AUSTRALIA: SMS Messages--On Stolen Generation, Jauary 31, 2008

NORTHERN TERRITORY NEWS
January 31, 2008

SMS Messages:
ON STOLEN GENERATION

If Kevin says sorry, maybe he should also ask for a thank you. If the imperial forces had successfully invaded, there would be as many stolen generation in Australia as there is minkie whales in Tokyo harbour. Al, palmy

40 years ago my mum fell pregnant at the age of 16, was put in a home 4 unmarried mothers until baby born. Given a needle as soon as birth finished 2 dry up her milk & forced 2 give it up 4 adoption. Treated like dirt 4 her mistake. That’s what they did back then. Is some 1 going 2 compensate & say sorry 2 her like they r 2 stolen generation? I think not. Michelle, palmerston

Stolen generation my a***. There was 10 of us and it was safer 4 mum 2 have us in safer place than with alcoholic father. We’re happy and have our kids playing sport an now know our mum. Have roof food and love that money can’t by. So get real, same old mob.

Apology for what? What about the non indigenous that never got 2 met their family? We have to deal with it, y cant they? Oh I smell money! Lotsa Sense, karama


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AUSTRALIA: Looking to Heal Old Wounds, January 29, 2008

ASSOCIATED PRESS
January 30, 2008

NOTE: An incredible number of racist reactions follow this article and others releated to the apology.

Looking to Heal
Old Wounds
by John Pryke


Australia's government said Wednesday that it will issue a formal apology to the "stolen generations" of mostly mixed-blood Aboriginal children who were taken from their families from 1910 to 1970. The kids were put up for adoption in an effort to weed out their indigenous race. Above, Aboriginal performers play traditional instruments in Australia.

At age 24, she learned a shocking truth that helped explain her unease and set her on an agonizing search for an identity snatched away from her the day she was born.

Russell is among thousands of Australian Aborigines who were forcibly removed from their families under policies that lasted for decades until 1970, leaving deep scars on countless lives and the nation's psyche.

Australia's government said Wednesday it would formally apologize to the so-called "stolen generations" as the first item of business of the new Parliament, on Feb 13.

The issue has divided Australians for decades, and an apology would be a crucial step toward righting injustices many blame for the marginalized existence of Australia's original inhabitants — its poorest and most deprived citizens.

"It's not going to bring back my life," Russell, 72, told The Associated Press Wednesday at her home on Sydney's outskirts. "It's not going to bring back my mum. It's not going to take away the abuse that I had to endure when I was growing up."

"But at least it's a start."

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, elected last November and whose pledge to apologize overturns a decade of refusals by his predecessor, has ruled out paying compensation. But he says he is determined to help all Aborigines achieve better health, education and living standards.

"This is about getting the symbolic covenant, if you like, between indigenous and non-indigenous Australia right and then moving on," Rudd said this week.

Indigenous Affairs Minister Jenny Macklin said Wednesday the apology would "be made on behalf of the Australian government and does not attribute guilt to the current generation of Australian people."

Her statement reflects the lingering concerns of many Australians that they should not be made responsible for mistakes by their forebears.

Aborigines — 450,000 among Australia's population of 21 million — are the country's poorest ethnic group and are most likely to be jailed, unemployed and illiterate. Their life expectancy is 17 years shorter than other Australians.

From 1910 until 1970, some 100,000 mostly mixed-blood Aboriginal children were taken from their parents under state and federal laws that argued the race was doomed and that integrating the children was a humane alternative.

An inquiry by the national Human Rights and Equal Opportunities Commission concluded in 1997 that many stolen generation children suffered long-term psychological effects stemming from their loss of family and culture. It recommended that state and federal authorities apologize and pay compensation to those who were removed. All state governments have apologized, but the question of compensation was left to the federal government.

Then-Prime Minister John Howard steadfastly refused to apologize or pay compensation, saying his government should not be held responsible for past policies.

Although the last laws granting authorities the power to take Aboriginal children from their families were abolished in 1970, many Aborigines say statistics show the government is still far more likely to take Aboriginal children into foster care than white children.

Last summer, the government passed a package of bills to fight what it said was rampant child abuse among Aborigines in the Northern Territory, fueled by widespread alcoholism, unemployment and poverty. The legislation, which included a controversial plan to take control of some Aboriginal lands, was condemned by critics as a racist attack on indigenous rights.

Aboriginal leaders generally welcomed Wednesday's pledge to issue a formal apology.

"Older people thought they would never live to see this day," said Christine King, whose group the Stolen Generations Alliance was consulted by the government about the apology.

Others still want compensation. Michael Mansell of the Tasmanian Aboriginal Center wants the government to set aside $882 million for compensation.

Russell grew up in Sydney with parents of Scottish and Irish backgrounds. She says her father beat her and sexually abused her. Russell's mother once scolded her for bringing an Aboriginal girl home to play, calling them "dirty" people.

