruling that the white officer was not to blame. The indictment elated many indigenous people, but it angered police, who threatened to strike.
The case of 36-year-old Mulrunji Doomadgee, who had his liver crushed and four ribs broken during the attack, inflamed indigenous people, who recite a litany of abuse and discrimination since Jan. 26, 1788, the day that Britain declared Australia a colony – a day some aborigines term Invasion Day or Survival Day.
Aboriginal advocates note that 147 aborigines have died in police custody since 1990, and previous claims of violence on aborigines had been lodged against the Palm Island cop.
The plight of aborigines has been compared to that of the indigenous peoples who lived in the Americas prior to European arrival.
Aborigines endure frequent run-ins with the police, high unemployment, poverty and alcoholism rates and lower levels of education. Infant mortality is three times the white rate, and life expectancy averages 10 years less than for American Indians.
Suicide among aborigines, especially young people, is higher than the Australian national average. Indeed, Doomadgee’s 17-year-old son took his life last July, and an aboriginal cellmate who watched Doomadgee die hung himself a month ago.
But in November 2006, the state government in Tasmania approved a Stolen Generations of Aboriginal Children Bill that sets aside about $3 million for 124 aboriginal children who were forcibly removed from their parents between 1935 and 1975 as part of the nation’s assimilationist policy. The children were abducted to be trained as domestic workers and farmhands.
“It is not the money that is important, but compensation offers greater recognition of the tragedy the assimilation policy caused to individuals removed and kept away from their race,” said Michael Mansell, an aborigine leader in Tasmania, according to the Nov. 23, 2006, Australian Associated Press.
While other Australian state governments have issued apologies for the country’s racist policies, activists hailed Tasmania’s move for backing up words with action.
Nationally, an estimated 10,000 aborigines were taken from their families during those years.
Australia, which has a population of about 17 million, has about 500,000 aborigines. Although New South Wales, which is home to Sydney in the nation’s southeast, has the most aborigines, indigenous people are more heavily concentrated in the Northern Territory, where the largest cities are Darwin and Alice Springs and where aborigines account for nearly 30 percent of the population.
Under two landmark national laws in 1976 and 1993, aborigines have a limited claim on their ancestral lands.
Aborigines have successfully used land rights to enact leases and contracts with bauxite mining and other corporations.
The Third Person 