She recalls having vivid dreams of an Aboriginal woman who sat on a rock and said, "Come back to your culture." Confused by the dream then, she now believes it was her ancestors beckoning her.

For Russell, the first hard evidence that she was adopted came after her mother died in 1959 and her aunt sent a letter saying she did not belong in the family and was no longer welcome.

She began scouring hospital records, birth and marriage registries and even shipping logs to try to discover her true identity, but clues were few.

In the mid-1990s, changes to the law made it easier for adopted children to access birth records and Russell discovered her true heritage: She was born to a 13-year-old Aboriginal girl named Joyce Russell, from whose arms she was taken on the day of her birth on Sept. 4, 1935.

A group called Link-Up, established to reunite families of the stolen generations, helped Russell trace her birth mother to a nursing home in Easton, Pa., and a nervous reunion between mother and daughter was finally arranged in 2001.

"I was trying to be really strong and not cry," Russell recalled. "It was a bit of a shock when they brought her up because the resemblance between me and her was really strong. She kept grabbing my hand, she kept walking with me everywhere. She wouldn't let me out of her sight."

At first the elderly woman didn't realize who the younger woman was, and welfare workers asked gently probing questions to try to prompt her memory, mentioning Mari Russell's birth date and the hospital she was born in.

"She started crying, and then she got so angry and she was sobbing," Russell said. "She said 'I had a baby girl and they took her away from me. Why did they do that? Why did they do that?'"

"I said to her, 'It's OK mum, I'm that little girl.'"

Russell spent two weeks with her mother in Pennsylvania. Joyce Russell died last month at the age of 84, and her daughter was bringing her ashes home for burial.

For Russell, the apology is a positive step but will never replace what she and so many others lost.

"We missed out on our culture, our language, our history," she said. "You can never get back those lost years, you just can't."

Associated Press writer Rod McGuirk contributed to the story from Canberra.


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AUSTRAILA: Peter Moore--Sorry But Just Get On With It, January 29, 2008

THE GEELONG ADVERTISER
January 29, 2008

PETER MOORE: Sorry, but just get on with it

On New Year's Day I wrote that for 2008 there would be two main issues, one local and one national. The local issue of fluoride has already received a thorough going over by both sides of the discussion, although I'm pretty sure we've not heard the last of it yet. The main national issue I thought, and still do, would be the long-awaited apology to the indigenous population.

Australia Day, which we celebrated at the weekend, quite naturally focused this issue in many people's minds. To be honest, I'm not sure the issue deserves to be at the top of the list of things to be solved this year. Housing prices, stamp duty, the cost of living as it soars unchecked by any government authority and national personal debt all have a far greater claim to priority treatment.

In fact, the ability of the Cats to use last year as a platform for even greater success concerns me more as does the continuing availability of alfresco dining areas so I can smoke when I eat. In the New Year's Day article, I said saying sorry was ``a waste of everyone's time but we might as well get it over and done with''. Continuing with ``It will have the advantage of removing one more excuse from their litany of reasons as to why they can't assimilate, integrate or basically just get on with life. It might even make Aborigines consider that the solution for their problems actually lies with them and not in an apology that 80 per cent of the population has no interest in''.

Harsh but true. We don't need any in-depth discussions about whether to say those apparently dreaded words to some. As my dear old mum used to say ``an apology costs nothing'' but to those who think it should be given, it will have the weight as if writ in stone. To everyone else it will be irrelevant, unfelt, meaningless and of no interest.

With regards to compensation this is where the argument may get serious as many, including myself, will think compensation for what? Will it be for being invaded a couple of hundred years ago or for the highly-debated alleged stolen generation? As my colleague Daryl McLure pointed out in his excellent article a couple of weeks ago, Aboriginal children were not singled out for orphanages, adoption or fostering and many, many more white kids suffered this onerous fate with hardly a mention in latter years.

However, this is hardly a case for compensation unless we also do so to the many more thousands who were not indigenous but similarly treated. With regards to compensation because we invaded and took over the country, this is surely too silly for almost anyone to take seriously. If this were to be the case, not only England but the USA, Russia, France, Spain and Portugal would have to compensate the world for their colonial acquisitions. Too silly for words and completely impractical.

We don't need a referendum or plebiscite or protracted debate as it was part of the Labor election platform and the sooner it is done the better off we'll all be. The best thing to happen would be for Kevin to say `sorry' and get on with the really important issues facing the country over the next few years. If an apology is the only thing stopping Australia's indigenous people from joining the 21st century and the rest of us, it's the least we can do.


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AUSTRALIA: Rights-Austraila--Apology, No Compensation for Lost Generations, January 28 2008

INTER-PRESS SERVICE NEWS AGENCY
January 28, 2008


RIGHTS-AUSTRALIA: Apology, No Compensation For Lost Generations

By Stephen de Tarczynski

MELBOURNE, Jan 28 (IPS) - While aboriginal groups have welcomed the Australian government’s pledge to apologise to the 'stolen generations', they argue that the gesture should be backed up with compensation.

But earlier this month, Indigenous Affairs Minister Jenny Macklin ruled out such a fund for people taken from their families.

Lynn Austin, chairperson of Stolen Generations Victoria, told IPS that the stolen generations are victims of crimes and deserve to be compensated. "The forced removals, the atrocities that our people have suffered in the institutions and the church homes and wherever (as) victims of sexual and physical abuse and the trauma and the pain," are reasons for compensation, she says.

"I could walk out on the street tomorrow and trip over the footpath and sue the local council. I’d get compensated for that, so why not compensation for stolen generation members?" asks Austin.

Some 230 years have passed since Europeans first established a settlement in Australia. But Australians -- non-indigenous as well as indigenous -- are struggling to come to terms with the past, and therefore, the present.

The seminal ‘Bringing Them Home’ report, released in 1997, from the ‘National Inquiry into the Separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from Their Families’ acknowledged that indigenous children were "forcibly separated from their families and communities from the very first days of the European occupation of Australia."

Among the 54 recommendations contained in the report is a call for monetary compensation, as a part of reparations, "in recognition of the history of gross violations of human rights".

Instead of a compensation fund, minister Macklin says the government will be funding health, counselling and education services. She argues that providing funding to these sectors will help to close the gap between the life expectancies of indigenous and non-indigenous Australians. The minister says that this will be the best way of adding "force" to the apology, which is expected to be made in February.

Studies -- such as the report commissioned by Oxfam and the National Aboriginal Community Controlled Health Organisation, released in April last year -- show a discrepancy in the life expectancy between the country’s indigenous and non-indigenous populations of around twenty years. Indigenous Australians’ health also ranks poorly compared to the indigenous populations of the United States, New Zealand and Canada.

Unlike Australia, the Canadian government has agreed to establish a $2 billion compensation fund for indigenous people forcibly separated from their communities as children.

According to Lynn Austin, the Australian government’s plan to provide funding to health, education and counselling is far from sufficient. "They’re already pumping millions into those things anyway. They’ve been doing it for years…It’s not good enough at all. It’s just absolutely outrageous," she says.

John Browne, chairperson of the Journey of Healing Association of South Australia, argues that if the federal government will not set up a compensation fund, then it should provide more specialised programmes for people who were stolen, such as a funeral fund and free medical services.

Browne says that being removed from their families was "bad enough" for the stolen generations. He argues that they should also be compensated for "all the pain and hurt that they’ve suffered because of that abuse in foster families and adoption families."

He told IPS that moving children into a foreign culture had devastating effects. "They lost their link to their culture. They lost their kinship ties to their families, their link to the aboriginal spirituality, like a link to the land," he says.

Browne says the issues stemming from the forced removal of children have created many problems for other generations. "It’s an ongoing issue and it needs to be resolved fairly quickly because it becomes an intergenerational issue after a while."

He likens the effect to radiation poisoning, where the poison shifts from one generation to the next. The problems are transferred "to the next generation, and the next generation then lives out those problems and then again with the grandchildren," he says.

But one Australian state appears to want to end these problems. Following its landmark decision in 2006 to establish a compensation fund, the Tasmanian state government announced on Jan.15 that 84 people who were removed from their families as children would receive financial compensation, while another 22 ex-gratia payments were approved for children of stolen generations victims. The Tasmanian government has allocated five million Australian dollars to the fund.

Austin says that the federal government’s refusal to set up a similar fund means the apology will be empty. "You’ve got to have something to go with the apology…They’re going to say sorry but it’s going to be more tokenistic," she says.

Austin told IPS that the lack of a federal fund means that people -- including herself and her adopted siblings -- will be looking to take legal action, with class action also an option.

And a precedent has been set. Following a 13-year battle, Bruce Trevorrow last year became the first person removed from their family to successfully sue authorities. Trevorrow was awarded AUD 525,000 (461,291 US dollars) for false imprisonment, pain and suffering.

But John Browne says the apology, even without compensation, should be seen as a first step. "People are saying (that) an apology is hollow without reparations or compensation. Well, I say it may be hollow but it’s a start. I mean, just to get the federal government to apologise is a big thing," says Browne.

While he plans to continue applying pressure to the federal government to establish a fund, Browne says that he will also look to the South Australian state government. "The state governments seem to be more conducive to providing that remuneration. Tasmania’s already started and Western Australia is on its way. South Australia has to look at that sort of thing," he told IPS.

But like Austin, Browne views legal action as an option. Either a fund is set up "or we can do a class action through the courts," he says."First we try the good way and then we try the other way.’’


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